Conflicting Regional Perceptions: Russia, Iran, Turkey and the
West
No country bordering the Caucasus considers itself - or can be
considered - as a non-regional state. The North Caucasus is an
integral part of the Russian Federation. Russia regards the newly
independent states of the Transcaucasus as belonging to its near
abroad, although it should be added that the foreign policy
concept of a near abroad does not imply that Russia disregards
the specificity of the Transcaucasus as a region in its own right
(Trenin). Russia‰s chief claim is that it has specific interests
to defend in this part of its southern flank, but it failed to
find full acceptance for its view of the Caucasus among the
international organizations and Western governments.
In his contribution on Iran, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh analyses
the Iranian perspective on the geographical location of the
Caucasus. After the breakdown of the Soviet Union, Iranian
political circles discussed the possibility of the emergence of a
new region. The New Middle East or North-West Asia, as the new
region has alternatively been called by scholars, would comprise
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyztan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and
Turkey. Iran would have a central position in a region with very
heterogenous religious, linguistic and other cultural traditions.
This perception of the region was even less welcome to the
international community than the Russian one.
Besides the Russo- and Iranocentric perceptions, a
Turkocentric view of the Caucasus also has to be reckoned with.
According to this regional perspective, the large Turkic
community of "Turan" in the Caucasus and Central Asia should be
united under the leadership of Turkey. This nationalist plan to
acquire a dominant position in the Caucasus has had limited
success. Turkey has strengthened its cultural, economic and
military links with Azerbaijan. It has won an "alphabet war" with
Iran over the reform of the script in Azerbaijan, and was
particulary active in the process of settling the conflict over
Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia has great difficulty in defending its
own interests in the conflict with Turkey regarding the routing
of oil from the Caspian See. Despite these achievements, Turkey's
hopes of reviving to become a great power with a leading position
in the region have not been fulfilled (De Pauw).
Until the demise of the Soviet Union in December 1991,
Western governments refrained from giving any open support to the
independence movements in the Transcaucasus and from any
involvement in its ethnic conflicts. Only after Armenia and
Azerbaijan had been accepted into the CSCE in January 1992, and
Georgia in March 1992, did this organization take any initiative
in those countries. In the early years of the post-cold war
period, Western governments failed to develop a clear regional
concept of the Caucasus within the framework of their European
security policies. Their interest in the region remained
marginal. Their Caucasian policies were subordinated to their
relations with Turkey and, especially, Russia. France and the US
gave Armenia humanitarian aid. Germany and the US backed
Shevardnadze's government - without, however, involving
themselves in the ethnic conflicts in South Ossetia or Abkhazia.
Where Armenia and Georgia were concerned, in 1993 the Western
governments de facto accepted Russia's military dominance in the
Transcaucasus, even if they never formally confirmed the Russian
concept of a near abroad. Azerbaijan seemed to be more appealing
to Western interests. After acquiring substantial interests in
the oil exploitation of the Caspian Sea in September 1994,
Western countries like the US and Britain reconsidered their
former reluctance to send peacekeepers to the region within the
framework of the CSCE (OSCE) (Zverev).
Russia, Iran and Turkey have all succeeded to great empires.
Their individual claims to constitute a dominant power, or even
to be the centre of a new regional configuration, are based on
historical traditions. This is the case not only with Russia and
Turkey: eight out of the fifteen former Union republics -
including all the ones in the Transcaucasus - have a political or
cultural history in common with Iran (Ramezanzadeh). The Minsk
group of the CSCE not only included the main regional powers -
except Iran - but also some which have a historical tradition in
the region, such as France and Germany (Paye and Remacle).
France's opposition to the condemnation of the Armenian
occupation of Azeri territory by the CSCE may be explained by its
desire to re-establish historic links in the region (Paye and
Remacle). The German government's active support for Shevardnadze
is reminiscent of Germany's involvement in Georgia during the
brief period of its independence, in 1918-1921. The participation
of British oil firms and the policies of the British government
in Azerbaijan are in line with their activities in the
Transcaucasus before the October Revolution.
The regional concepts of Russia, Iran and Turkey encompass
either the whole or only some parts of the Caucasus. For Russian
foreign policy, part of the Caucasus is on Russian territory and
part constitutes its near abroad, so that Iran and Turkey need to
be sidelined as far as possible. In the concept of a New Middle
East, Armenia and Turkey are included in the region, while the
North Caucasus is excluded. The community of Turan does not
include the Christian civilizations of Georgia and Armenia, and
it also excludes Russia and Iran from its particular regional
perspective.
