A War of Economics: Armenia and Azerbaijan
By: Fateh Ali Aamir
Tags: European Union, Russia, Economics, War, Turkey

If you’ve never really studied wars or politics and largely relied on common news sources for all the information, it’s likely that you’ve never really understood how most of the world works. Things are not what they seem and they’re more often than not portrayed differently by different entities.

Flag of Azerbaijan

Flag of Armenia

Who Are They?

Armenia and Azerbaijan are a part of what is called the South Caucasus region between Europe and Asia. Azerbaijan has an estimated population of 10 million, while Armenia has a little over 2.9 million. The region was part of the Russian Empire and then part of the USSR. They became independent after the USSR’s downfall. After that, they’ve had skirmishes on the border that have killed some 30,000 people since 1988 on both sides while there are around 350 casualties in the current conflict so far.

The Players, The Pawns

It is imperative to understand that in today’s world, there are never just two powers colliding, rather, there are complete blocs that are in the power struggle. Armenia and Azerbaijan are the pawns in this case. The power behind Armenia is Russia which maintains its bases in Armenia while having a military pact as well. Azerbaijan on the other hand is being heavily supported by Turkey and the European powers in general.

Don’t Drag Religion Into This

Let’s clear something up. This was not a religious war. This war may have sparked because of ethnic differences but both Armenia and Azerbaijan are secular countries and even though Azerbaijan has 96% of its population supposedly Muslim, they hardly qualify for that. Islam has only affected the culture of the country and not much more than that. So this is definitely not a Muslim vs. Christian dispute. I saw many Muslims on social media giving their support to Azerbaijan because it’s a Muslim country but when they learn that Azerbaijan maintains close trade relations with Israel, I’m sure their views won’t stay the same. And the fact that Turkey has shown tremendous support to Azerbaijan is because they see Azerbaijanis as their ethnic brothers as they are believed to be of common descent. But that’s not the only reason why Turkey has joined the game.

Oil, Gas and the Caspian Sea

Oil and gas account for around 80 percent of Azerbaijan’s goods exports and a staggering 37 percent of total GDP. Any short-term gap won’t affect the European market but Any cut in gas exports would be more serious for Georgia and Turkey, especially if it came during the peak mid-winter demand, and more so if the coming winter proves to be a cold one. And that’s one of the reasons why Armenia has been targetting Azerbaijan's existing pipelines near the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Azerbaijan’s two main pipelines, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC) and the South Caucasus gas pipeline (SCP) both pass through an area dubbed the “Ganja Gap”.

Pipeline routes — eurasianet.org

Azerbaijan will, later this year, commission the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) through Greece, Albania, and the Adriatic to Italy, where it will feed into European pipeline networks. The line is a part of the 2,500 miles, U.S.-backed, Southern Gasoline Hall, which took around $40 billion to construct. TAP is the final segment of the “Southern Gas Corridor,” a route the EU has planned for almost two decades to tap into the massive reserves of the Caspian Sea. Initially, the TAP will carry 10 billion cubic metres to Europe with most of it going to Italy. Additional investment in the pipeline can lead to an increase to between 20 billion-25 billion cubic metres to Italy after 2025.

The Terrifying Russians

It’s no secret that Europeans have always been terrified of Russia and they’re always trying to get an advantage over Moscow. This is another example of that. Turkey is advocating Europe against Russia in this seemingly small dispute. Here’s some context; Europe fulfills 40% of its gas and oil needs from Russia but with the commission of TAP, it will go down by a staggering 5%. Russia has often used its export as a bargaining chip and kept much of East Europe under its wing. Turkey, however, has created alternatives to Russian resources in recent times and has broken free of its influence. And this is why Russia is backing Armenia and this is why Armenia is targetting Azerbaijan’s pipelines. Obviously, this isn’t been said outright but most of us can read between the lines.

Vladimir Putin — caspiannews.com

Turkey, The Savior

In the Muslim world, Turkey is the only country (Apart from Iran) with influence in global politics and we clearly saw its involvement in the Middle East. That might be because it is a member of NATO and will undoubtedly have support from the West as well (as long as it doesn’t deviate from their agenda). Erdogan sees this as another opportunity to cement its position against Russia. According to Reuters; Turkey’s exports, of drones, rocket launchers, and other military equipment to Azerbaijan have risen six-fold this year. It reached up to $77.1 million. And Azerbaijan has also purchased arms from Israel, Russia (surprised?), and other countries. Turkey also joined Azerbaijan for a two-week military exercise boasting its armored vehicles, artillery, and mortars. It was called an annual exercise, but the signal was apparent.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (2016) — www.therahnuma.com

There are three reasons why Turkey would enter the fray. First; Turkey has a strong ethnic kinship with Azerbaijan and because of its past with Armenia, Turkey would obviously side with Azerbaijan. Second; Azerbaijan’s major gas export is important to Turkey. The export money Azerbaijan gets from the gas exports comes back to Turkey through weapons purchases. Third; Turkey wants to play a greater role in the region, even if that comes at the expense of Russia. And this is very clear from Ankara’s aggressive foreign policy. Erdogan even criticized the European powers for agreeing to the peace treaty too easily and on the other hand, he was accused, by France, of sending Syrian mercenaries into the conflict zone. The NATO members remain very tense with Erdogan’s vast ambitions.

What Now?

Azerbaijanis rejoice — www.bbc.com

Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia have signed an agreement to end the military conflict over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. The peace deal, which was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, took effect on Tuesday, 10th October. In the meantime, Russian peacekeepers are deployed in the disputed territory. While the people of Azerbaijan are rejoicing, Armenians on the other hand, had protests around government buildings, including the parliament, but the anger slowly dissipated. The actual people of the disputed zone are thankful for the ceasefire considering the damage that had been done. For now, there is peace. It might seem like the whole issue of the gas pipelines isn’t too significant now but there is only so much that they can tell the public. I’m sure there have been negotiations behind closed doors and only time will tell what they were.

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

Learn to Consume

Mark Twain said “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”

Here’s what we can take away from all this. Truth is a rare commodity in today’s age and it’s our job to search for it, or at least not believe the lies. The media today is very biased and bound to brainwash populations through propaganda. It might sound too scary to be true but it’s happening.

A few other examples exist where a conflict is portrayed as religious when it is actually political. Take Israel. The Muslim extremists portray the Jews as devilish and inherently evil (they might be but we can’t be racists) when religious discrimination is absolutely forbidden in Islam. What this does is cloud the real issue at hand; the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. Yes, we must stand for our Palestinian brothers but not only because they are Muslims but because they are being oppressed, and so our fight is against oppression and not the Jews.

Another example of this would be the Shia-Sunni animosity that largely exists between Iran and Arab countries, majorly Saudia Arabia. The sectarianism is just an excuse. Saudia Arabia, along with Israel, acts as a buffer for the US against Iran because Iran might be the only country that doesn’t hesitate when it comes to staring the United States in the eye. It is a major threat to the US in the Middle East. The animosity is a facade and the truth is, as you can see, much different.

To counter the lies, the baises, learn to research topics in detail and don’t believe the first thing you hear. Government-funded outlets will give different news and similarly news will also vary by country. What you can do is, read all of them, and try to understand the bigger picture. By no means does that mean that you must have an opinion about it; learn to remain neutral about things that you don’t understand. Learn to be passive in a world where havoc reigns supreme.