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THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Jannatkhan EYVAZOV
Ph.D. (Political Science), Deputy Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies of the Caucasus, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Central Asia and the Caucasus
(Baku, Azerbaijan).
THE REGIONAL SECURITY SYSTEM IN THE CENTRAL CAUCASUS: POLITICAL STRUCTURE AND CONFLICTS
Abstract
In this article, the author assesses the impact of the political structure of a regional security system on its proneness to conflict. Political factors (obviously not the only explanation for regional tension) belong to the sum-total of factors that should primarily be discussed for the pur-
poses of assessing conflict development in the region. The studies of the security system of the post-Soviet Central Caucasus presented in the article suggest that the specifics of the regional political structure were conducive to the emergence of armed conflicts and their preservation.
Introduction
It is well known that the political structure of a region can either stimulate moderation in interstate relations or stir up conflicts among its states. Though the specifics of the political structure of a regional security system cannot be the only explanation for the conflicts in the region, an assessment of their relations is not only of theoretical but also of practical interest.
In the post-Soviet Central Caucasus1 the regional security system has been developing amid sharp conflicts inside the regional states and between them, which ultimately plunged the region into
1 Here I rely on the geopolitical structuralization of the Caucasus suggested by Dr. Eldar Ismailov, who looks at the region as an entity of three spatial segments: the Northern (administrative units of the North Caucasian and South-
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armed conflicts. The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the Abkhazian and South Os-setian conflicts, put the region on the list of conflict-prone zones in the post-Cold War world. It should be said that the specifics of this region's political structure contributed to the preservation of the conflicts.
To correctly assess conflicts in the regional security system functioning in the post-Soviet Central Caucasus from the viewpoint of structural factors one should answer the following key questions: How do structural factors influence the development of the regional political systems? Within what macro-system should the Central Caucasus' structural specifics be assessed? What are the general specifics of the conflicts and how are they related to the dynamics of the security relations between the regional states? What are the main parameters of instability of the regional political structure and how does it affect the conflicts in the region?
Structural Factors and the Development of Regional Political Systems: A Theoretical Approach
At the theoretical level, neorealism offers the most detailed explanation of the structural factors of the conduct of states. According to Kenneth N. Waltz, who was the first to formulate this theory, the structure of the international political system, which stems from interaction of its elements (states), is responsible for its conduct.2 The anarchical nature of the structure of the international system and the unevenness of power distribution have already created a situation in which survival is seen as the cornerstone of conduct in a world where the security of states remains highly vulnerable.3 This means that in the neorealist context the conduct of states is mainly determined by the material structure of the international political system.
The classical conception of Regional Security Complexes (RSC) formulated by Barry Buzan4 is based on a similar approach; it is political factors, or rather the pattern according to which power is spread among the elements, which determine the functionality of RSCs. Here, as well as in the neo-
ern Federal Districts of Russia); the Central Caucasus (the independent states of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia); and the Southern Caucasus (the northeastern ils of Turkey and the northwestern ostans of Iran) (see, for example: E. Is-mailov, Z. Kengerli, "The Caucasus in the Globalizing World: A New Integration Model," Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 2 (20), 2003; E. Ismailov, V. Papava, The Central Caucasus: Essays on Geopolitical Economy, CA&CC Press® AB, Stockholm, 2006; E. Ismailov, V. Papava, Tsentralny Kavkaz: istoria, politika, ekonomika, Mysl Publishers, Moscow, 2007).
2 See: K.N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, McGraw-Hill, Boston, 1979, pp. 91-92.
3 See: Ibid., p. 92.
4 The concept of regional security complexes was first formulated in 1983 by Barry Buzan in: B. Buzan, People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, 1983. This work, as well as its second edition (B. Buzan, People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, Second Edition, Lynne Rienner Publishers Boulder, Colorado, 1991), offered the classical approach to the security complexes conception. In later works written by Buzan together with other authors (B. Buzan, O. Wffiver, J. de Wilde, Security. A New Framework for Analysis, Lynne Rienner Publishers Boulder, London, 1998; B. Buzan, O. Wffiver, Regions and Powers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003), an attempt was made to go beyond the limits of the classical conception of security complexes. To remedy the main disparities between their present approach and the classical conception of security complexes (concentration on the military and political spheres of interstate relations and insufficient attention to the non-state actors, the conduct of which creates additional vectors of intersec-toral interdependence), the authors postulated two types of security complexes—homogeneous and heterogeneous—as well as the securitization conception.
