ARMENIA AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE INTERESTS OF THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL BLOCKS

05.09.2011

ARMENIA AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE INTERESTS OF THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL BLOCKS

Sergey Sargsyan

Deputy Head of the Center for the Political Studies, “Noravank” Foundation

The declaration of the intentions to intensify the works on NATO’s renovated Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) sounded during the visit of a new NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia James Appathurai made against the background of carrying over the announced CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Forces’ maneuvers in Armenia on 2012, has stirred up the discussion about the possibilities and restrictions of cooperation of Yerevan with those different in composition and having mostly distinct goals military and political blocks.

Among four countries neighbouring Armenia Turkey is NATO member, and Georgia and Azerbaijan, as well as Armenia, are parts of NATO programmes directed to the further development of cooperation with this organization. We believe that the established opinion that NATO simply filled the vacuum of power which emerged in the region after the “retirement” from the stage, on different reasons, of Russia, does not correctly reflect the situation. The shift of Georgia and Azerbaijan towards NATO-oriented security system was conditioned by their inability to resolve such problems as, first of all, protection of their territorial integrity and implementation of the ambitious economic projects within the framework of the security system functioning after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Generally, the dynamics of signing documents and shifting to new programmes and levels of cooperation of the countries of the South Caucasus with NATO is rather revealing as both conclusion of frame agreements on joining Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme and presentation of IPAP proceeded in the same sequence – first came Georgia, then Azerbaijan, and in several months Armenia. This sequence, though symbolically, reflects the level of interest and expectations of those countries from setting and broadening cooperation with the North Atlantic structures.

Georgia was and still remains the most motivated country as for becoming NATO member, and one of the main reasons would seem to be the lack of alternatives of the acceptable choice. In two of three unsettled conflicts in the South Caucasus, i.e. Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian, unrecognized republics received (and now receive) obvious and distinct support of Russia. That is why in the Moscow-oriented security system the prospects of their settlement in the way acceptable for Tbilisi were zero.

Though in NATO-oriented security system those chances are rather delusive either but, however, there are some anyway. But in the end, unreasonably high hopes of Tbilisi connected with the cooperation of Georgia with the Alliance brought to a Five Days War in August 2008, after which Tbilisi, in fact lost the possibility of maneuvering in their foreign policy. This has radically affected the military and political situation in the whole region.

The third conflict – Nagorno-Karabakh – does not fully fall into the pattern. Without going into the details of peculiarities of Russia’s attitude towards this conflict, one can state that its official stance, in fact, coincides with the de facto policy carried out by it in regard to the conflict which can be resolved in: “arrange it yourselves”. Though Moscow is clearly aware that staying one-to-one the parties to the conflict would not solve anything and thus the existing status quo will be prolonged.

But both Armenia and Azerbaijan still hope to turn the preferences of Russia to their accounts. Armenia tries to do it through the broad military and political and military and technical partnership and economic cooperation, relying on energy and energy intensive metallurgy in prospect.

Азербайджан, в свою очередь, стремится достичь желаемых результатов через:

Azerbaijan in its turn tries to effect the desired results through:

military and technical cooperation;
taking advantage of rather big Russian community in the country;
an entire complex of issues round the Caspian Sea – from ecology and its status, prospects of construction of Trans-Caspian oil and gas pipelines, functioning of the North-South transport corridor to non-admission of Navies of non-Caspian states to its water area and militarization of the Caspian Sea in general.

Such a broad list of economic and military and political points of contact, which sustain a high level of interest of Russia in Azerbaijan, stimulates Armenia to balance its “pro-Russian” foreign policy by “pro-Western” one. But if there is no disaccord in Armenia on mutually beneficial cooperation and integration in European political and economic structures, quite different picture can be observed concerning the issue of profound cooperation with NATO and its prospects of becoming NATO-member.

The results of public opinion polls carried out by different organizations invariably show that the number of those who support the idea of becoming a member of NATO and those who are against has remained almost the same over the recent years – 30-35% each. And against this background 60-70% supports the idea of entering the EU. However the reasons of such an ambiguous attitude towards NATO are clear.

Firstly, the availability of 30-40% of pollees who have not decided yet on their attitude towards North Atlantic Alliance speaks about the problems in information policy of both supporters and opponents of the rapprochement with NATO and this is when the NATO Information Office has been working in Yerevan since October 2006.

Secondly, in Armenia NATO is associated with Turkey. There is logic in this as Armenia is contiguous with NATO through Turkey; Turkey is a curator and lobbyist of Georgia and Azerbaijan in North Atlantic programmes and projects; in future the military-transport schemes of Georgia and Azerbaijan will be closed up in Turkey and etc. Additional concern is caused by stirring up of military and political component in the foreign policy of Ankara, including a peacemaking, which can be considered as a kind of compensation to the generalship of the Turkish Republic for the reduction of its weight in domestic policy.

Thirdly, another factor of negative perception of NATO in Armenia is the attempts of Azerbaijan and Turkey on involving Allience, in one way or another, into the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. That was especially topical before the stirring up of Russia in the negotiation process on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict after the war in South Ossetia. Thus, if in October 2005 the Secretary General of NATO Jaap de Hoop Scheffer stated that their organization did not tend to be directly involved in the settlement of Karabakh conflict”, in May 2006 the President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Pierre Lellouche, while speaking about the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, mentioned that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly exerted efforts to resolve that conflict and they intended to search for the ways for its settlement.

Generally, stirring up of Moscow in the process of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabkh conflict can be welcomed but its effectiveness is getting more questionable due to the appearance of several alerting nuances in its motivation.

Firstly, peacemaking activity of Moscow after August 8, 2008 looks like “compensation” for use of force in regard to Georgia and it looks to be more directed to improving its image in the eyes of the West.