The regional concepts of Russia, Iran and Turkey are also
based on different criteria. Geographical proximity, military
security, economic links and a common Soviet past, for example,
all feature in the concept of a near abroad. The notion of a New
Middle East (or a North-West Asia) contains geographical,
historic and economic factors. The vision of a Turkic community
stresses first and foremost the cultural affinity between Turkey
and the peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia. In all three
concepts, historical tradition and economic opportunities play an
important role. The cultural component is dominant in the notion
of Turan, but of only secondary importance in the idea of a near
abroad or a New Middle East.
These regional concepts of Russia, Iran and Turkey were
formulated at a time when they had to work out the basic
principles underpinning a foreign policy concept for the
post-Soviet world. During the first few years since the
independence of the Transcaucasian states, these concepts have
undergone considerable changes. In the case of Iran, for
instance, Georgia has taken on much greater significance - as a
state linking Iran to Europe in a Caucasian corridor - than it
had had at first, in the concept of a New Middle East. Turkey
found it had to take the dominant position of Russia into account
when formulating practical policy goals in the Transcaucasus.
Such modifications were relatively significant but did not
supersede the incompatibility between the basic interests and
regional concepts of these three states.
Regional Concepts in the Transcaucasus
The incompatibility between the regional definitions of the
Caucasus is apparent not only among the heirs to the empires, who
have for centuries considered the region to be a place for
playing out their international rivalry, but also among political
groups and parties in the different Transcaucasian republics. In
the three republics, the lack of a basic national consensus on
the definition of nationhood and the functioning of political
institutions has led to the oppression of political opposition
movements and parties or even - in the case of Azerbaijan and
Georgia - to civil wars. The question of regional alliances is
also fiercely debated between political groups and parties in all
the independent republics of the Transcaucasus. In Azerbaijan,
the economic question of how to exploit the oil wealth of the
Caspian Sea and the military question of how to avoid a
humiliating defeat in the war over Nagorno-Karabakh are directly
linked to political discussions on the future of the region. The
political fate of CP general secretaries and presidents of the
republic depended on their views on regional alliances. Abulfaz
Elcibey's electoral victory in June 1992 led to a strengthening
of relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey to the detriment of
Iran and Russia. Elcibey did not rule out the possibility of
unification with Iranian Azerbaijan, and refused to join the CIS
(Zverev). Russia helped to oust Elcibey and to install the Aliyev
government, but failed to enforce a policy in line with its
military and economic interests. The multipolar penetration of
Azerbaijan (a consequence of its long-term economic prospects)
gave Geidar Aliyev greater opportunities for keeping a balance
between Russian, Turkish and Western interests. At the February
1995 CIS summit for heads of state in Alma Ata, Azerbaijan
refused to have Russian troops stationed along its border with
Iran or to participate in a unified CIS air defence system.(11)
The Georgian national movement of the end of the 1980s hoped
to forge close links with Western countries so as to gain more
latitude towards the Soviet Union. The Western governments
preferred to back Gorbachev's attempts to democratize Soviet
federalism than to support Georgian independence. After the
demise of the Soviet Union, Western governments - confronted with
ethnic conflicts and political turmoil in Georgia - even refused
to recognize the independence of Georgia and to establish normal
diplomatic relations with the government of Zviad Gamsakhurdia.
The coup against the Georgian president and the return of the
former communist leader, Eduard Shevardnadze, was supported by
both Russia and the West. Shevardnadze's popularity among Western
leaders - and above all in government circles in Germany and the
United States - raised hopes among the Georgian public that the
country would acquire a greater freedom in its relations with
Russia. Russian support for Abkhaz secessionists, the resounding
Georgian military defeat in Abkhazia and the Western lack of
intervention led in October 1993 to a radical revision of the
Georgian foreign policy concept. Georgia was forced to imagine a
future in a region dominated by Russian interests. It was
inconceivable that the secession of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
could be prevented without Russian acquiescence. Georgia joined
the CIS and accepted Russian military bases on its territory.
Later on, Russian intervention in Chechnya was actively supported
by Eduard Shevardnadze. He warned Western governments that
secessionist movements in the North Caucasus could have a
destabilizing effect on the whole region.
Some regional perspectives on the Caucasus were politically
less successful than others. In particular, Elchibey's and
Gamsakhurdia's inability to stabilize their power bases are
linked to their common failure to develop an adequate concept of
the regional environment in which they had to conduct their
policies.
The Caucasus Region as a Civilizational Area
The ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus cannot be viewed as a
consequence of religious differences. As groups engaged in
violent struggle tend to reinforce their cohesion, they may see
their religious or other ideological differences as the root of
the conflict in which they are engaged. In this sense, religious
factors may be an important contributing factor in ethnic strife,
but they come second to the general patterns of security
perception.(12) The Soviet leadership,
for instance, portrayed its
military intervention in Baku in January 1990 as a legitimate
reaction to the danger of destabilization by Islamic
fundamentalism, but active involvement by the Islamic Republic of
Iran or other fundamentalist forces was never proven (Zverev).