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realist approach, the conduct of states is determined by their strength/weakness. At the same time, the structuralism offered by Waltz and Buzan is not one and the same thing. Classical (Waltzian) neore-alism looks at the structure of the international political system as the result of objective power differentiation among states (among the strongest of them) and ignores the factors at the regional and national level. Whereas Buzan in his initial RSC conception within the essential structure of the security complex in addition to the principle of the "arrangement of the units" and the "distribution of power among them," envisages the "pattern of amity/enmity."5 The latter allowed the author to assess the system-level stimulators together with the region-level and unit-level factors when assessing the functionality of an RSC. Later, the securitization conception underpinned this theory. On the whole, however, the political bias of the theory of regional security complexes (TRSC) was preserved, while the range of functional factors was widened and the dependence between them and the objective distribution of power in the international system was "loosened."
The classical neorealism of Kenneth N. Waltz related to assessing the functioning of the international political system deliberately leaves aside such social factors as the specifics of ethnic and confessional ties and relations. Barry Buzan, on the other hand, pointed out, within the scope of his classical conception of security complexes, that the forms and structure of the RSC are determined, among other things, by cultural (including religious and racial) factors, which create a strong, but not the main, impact.6 On the whole, however, they cannot compete with the political factors in terms of impact.
The initial structuralism of the TRSC is obvious to all. Political relations and the distribution of power among the states of the RSC are responsible for the amity/enmity vectors in their relations.7 When Barry Buzan and Ole Wsver8 introduced a securitization category and thesis of the autonomy of this process in the TRSC, they moved quite far from the initial excessive structuralism of the theory. This means that the latest modernization of the TRSC suggests that ethnic and confessional factors are not merely catalysts but sometimes become independent securitization determinants in the RSC states and the corresponding security relations among them.
In the theoretical-methodological respect, the securitization phenomenon allows the TRSC to rise from the "Procrustean bed" of positivism. In other words, Waltzian structure or, to be more exact, distribution of power in the system is not the main stimulator of the elements' behavior. It is not the main trigger of securitization as well. As a relative phenomenon, the latter wholly depends on the actor: "Different actors securitize differently: different political and cultural situations enable securitization in different sectors and they have different dynamics."9 This suggests that the central security interests of an actor are a product of the securitization process unfolding here and now and open to the impact of many factors, including classical political and other factors (ethnic and confessional) of the region's social structure.
In fact, the latest changes in the TRSC do not so much devalue the impact of structural factors on states' conduct as try to fit them into the limits of individual regions and study them with due account of their regional specifics (ethnicities, confessions, the history of their relations, etc.). The structure itself, which is no longer an international but a regional political system, preserves its role as an important endogenous assessment parameter. The pattern of power distribution among the members of an RSC directly affects the stability/instability of its political structure.
5 B. Buzan, People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, p. 211; B. Buzan, O. W^ver, J. de Wilde, op. cit., p. 13.
6 See: B. Buzan, People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era,
p. 197.
7 See: Ibid., p. 190.
8 See: B. Buzan, O. W^ver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 86-87.
9 Ibid., p. 87.
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The Central Caucasus in the Security System of a Post-Soviet Region
The system that existed in the Soviet Union at the turn of the 1990s went through structural transformation which ended in the disintegration of the Soviet state and the appearance of fifteen newly independent states. In the context of security system evolution, this meant a transfer from one strictly hierarchical actor to a regional anarchical system or, to be more exact, to a regional security complex.
The RSC that came into being in the post-Soviet space was very specific; its size and the structural and political features set it apart from standard RSCs10 within which security interests are closely connected because of geographic proximity11 and are localized by a geographically compact interstate constellation, and in which "the security dynamics of the region are not dominated from the unipolar power at its center."12 According to Buzan and Wsver, the regional system of the post-Soviet space is a "centered great power regional security complex."13
At the same time, the newly independent states formed their own local interstate systems—the regional security sub-complexes in the European part (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia; Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine); in the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia); and in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan). The regional sub-systems were relatively autonomous, however Russia preserved its function of a center which bound them together into a "web" of interdependence of the Post-Soviet Security Macrocomplex (PSM).
In this structure Russia was the only geopolitical actor that could consistently project its influence on the regional scale and it was the key security factor for all the newly independent states in all the sub-systems mentioned above. This meant that the development of local complexes and the dynamics of the security relations among the member states and their ties with the "external" power centers were dependent not only on the endogenous factors but also on Russia's geopolitical activities.
It is not my task here to discuss the stable/transitional nature of the PSM structure; I will limit myself to saying that during its evolution the PSM revealed certain changes which speak about its transitional nature.14 Today, after the twenty-odd years that have elapsed since the Soviet Union's disintegration and in view of the structural changes that have already taken place during these two decades, the PSM consists of Russia and three RSCs: Central Europe,15 the Central Caucasus, and Central Asia.
