• am
  • ru
  • en
print version
09.01.2014

WORLD TRENDS AND SOUTH CAUCASUS

EnglishРуский

   

Gagik Harutyunyan
Executive Director, Noravank Scientific Educational Foundation, Yerevan

The overall trend of current changes occurring in the world is transition from the monopole system to a multipolar one, or in another wording, a non-polar world. Obviously, without consideration of this global trend it would be difficult to understand what is actually going on in our region of South Caucasus. All the more so, as the world order transformation takes place in the most materialized and evident fashion in the Greater Middle East (GME), however conditional this name is, along with the names of other regions. Hence, we shall first present Middle Eastern processes in broad brushstrokes, and following the logic of these developments, only then turn to a more local space of South Caucasus.

“The Basic Geopolitical Instinct”

To interpret the Greater Middle Eastern processes the analysts refer to the specifics of political regimes, economy and demographics, social tensions and information political technologies, sectarian conflicts, factor of Israel, “controlled chaos” aimed against Russia and China, as well as other factors that do indeed exist and play an important role. Yet sometimes it appears that these specific developments are dominated by some geopolitical/geo-ideological instinct to grab as much as possible, and better if everything.

That is the reason why the collapse of the Soviet Union did not end up with a “Yalta-Potsdam” type of peace, and the struggle with the “vestiges” of the past continued with a truly revolutionary fervor. Yugoslavia was effectively disintegrated, and then it was the turn of Asian and African countries that to one or another extent were brought forth by the previous world order. First it was Afghanistan, and with Iraq the matters were brought to a logical finale in 2003. Another phase for elimination of the “old order” came to fruition in the recent years. The infamous “Arab spring” easily brought an end to the regimes of Mubarak, Gaddafi, and there was little doubt that the same fate awaited Assad, after which Iran would inevitably follow the suit. However, the “end of the story” never arrived. What happened was just the opposite, something that usually is referred to as “the revenge of history.”

In the theory of chain branching processes there is concept of critical conditions, occurrence of which leads to a drastic change of system characteristics and its transformation into another state. During the proxy war in Syria something like this happened in the GME. Some members of NATO, especially Turkey, and a few known Arab regimes pitched a whole “Terrorist International” against Syria, which along with the events in Iraq and Libya resulted in a humanitarian and cultural catastrophe with millions of victims and refugees (proxy genocide of sorts, which can also be called news ticker genocide1). Historical and cultural legacy monuments were destroyed, plundered, and countless acts of vandalism were carried out. One of the military/political effects of these initiated processes was creation of a new network-like geopolitical actor, i.e. the mentioned “Terrorist International” comprised of motley terrorist groups.

Meanwhile, the developments in Syria kicked off drastic changes in the system characteristics. The “rest of the world” “rebelled” and started to resist in an organized manner. It can be safely stated that the war in Syria is the First Multi-Polar War, where unlike Iraq, Egypt and Libya great geopolitical powers are involved on both sides. A very brief overview of the warring powers’ critical characteristics is presented below.

Resources and positions of the geopolitical actors

The United States. The USA experiences a deficit of resources both in financial terms – problems with debt and the dollar system in general, budget reductions including for Pentagon – and in intellectual/ideological terms. It seems that some members of the American elite realize this and among them are not only former politicians, such as Paul C. Roberts, one of the fathers of Reaganomics, but also some renowned professors and scientists. As Francis Fukuyama wrote: “Many political institutions in the United States are decaying… This is the result of intellectual rigidity and the growing power of entrenched political actors that prevent reform and rebalancing”2. This is a context in which one has to consider the GME transformation scheme, a grandiose and fundamentally faulty project. These circumstances, among other things, tainted the reputation of the superpower: according to the annual Gallup polls, as of the end of 2013 “the USA is considered the greatest threat to peace in the world”3. Just as a note, the USA won this dubious distinction by a landslide, 16 points ahead of runner-up Pakistan.

Another alarming sign is the emergence, and more importantly, persecution of dissidents like E. Snowden and like-minded persons, who made stands against total informational control. The point is not so much the wiretapping, as many people have been well aware of the ECHELON system, but the fact that American citizens, who are usually loyal to their two-party politics and unified government, began protesting against the “system”, and the Occupy Wall Street has to be viewed in this context4, as well. Actions against dissidents actualized the ingenious works of George Orwell.

All of the above in no way means that the USA is no longer the world leader; even a glimpse on various indicators makes it clear that the America tops the whole planet5. However, “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” already, and actually, this was one of the reasons to reject the idea of striking Syria and to start negotiations instead. Yet peace and war are collective matters, so other actors have to be reviewed, too.