Nor can a clash between Islamic and Christian civilizations be
demonstated in the case of Iran's relations with Armenia. Iran
tries to preserve a peaceful coexistence with Armenia, despite
the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian occupation of
a large part of Azeri territory. Azerbaijan's religious affinity
with Iran (both countries have a Shiite majority) did not lead to
close co-operation between the two states. Western governments
demonstrate a far greater interest in Azerbaijan than in Georgia
or Armenia, despite the fact that both of them have a Christian
tradition. The Armenian president, Levon Ter-Petrosian, rightly
rejected the idea of a religious origin to the conflict of
Nagorno-Karabakh.(13)
Ethnic Relations and Political Stability in Russia, Iran and
Turkey
The contributions to this volume situate the primary interests of
Russia, Iran and Turkey in the Caucasus region in the spheres of
military and economic security. All three countries have
converging interests relating to the possible effects of a
further destabilization of the region on their domestic policies.
Russia, Iran and Turkey are all multicultural societies in which
ethnic conflicts can pose a threat to social cohesion and
political stability. At the end of 1994, both the Russian and
Turkish armies were heavily engaged in fierce battles against
ethnic minorities - Russia fighting General Dzhokhar Dudayev's
Chechens, Turkey the PKK Kurds. Iran, claiming that the Islamic
religion stands above ethnic differences, thus far managed to
prevent the emergence of a secessionist movement among its Azeri
community. As the Azeris represent the second largest community
in Iran, political developments in Nagorno-Karabakh and
Azerbaijan will, however, continue to have far-reaching
consequences for domestic policies in Iran.
Conflicting parties in the Transcaucasus invoke either the
principle of the territorial integrity of states or the right to
self-determination. It is in the interests of all the
neighbouring countries to defend the primacy of the first
principle over the second, as they need to prevent secessionist
movements from emerging inside their own borders. The Iranian and
Turkish governments consequently defended the territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan in the conflict with Armenia over
Nagorno-Karabakh. And even if influential political forces in
Russia did support secessionist movements in South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, long-term Russian interests clearly reside in its
defence of the principle of the territorial integrity of states.
Exclusive Interests
The contributions to this volume demonstrate that one of the main
aims of the security policies of all the foreign powers involved
in the Transcaucasus conflicts is to restrict the influence of
other powers in the region. After the demise of the Soviet Union,
the Russian government did not defend any coherent foreign policy
line in the Transcaucasus. Its inability to assert its authority
over the warring parties and even to supervise the activities of
its own armed forces in the region in the first year of
independence can be described as the result of a laissez-faire
attitude (Trenin) or a temporary collapse of imperial ideology
(Zverev). Such an attitude does not mean that Russia willingly
refrained from any form of intervention: it made it clear from
the start that its own inability to halt the ethnic conflicts in
the Caucasus did not give other powers a free hand to intervene.
In response to a threat from Turkey to Armenia over Nakhichevan
in May 1992, Russian-Armenian talks were held on the
implementation of the Tashkent Treaty on collective security,
which was signed the same month. In September 1993, when Iranian
troops crossed the border to Nakhichevan(14) , Russia made it
unequivocally clear that it could not tolerate such actions in
its near abroad (Zverev and Ramezanzadeh).
The policy of a near abroad, publicly endorsed by Yeltsin
in early 1993, linked Russia's specific interests in the
Transcaucasus with an acceptance of the CSCE as a legitimizing
instrument for Russia's involvement in the region. Russia's
appeal to the CSCE did not mean that it would unconditionally
accept the active military participation of other CSCE members in
peacekeeping activities there. By the end of 1993, Russia had
succeeded in preventing outside involvement by restoring its
influence throughout the region, forcing Georgia to join the CIS,
ensuring that Russian military bases remain on Georgian territory
and exercising a monopoly on peacekeeping operations in South
Ossetia (since 1992) and Abkhazia (since 1993). The Russian
intervention in secessionist Chechnya in December 1994, generally
regarded as its first military defeat, led to the Russian
military presence in the region being increased even further. The
decision of the CSCE (at its Budapest meeting in December 1994)
to prepare a multilateral peacekeeping force for Nagorno-Karabakh
theoretically ended Russia's monopoly of peacekeeping forces, but
it did not reduce its predominance in the settlement of ethnic
conflicts in the Transcaucasus.
Turkey's attempts to restrict the penetration of other
neigbouring countries into the Caucasus have met with limited
success. One of its main aims has been to prevent both Iran and
Russia from reinforcing their military and diplomatic positions
in the Transcaucasus (De Pauw). In 1993, Turkey was forced to
recognize the military presence of Russia in both Armenia and
Georgia and its dominant role in all efforts to settle ethnic
conflicts in the region - without, however, agreeing to a
Russian-led peacekeeping force for Nagorno-Karabakh or even a
mixed Russian-Turkish one (Paye and Remacle). In 1994, Turkey
successfully opposed Russia's demands for substantial amendments
to be made to the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) convention
on the use of heavy weaponry in the Caucasus.