Secondly, sometimes it takes the shape of “activity for the sake of activity” under the circumstances when announced expectations of a “breakthrough” does not correspond to real expert forecasts which in the end brings to (and in case if such an approach is preserved it will continue bringing to) a discomfiture like the one in Kazan.

Thirdly, attempts to consolidate urgently its positions in both Armenia and Azerbaijan and alongside to disturb the West’s plans by one successful and decisive “swoop” in the resolution of such a multi-dimensional and old conflict as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are doomed.

So if we proceed from the analysis of the situation ad absurdum, it would have been advantageous for Armenia to be a part of a military and political block in which

Azerbaijan and Turkey are not involved;
Bilateral Armenian-Russian relation would have been substituted by multi-lateral.

At the first sight such structures are the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) in which Armenia has correspondingly a status of full member and observer. But here there are some problems either.

Firstly, in both organizations the role of the leader is taken by Russia (in CSTO unconditional leader).

Secondly, in both organizations Kazakhstan is involved, the economic success of which, especially in oil sphere, brought to the situation when it can be regarded as a new leader of the Central Asia. But due to pragmatic reasons, first of all of economic character, Kazakhstan is a lobbyist of the Azerbaijani interests on many issues.

Thirdly, the Caucasian direction of the CSTO activity, as well as a block of the economic programmes on Armenia for EurAsEC is secondary as compared to the Central Asia.

All those factors had a great impact on building the policy of Armenia on the cooperation with the regional military and political blocks based on the principles of complimentarity. Such a directive implies parallel sustaining of the relations with all the active actors in the region on the same level.

No special problems should be expected in economic aspect. The main problems will come forward in military and political sphere. How and to what extent can the participation of Armenia in CSTO and implementation of the IPAP with NATIO by it be combined?

On some items it is difficult but still possible to combine the implementation of the undertaken liabilities, e.g. on exchange of the intelligence information on “Partnership Action Plan against Terrorism”, drafting and sending additional unit of peacekeepers to the “hotspots”, training of the Armenian militaries in NATO collages and military institutions in Russia, arranging joint military maneuvers.

But it seems impossible to combine to the full extent, e.g. a long-term programme on reforming a command-control communications which implies shifting to the NATO standard communication systems, navigation and identification. Though there are no definite restrictions on a quantity and terms of implementation of the IPAP, anyway this phase of cooperation with NATO cannot last forever without going to a higher level of cooperation.

Кроме того, еще более радикальное и быстротечное, чем имевшее место резкое ухудшение российско-грузинских отношений (пиком которого стала Пятидневная война), влияние на способность Армении поддерживать сбалансированный внешнеполитический курс могут оказать такие факторы, как:

Besides the capability of Armenia to sustain balanced foreign political course can be affected even more radically and fast than the worsening of Russian-Georgian relations (the climax of which was the Five Day War) by the following factors:

Escalation of military confrontation between the US an Iran;
The growth of the antagonistic contradictions between Russia and US or even wider – between Shanghai Cooperation Organization and NATO
Resumption of the military actions in Karabakh.

At least two of the aforementioned factors directly depend on the stance and weight of the SCO despite the fact that for it the South Caucasus is still a periphery.

Armenia is not directly involved in Shanghai Organization and their relations are mediated:

though such structures widely presented in the SCO as CSTO and EurAsEC, the weight and significance of which has considerably grown with stirring up of the SCO;
through the bilateral relations with Russia which is a strategic partner of Armenia;
through the influence of the SCO on other systems of regional security formed or being formed in the South Caucasus.

But if in case with the CSTO Armenia, due to its geographic detachment emphasize military and political and military-technical cooperation, after acquiring by Iran a status of observer in the SCO in July 2005, interest of Yerevan and not only, may be focused on the economic component of relations with the SCO member countries.

The further growth of the weight of the SCO will inevitably bring to the widening of the zone of its responsibility for the stability and security and involving of the South Caucasus. But the SCO can achieve greatest efficiency in this region only in two cases:

if Iran becomes a full member of that organization which is hardly probable due to the current tension between Washington and Tehran (and formally imposing on Iran sanction by the UN) but still possible, especially in case if the SCO shifts to the confrontation model in relations with NATO, or
in case of broadening of the rights and liabilities of the countries which has a status of observers in the SCO, more eager involvement of those countries in the implementation of different projects within the framework of general policy of that organization.

In both cases it means the consolidation of the positions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in this region.

For Armenia which has closed borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan, the availability of functioning corridor through Georgia and Iran is of vital importance. But when under the limitedness of maneuvering in foreign policy of Tbilisi Baku does not even conceal that building up its economic impact on Georgia (according to the Director of Center for Strategic Planning Ahmed Shirinov “today Georgia exists only thanks to Azerbaijan and Turkey) will be projected on a further isolation of Armenia, Yerevan, besides diplomatic means of suppression of such plans, must secure itself by southern, Iranian direction. In case when both Armenian and Iran will be members (even though with different formats of participation) of such a powerful in economic aspect organization as, e.g. CSO, it would be easies for Yerevan to attach to all the aspects of bilateral relations with Tehran standing most-favoured-mode thus minimizing its liability to momentary, timeserving fluctuations.

Another factor of formation of the attitude of Yerevan to the SCO may be the growth of the interest of Ankara to that organization. It once and again offers itself as a kind of bridge, this time between the SCO and EU and SCO and NATO. Stirring up of Turkey in this direction can be explained by the availability of a Turkic component in its foreign policy, as most of the Turkic states are a part of the SCO. From this point of view it is advantageous for Armenia to stir up sharply its contacts with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and try to become its full member, at least before Turkey will make it.

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