Russia. Having suffered an utter defeat in the Cold War, this country went through a recovery phase after a second revolution in less than 100 years. An active stance and well-known initiatives with regard to the Syrian issue brought the country from the regional level back to the ranks of the global geopolitical actors. Currently Russia tries to implement integration projects: the Eurasian Union will be based on CSTO and Customs Union, so it has a chance to become a full-fledged military/political/economic union, which will be discussed herein in the context of South Caucasus. However, Russia faces many challenges; in particular, on the ideological map of the world (prepared by RussRAND6), Russia is the only big country with no ideological system of its own that would generally serve its national security.

China. An optimal ideological triad7 of socialism, liberalism and conservatism had been established in China. The country develops rapidly and in a foreseeable future will overtake the US not only economically, but also in science and technology. Traditionally, China’s political position in the region is restrained, but very important.

Iran. The Islamic Republic is a critical infrastructure for the region. Almost for 35 years the country struggles with the USA in various formats. Vietnam analogies would be inadequate in this case, because Iran has been fighting alone, with no support from the USSR, and sometimes even against both superpowers, as it was the case in Iran-Iraq war. The reason for Iran’s success (including recent changes in Egypt), if not victory, is that they managed to establish in a sense a meritocratic or so-called “smart state” with a well-thought political system, which to some extent is close to the system of values and civilizational traditions of their people. This is not an artificially imposed system, and hence it is viable. It seems this years-long struggle (still far away from end) was prompted not so much by political, military or economic factors, but rather by ideological considerations.

For whatever reasons, the combination of the above-mentioned and many not mentioned factors has led to a situation, where despite continuing military clashes in Syria and a number of other unresolved issues, some sort of a dynamic balance has been established in the GME. This made the conflicting sides sit down to talk, which with some reservations can be described as an enforced, relative peace. Such situation has been projected on South Caucasus to a considerable extent.

Geopolitical Crystallization

The assessments of situation in our region are usually dominated by alarm-ridden sentiments, but it appears, not everything is so bad and even some “good scenarios” are possible. Such optimism is based on the following considerations.

The most important “external” factor is that a possible war between Iran on one side and Israel, the USA and in some scenarios even Azerbaijan on the other side, has become less likely. This circumstance left a generally positive influence on the situation in South Caucasus. However, changes occur also in the countries of the region and these processes can be described as geopolitical crystallization. Earlier the region was by and large in a somewhat amorphous situation, in spite of some of the known political orientations. Meanwhile, other trends are observed currently among the countries of the region.

For example, CSTO member Armenia announced an intention to join the Customs Union, and later the Eurasian Union. With such decision Armenia made a final geopolitical choice and introduced some clarity in the map of the South Caucasus. Under these circumstances, against the backdrop of diminishing energy interest of the West in Azerbaijan due to its depleting energy resources, further convergence between Azerbaijan and Turkey would be natural, as well as development of cooperation with Israel due to the problems with Iran. Israel may already claim a status of an active observer in the region, though perhaps is not a full-fledged actor yet.

The role of Georgia is traditionally important. Our neighbor is in a transition stage to a certain extent, and this condition seems a lot more constructive and adequate than it was previously. The Western orientation of Georgia that has already become customary, will apparently remain, but in the background of relative normalization of relations with Russia this circumstance is now a balancing factor, rather than a destabilizing one.

In the current specific case the observed crystallization positively influences the state of the affairs. Such interpretation of the regional situation implies that South Caucasus, much like GME as a whole, is in some sort of a dynamic balance. This is a precondition for constructive negotiations regarding the trouble spots – NKR, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It cannot be ruled out that such negotiations may result in peace accords. There is something that may facilitate this: the political leaderships in all three South Caucasus countries were elected in 2013, i.e. these governments do have the time resource to take unpopular actions, such as signing peace agreements, for that matter.

1 Gagik Harutyunyan, The Multipolar Realities, Middle East and News Ticker Genocide, 21-st Century #2(14), p.3.

2 Francis Fukuyama, The Decay of American Political Institutions, Тhе American Interest, http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2013/12/08/the-decay-of-american-political-institutions/.

3 Biggest Threat to World Peace: The United States, http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/31-6.

4 See, for example: Гагик Арутюнян, Сергей Гриняев, Можно ли захватить Уолл Стрит?, 21 Век, #1(21), с.3, 2012.

5 See, for example: Супян В.Б., США в мировой табели о рангах: экономические показатели, Международная жизнь, # 9, 2013.

6 http://rusrand.ru/important/predstavljaem-vashemu-vnimaniju-prezentatsiju-tsentra-nauchnoj-politicheskoj-mysli-i-ideologii

7 Гагик Арутюнян, Распад системы и формирование будущего, НОФ «Норванк», Ереван, 2011.


Return
Another materials of author