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SERIOUS ESCALATION IN ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN VIOLENCE GREETS CLINTON
by Joshua Kucera
EurasiaNet.org
June 6 2012
NY
Just as Hillary Clinton is making a trip through the Caucasus, the
Azerbaijan-Armenia border is seeing some of the worst violence in
years. On Monday, three Armenian soldiers were killed by Azerbaijani
forces, and on Tuesday, the Armenians retaliated, killing five
Azerbaijanis. Alex Jackson, in a very worthwhile post at his blog
Caspian Intel, notes that the violence was not on the "Line of
Contact" separating Azerbaijanis and Armenians at the de facto
border of Nagorno Karabakh, but at the state border between Armenia
and Azerbaijan proper. Further, the two incidents took place about
25 miles apart, "which indicates that the clashes are not linked
by local geography (i.e. an Armenian incursion followed by a local
Azerbaijani counterattack) but part of a broader pattern of probing
attempts along the border," Jackson writes.
The implication is that, on one side or both, there was a degree of
regional-level coordination by military commanders and a willingness
to test the defences of the other side across a wide swathe of
territory. This expansion of the battlefield marks a serious
escalation.
The violence came at an awkward time for Clinton, who issued a bland
statement in Armenia "calling on everyone to renounce force as well as
refraining from violence." There was a discussion of Nagorno Karabakh
on Tuesday at the Wilson Center in Washington, and regional expert
Tom de Waal addressed the question of why international officials
can't make more direct statements "naming and shaming" whichever side
started the violence. The problem, de Waal said, is that there's no
way for them to know. There are 20,000 soldiers dug into trenches
on each side of the line, and six monitors from the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe. Another stark statistic: since the
beginning of 2011, 63 people have been killed in skirmishes between
Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The pessimism at the Wilson Center event was stark, but entirely
warranted. Wayne Merry of the American Foreign Policy Council
suggested that we should be moving from a "post-war" frame of mind to
a "pre-war" one, given that the renewal of serious conflict seems so
inevitable. Charles King, a Caucasus expert at Georgetown University,
observed that this is the most militarized border in Eurasia,
"yet it's received the least amount of attention over the years"
compared to the unresolved conflicts in Georgia and Cyprus. Perhaps
the only comfort, given the news of the last few days, was that the
experts seemed to agree that full-scale war is less likely to begin
from an accidental escalation of these sorts of border skirmishes
than from a strategic decision by one of the parties (obviously most
likely Azerbaijan) to think that war is in their interest. "The only
thing that will alter the strategic calculations on both sides," King
said, was for the "international community" to raise the stakes for
starting a conflict. But then you think of those six lonely European
monitors, and what a small priority this is for anyone outside of
Armenia and Azerbaijan. How often in history has the breakout of a
war been so obvious?
by Joshua Kucera
EurasiaNet.org
June 6 2012
NY
Just as Hillary Clinton is making a trip through the Caucasus, the
Azerbaijan-Armenia border is seeing some of the worst violence in
years. On Monday, three Armenian soldiers were killed by Azerbaijani
forces, and on Tuesday, the Armenians retaliated, killing five
Azerbaijanis. Alex Jackson, in a very worthwhile post at his blog
Caspian Intel, notes that the violence was not on the "Line of
Contact" separating Azerbaijanis and Armenians at the de facto
border of Nagorno Karabakh, but at the state border between Armenia
and Azerbaijan proper. Further, the two incidents took place about
25 miles apart, "which indicates that the clashes are not linked
by local geography (i.e. an Armenian incursion followed by a local
Azerbaijani counterattack) but part of a broader pattern of probing
attempts along the border," Jackson writes.
The implication is that, on one side or both, there was a degree of
regional-level coordination by military commanders and a willingness
to test the defences of the other side across a wide swathe of
territory. This expansion of the battlefield marks a serious
escalation.
The violence came at an awkward time for Clinton, who issued a bland
statement in Armenia "calling on everyone to renounce force as well as
refraining from violence." There was a discussion of Nagorno Karabakh
on Tuesday at the Wilson Center in Washington, and regional expert
Tom de Waal addressed the question of why international officials
can't make more direct statements "naming and shaming" whichever side
started the violence. The problem, de Waal said, is that there's no
way for them to know. There are 20,000 soldiers dug into trenches
on each side of the line, and six monitors from the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe. Another stark statistic: since the
beginning of 2011, 63 people have been killed in skirmishes between
Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The pessimism at the Wilson Center event was stark, but entirely
warranted. Wayne Merry of the American Foreign Policy Council
suggested that we should be moving from a "post-war" frame of mind to
a "pre-war" one, given that the renewal of serious conflict seems so
inevitable. Charles King, a Caucasus expert at Georgetown University,
observed that this is the most militarized border in Eurasia,
"yet it's received the least amount of attention over the years"
compared to the unresolved conflicts in Georgia and Cyprus. Perhaps
the only comfort, given the news of the last few days, was that the
experts seemed to agree that full-scale war is less likely to begin
from an accidental escalation of these sorts of border skirmishes
than from a strategic decision by one of the parties (obviously most
likely Azerbaijan) to think that war is in their interest. "The only
thing that will alter the strategic calculations on both sides," King
said, was for the "international community" to raise the stakes for
starting a conflict. But then you think of those six lonely European
monitors, and what a small priority this is for anyone outside of
Armenia and Azerbaijan. How often in history has the breakout of a
war been so obvious?