10 The TRSC offers various types and forms of regional complexes; the most general typology distinguishes between standard and centered RSC. According to Barry Buzan and Ole Wœver, in the centered RSC, the dynamics of security relations are determined by one power found in its center. The authors go on to identify three forms (depending on the specifics of "the central actor") of this type: centered on a great power—Russia in the post-Soviet space; on a superpower—the United States in North America; and, finally, on an institution (institutional RSC)—the European Union (see: B. Buzan, O. Wœver, op. cit., pp. 55-61).
11 See: B. Buzan, People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, pp. 188, 189, 191, 195.
12 B. Buzan, O. Wœver, op. cit., p. 55.
13 Ibid., pp. 55, 62, 343.
14 For more detail, see: J. Eyvazov, "Some Aspects of the Theory of Regional Security Complexes as Applied to Studies of the Political System in the Post-Soviet Space," Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol. 12, Issue 2, 2011, pp. 1724; idem, "Central Eurasia through the Prism of Security: A Regional System or a Sub-System?" The Caucasus & Globalization, Vol. 5, Issue 1-2, 2011, pp. 6-15.
15 Here I refer to the concept of Central Europe suggested by Dr. Eldar Ismailov as part of a novel approach to the region and its place in the spatial-political units of Eurasia. According to his concept, Central Europe consists of the political spaces of three post-Soviet states (Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine); together with the Central Caucasus (Azerbaijan,
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Thus, the political system of the Central Caucasus is part of the PSM; the importance of this thesis will be fully revealed in my discussion of the structural factors of conflicts in the region. Here I will limit myself to saying that the formation of the Central Caucasian RSC revealed certain specifics that inevitably affect the dynamics of regional security relations.
Throughout the whole of its long history, the Central Caucasus has remained an object of geopolitics, which means that the exogenous vectors of power played an important role in shaping the security sphere of the region. Russia, Turkey, and Iran form the traditional external power triangle with the corresponding ideological factors: Orthodox Christianity, Sunni Islam, and Shi'a Islam, a fact which played an important role in creating the amity/enmity vectors in the region's societies.
In the 20th century, the great powers of Western civilization developed a much greater interest in the Caucasus and displayed correspondingly greater involvement there, which, in turn, made the region relatively more open than before. This was an important precondition for setting up a regional security system there—forming national states, material components of interdependence of their security, and stable perceptional amity/enmity constructs among the local states and between them and the external poles of power.
Disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s created an anarchically organized political system in the post-Soviet space. When applied to the Central Caucasus it was restoration of the earlier RSC that had existed back in 1918-1921.16
Conflicts in RSC Development in the Post-Soviet Central Caucasus
Very much as at the dawn of its development (1918-1921), in the post-Soviet era the RSC in the Central Caucasus displayed mainly negative dynamics in the security relations among the states involved. Not infrequently, territorial disputes and disagreements over the status of ethnic minorities, the power struggle between political groups inside the states, and their relations with the external power poles exceeded the limits of non-violent relations to erupt as armed clashes. The Armenian-Azeri conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and the conflicts in Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) stand apart because of their regional repercussions. Though sharp conflicts were inherent in all the post-Soviet Caucasus (one can recall the conflict between the Ossets and Ingushes in North Ossetia and the armed conflict in Chechnia), here I will limit myself, very much in line with the approach specified above, to the Central Caucasian conflicts.
They share the following features:
■ First, they have both obvious political and non-political components: the political status of the ethnic minorities who live in compact groups and the political relations among the regional states and their relations with the external actors are combined with the specifics of history (and practice) of social relations. But for all that political components dominate over
Armenia, and Georgia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), Central Europe belongs to Central Eurasia (for more detail, see: E.M. Ismailov, "Central Eurasia: Its Geopolitical Function in the 21st Century," Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 2 (50), 2008, pp. 7-29).
16 National states appeared in the Central Caucasus in the second decade of the 20th century after the Bolshevik revolution and disintegration of the Russian Empire. They were the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918-1920), the Georgian Democratic Republic (1918-1921), and the Armenian (Ararat) Republic (1918-1920), the relations among which were characterized by a high degree of security interdependence.
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other components; this should be borne in mind when describing these conflicts as "ethnop-olitical."
■ Second, none of these conflicts can be described as a domestic conflict: stimulated by internal processes in each of the three states, they can also be described as a product of external influences. While from the very beginning the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was, and remains, mainly a conflict between two states (this was how the international community described it), the Abkhazian and South Ossetian conflicts were not free from external influences, which came into the open during the 2008 August war between Russia and Georgia.