Some Western governments may trace their present policy of
restraining Russia's influence in this region back to their
experiences as imperial powers. In previous centuries, pressure
from Britain, France, Germany, Turkey and the United States were
influential in limiting Russian advances towards the warm seas
and the Muslim world.(15) The Western
approach - in the UN and CSCE
- to Russian policies in the Transcaucasus in recent years has
had a similar aim, even if this desire to restrain the Russian
presence in the Caucasus takes second place to the aim of
marginalizing the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran. By
February 1992, US Secretary of State James Baker was already
expressing his government's support for an active CSCE policy, in
the hope of preventing unilateral action by Iran or Russia (Paye
and Remacle).
Some of the contributions to this book describe the Russian
policy towards the warring parties in the Caucasus as one of
"divide et impera" (Alexei Zverev, Ghia Nodia). This policy,(16)
which has its roots in former Russian and Soviet imperial
policies, does not mean that modern Russia has the same leverage
as the former Soviet state. Unlike the Soviet power, Russia is
not capable of eliminating violent ethnic conflicts in the
Transcaucasus or on its own territory in the North Caucasus. The
policy of "divide et impera" can be explained as a consequence of
the inability of external players to change the pattern of local
hostilities. They only may influence the distribution of power
between conflicting parties.(17) In
its efforts to mediate between
the conflicting parties and manipulate them, Russia simply
accepts the existing arrangement of local groupings, making no
attempt to alter it. This acquiescence in existing conflicts
facilitates its penetratation into the security complex.
Buzan has observed that local and external patterns tend to
reinforce each other's rivalries through the addition of
resources and allies.(18) The fact
that mediation and the
aggravation of conflicts are contradictory aspects of the same
reality can be observed in the Caucasus. In his contribution,
Dmitri Danilov quotes an Armenian diplomat who observes that it
is "easier to bring the positions of Baku and Yerevan closer to
each other than to reach an agreement between the mediators -
Russia and the Minsk Group of the CSCE".
Higher and Lower Level Security Complexes
Soviet power suppressed violent ethnic conflicts throughout the
whole of the Caucasus. Overlay (19)
made the operation of
independent security dynamics in the region impossible.
Traditional patterns of hostility re-emerged together with the
struggle for independence of the Transcaucasian states. Security
questions here have a significance for higher security dynamics
which goes beyond the borders of the Caucasus. Strategic
positions have been used by both sides as a bargaining chip in
global security negotiations. Russia's deployment of military
forces in Georgia in 1993 and 1994 aroused some suspicion but no
overt opposition from Western governments. In 1994, the United
States, in turn, were able to intervene in Haiti with the tacit
consent of Russian diplomacy. It was said that both countries had
given each other a free hand to intervene in what each considered
to be its own back garden.
Where discussions on new delimiting spheres in Europe are
concerned, security questions in the Caucasus are linked to the
broader issue of European security. Russia used its intervention
in Chechnya at the end of 1994 as an argument to demonstrate that
it needed substantial amendments to the CFE Treaty in order to
solve ethnic conflicts at its southern flank. In the discussion
on the eastward expansion of NATO, the possibility of revising
certain provisions of the CFE Treaty as a concession to the
Russian military was raised.(20)
The linkage between security issues in the Caucasus and
global security dynamics is not confined to military questions.
In its policies in this region, Russia sees economic matters from
a geopolitical perspective. A routing which would bypass Russia
in transporting Caspian Sea oil to the world markets, for
instance, is unacceptable to Moscow, as it might largely free not
only Azerbaijan, but also the oil-producing republics of Central
Asia and even some regions in the Russian Federation itself, from
their dependence on Russia (Zverev).
The Specificity of the Caucasus
Security analysts of the post-cold war era are confronted not
only with the challenge of thoroughly understanding new patterns
of instability and ethnic conflict, but also with the emergence
of new security complexes on the territory of the former Soviet
Union. As the home of several dozen distinct ethnic groups, the
Caucasus is often described as an area of incomparable ethnic
diversity. Despite the region's unique features, however, it is
still possible to analyse its particular security patterns using
the same concepts as those found in literature analysing other
regions of the world. As has been indicated in the present
conclusions to this book, it is possible, for instance, to draw
on the concepts used by Buzan in his analysis of regional
security (even if this theoretical framework is largely based on
the cold war experience and does not draw at all on the Caucasian
example) in order to have a better grasp of the post-cold war
regional security patterns in the Caucasus. At the same time, the
subjective regional concepts of all the players involved must be
taken into account if the specificity of the Caucasus is to be
understood.
