Who were the winners and losers in the Azerbaijan-Armenia war?

10 November brought the conclusion of the war that erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia at the end of September.

The agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia was brokered by Russia.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev referred to the agreement as a “victory.” Victory celebrations are being held in Azerbaijan.

For his part, Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan said with reference to the agreement, “It is a very painful day. We have no choice but to sign.”

Putin announced the ceasefire deal.

According to Putin’s announcement:

1. The sides will remain in the positions they most recently controlled.
2. Russia will deploy peacekeeping forces to the Nagorno-Karabakh frontline.
3. Refugees will return to Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions under the control of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
4. The duration of the agreement will be five years. It can be extended for a further five years if the parties cannot reach an agreement.

DID AZERBAIJAN WIN THE WAR, OR ARMENIA?

In a war which saw the use of weapons of all kinds from tanks, howitzers, warplanes and missile systems to drones and armed drones for more than forty days, Azerbaijan, which has four times the population of Armenia and greater economic power and had open arms, munitions, logistical, technical and tactical support from Israel and Turkey, was the overwhelmingly victorious side before arms even began to be deployed. And so it turned out!

In the end, both sides also incurred great economic, military and civilian losses. Towns were burnt and destroyed. The social and political devastation from the black propaganda rooted in nationalism, chauvinism, militarism and faith-mongering waged by both countries’ rulers far outweighs the war’s devastation in the material sphere. And we have seen the black propaganda extend into our country.

The Ilham Aliyev regime has won, but… Compared to before the war, the changed map shows Azerbaijan to have made not-insignificant territorial gains. The Aliyev regime is thus seemingly an administration that has pulled off a victory and has secured its near-term future. However, the question that begs itself here is whether the Aliyev regime’s victory counts as a victory for the Azerbaijani people.

It is far from sure that the reply invited is in the positive. And, moving forward, the Azerbaijani people will find themselves footing the bill for the Aliyev regime’s victory again and again, because regimes like the Aliyev regime foot the people with the economic and social bill for wars while themselves devouring the fruits of victory. Manifesting itself in fresh layers of exploitation in the form of new war taxes, price hikes and restrictions on freedoms, while the rulers and foreign overlords plunder the country’s underground and overground riches!

The losing side was Armenia. Armenia has actually not just suffered a heavy defeat by way of territorial loss on the map and in military terms but is on the verge of losing the Pashinyan administration.

There is no knowing how far the people, having stormed the prime-ministerial building in outrage at the agreement, will take their reaction. But, it is beyond dispute that the days to come will be ones replete with arduousness for Pashinyan and his government (if they have any remaining days, that is). And, given that Pashinyan will also have to bill the people for a war that ended in defeat, he faces an even stiffer task. Hence, beyond all debate, it is Pashinyan and Armenia that are the losers of the war. To the extent that the Armenian people draw the lesson from this calamity and set about ridding themselves of racist, chauvinist political forces and the potentates behind them (their overlords are the imperialist forces), the woes they are suffering today may take on meaning.

THE SOLE VICTOR OF THE WAR WAS RUSSIA!

For the forty day-plus duration of the war, Russia kept itself evenly distanced from Azerbaijan and Armenia and positioned itself such that both countries had to jump to its every command, drawing on its historical and geographical advantage in these countries and in a manner that astonished those in particular who had said Russia would support Armenia.

As such, Russia has:

• succeeded in bringing the Pashinyan government, which had wished to move Armenia closer to the West, into a position in which has no other support apart from Russia, having humbled it with Azerbaijan’s doing,
• not confined itself to telling Azerbaijan, “You may get arms and munitions from Turkey and Israel but in the end you have to do what I say because the region is my backyard and I won’t permit anyone to get involved here and set up an arrangement to my exclusion,” but appears to have brought Azerbaijan round to this view, and
• taken a step, by sidelining the other two members of the Minsk Group, the USA and France, and brokering an agreement Putin arranged with these two countries’ leaders alone, that serves to deny a foothold in Caucasia to, along with the USA and France, which swan around at international forums claiming to be Armenia’s guardian, Turkey, which proclaims Azerbaijan to be its “soul.”

WHAT DID TURKEY GAIN?

It has subjected Turkey, having opened a “fourth front” in Caucasia and opposed all manner of ceasefire exceeding Azerbaijan in its support for Azerbaijan’s cause and spoken of “war until the end” and said at every opportunity with its gaze fixed on the world’s eye, “We are present on the ground and will also be at the table,” to exclusion from the “table” and has sized up its clout in Caucasia in front of everyone!

The neo-Ottoman single-man rule, intent on surmounting the quagmire in Syria, Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean with a victory for the taking in Caucasia, had engaged in racist, chauvinist propaganda over Azerbaijan that went as far as the waving of “From the Caspian to the Balkans” flags at AKP congresses. The bourgeois opposition was once more made into an adjunct. However, despite the vast arms, munitions, diplomatic, technical, tactical etc. “expenditure,” Turkey has been fully and decisively excluded from the result-determining “table” and its “Caucasian front” ledger has to a significant extent been closed.

Aliyev has undoubtedly also seen this and, even if he utters heroic sentences expressing his love for Turkey for a while longer in days to come, one is unlikely to err in saying that he will henceforth turn his gaze more in Russia’s direction

For the Erdoğan administration, South Caucasia is no longer a region from which news of victory is awaited but has become another region set to plague neo-Ottoman foreign policy.