■ Third, these conflicts developed into armed confrontation and active hostilities with the use of heavy armaments. The most active phase coincided with the early stages of the RSC's post-Soviet development in the Central Caucasus (1991-1994), which ended in an armistice; the conflicts were and remain frozen. So far, international structures (the U.N., OSCE, and EC) have failed to settle them.
■ Fourth, the unsettled conflicts remain high on the list of state security priorities in the Central
Caucasian RSC, therefore, they greatly affect the policy of the states involved.
The security interests of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia are closely interconnected, which means that their region can be described as a RSC. The conflicts described above show the linchpins of their interdependence, which means that the dynamics of the security relations within RSC are mainly negative. Even cooperation is largely suggested by the conflicts: the relations (rapprochement/estrangement) between Armenia and Azerbaijan with Georgia to a considerable degree are formed by the changes in the relations between Georgia and its two Central Caucasian neighbors.
The conflict-prone specifics clarify the question of the level of RSC development in the postSoviet Central Caucasus. We will remind that, according to the TRSC, changes in the security complex structure either change it or transform its inner dynamics, while preserving the RSC structure intact. Regional political integration (several states merge into one political actor) can be described as the final point according to the first scenario.17 Anarchy as the main attribute of relations within the RSC develops into a hierarchy very close to that present inside the states. The TRSC says that structural changes may occur in the regional security system even if the general structure of the complex remains intact. They are based on the differences in the dynamics of security relations within given RSC. A transfer from one level of dynamics development to another is stimulated by changes in the amity/enmity relations. As distinct from the previous scenario, in this case the regional system remains anarchically organized, while the changes are limited to the perceptional-behavioral component of regional interdependence. The TRSC offers a general model of these changes and identifies the initial, final, and intermediary levels (chaos-a regional conflict formation-security regime-security community).18
An analysis of the empirical side of the post-Soviet development of the RSC in the Central Caucasus suggests that the dynamics of security relations at the first stage (1991-1994) of its development largely corresponded to the level of "regional conflict formation" in its original conception.19
' See: B. Buzan, O. W^ver, J. de Wilde, op. cit., p. 12.
17 i
18 According to B. Buzan, in the conditions of chaos, the entire set of the security relations in the region is determined by enmity since each of the regional actors sees an enemy in the others. As distinct from the initial level, amity is possible even at the first intermediary level—regional conflict formations—dominated by conflict relations among the actors. At the next intermediary level—security regime—regional states cooperate in order to settle the conflicts and avoid a war; they rely on mutually acceptable forms of behavior to achieve security in their relations. At the final stage of the transfer within the functioning security complex and according to Buzan's conception, a security community appears in which conflicts have been resolved to the extent that none of the members fears aggression from any of the other members of the community.
19 The conception of the "regional conflict formations" was first formulated by Raimo Vayrynen (see: R. Vayrynen, "Regional Conflict Formations: An Intractable Problem of International Relations," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 21,
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At the same time, at the later stages of its evolution the Central Caucasian RSC demonstrated changes in the dynamics of the security relations of the states involved, insufficient, however, for a transfer to the "security regime," but clear enough to expand our ideas about the regional conflict formations.
The stage at which the Central Caucasian RSC has been and remains since about the mid-1990s can be described as a moderate regional conflict formation with the following specifics:
■ first, stabilization of the domestic political situation in the RSC states and their stronger role as the system's key actors;
■ second, the conflict potential has been preserved and still prevails in the dynamics of regional security relations; it is much less intensive—this is confirmed by the absence of large-scale and persistent armed clashes. The problems which led to armed conflicts and their repercussions have not yet been fully resolved, therefore hostilities are not excluded.
■ Third, the relations between states are more stable and institutionalized, however, the unresolved conflicts and an acute security dilemma are stirring up elements of enmity within the RSC.
From this it follows that proneness to conflict has been and remains one of the striking features of the functioning and development of the Central Caucasian RSC. As an indicator of security interdependence in the regional system, conflicts are products of certain factors connected, among other things, with the specifics of the local political structure. Since the latter is part of a larger PSM structure, a better understanding of the structural factors of conflicts in the Central Caucasus requires that the structural specifics of the entire PSM be taken into account.
Structural Instability and the Dynamics of Regional Conflicts
A region's political structure may stimulate either moderation or conflicts in the relations of its states. From this point of view, the stability/instability of the political structure of the regional security system is very important for the problems discussed in the present article. (In)stability of a political structure is determined by three factors: inner weakness/strength of the states in a regional system20; (a)symmetry of strength and (a)symmetry of vulnerability among them; and (im)maturity of their mutual relations.21
The PSM is obviously asymmetrical in terms of the weakness/strength, threats, and vulnerabilities; it is created mainly by the states with weak sociopolitical cohesion and inadequate cooperative experience in regulating the security dilemmas present in their relations. The numerous conflicts still broiling in this space are the best evidence of the above.
Even if we disengage ourselves from any common macro-system, we cannot miss the fact that the Central Caucasian RSC political structure is mainly unstable. The following table offers a glimpse
Issue 4, November 1984, pp. 337-359). He described a regional conflict formation as "a complex mixture of international, intraregional, and extra-regional conflicts of violent character" (ibid., p. 344).
20 Within the original RSC concept, the level of sociopolitical cohesion is the strength/weakness parameter. It is obvious that in view of the current RSC development level in the Central Caucasus, this parameter cannot be regarded as the only one. Here I use the "modern state" type; when talking about its strength/weakness, we should also contemplate some other, classical, parameters, such as economic and military capabilities (the table below supplies economic and military parameters that are indispensable for assessing states' relative strength/weakness: GDP, per capita GDP, GDP growth rates, military budget, the size of military forces and the main type of military hardware).
21 For more detail, see: J. Eyvazov, "Structural Factors in the Development of the Regional Security Systems (A PostSoviet Central Eurasia Case Study)," Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol. 13, Issue 1, 2012, pp.79-102.
Table
Certain Economic, Military, and Sociopolitical Descriptions of the States of the Central Caucasian RSC (2010)
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Main Type of Military Hardware
1 Armenia
9.23 1.2 2,987 434.0 3,090,379 48,570 110 104/136 239 16/33 —
The Most Serious Challenges to Sociopolitical Cohesion
Territorial claims which cause open and latent conflicts in relations with neighbors— Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh), Turkey (Eastern Anatolia), Georgia (Javakhetia)—and the resultant isolation from the main economically profitable regional energy and transportation projects (BTC, BTE, KATB); dependence on external actors (Russia, the diaspora).
2 Azerbaijan
52.2 2.3 5,846 1,590.0 8,933,928 66,940 339 111/357 425 41/35 18/ —
Conflict with Armenia, occupation of southwestern regions and related sociopolitical and economic problems; potential threat of separatism in the areas where ethnic minorities live in compact communities, tension with some
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Table (continued)
Main Type of Military Hardware
The Most Serious Challenges to Sociopolitical Cohesion
of the neighboring powers caused by their regional and ethnic policy (Iran, Russia).
3 Georgia 11.3 4.5 2,690 420.0 4,219,191 20,655 93 63/137 185 12/29 17/ — Conflict in Abkhazia and
South Ossetia, which Tbilisi no longer controls; forced migrants; separatist threats in other places where ethnic minorities live in compact communities; continued tension with Russia and its military, political, and economic repercussions (the August 2008 war; recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Russia; the increase and legalization of Russian military presence in these regions and the loss of the Russian market for Georgian products).
S o u r c e: The Military Balance 2011, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 2011.
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of some of the qualitative and quantitative descriptions of the states on which the regional specifics of the Central Caucasus depend.
The figures quoted above vividly illustrate the current specifics of the political structure of the Central Caucasian RSC. In order to gain an authentic idea of its structure's development, we need to return to the period of its restoration, that is, the early 1990s.
On the whole, the entire PSM was engulfed by a wave of armed conflicts among the states or inside them with a greater or lesser degree of external intervention. This can be described as a point of reckoning, the beginning of the development of this political structure, and an important stability/ instability indicator. In the early 1990s, the vehemence of the conflicts and their dynamics differed from one post-Soviet region to another.
Ethnopolitical conflicts unfolded dynamically in the Central Caucasus, which allows us to detect their more precise ties with the inner weaknesses of the regional states with the recently restored independencies and, as a result, with the instability of the political structure of the RSC functioning there.
The early period of post-Soviet independence of the Central Caucasian states (1991-1994) can be described as a period of their greatest inner weakness. This was when regional security relations reached their peak of negativity. Inner weakness and political instability were largely the product of specific objective features of the sociopolitical, economic, ideological, and axiological context created by the Soviet Union's unexpectedly rapid disintegration. At the beginning of the long road of postSoviet development the states had to deal with the social and economic difficulties created by the need to transfer to a market economy; considerable shortcomings in distribution of economic resources inside society; the quest for national identity; the exacerbation of ethnopolitical conflicts; inadequate legitimacy and de facto impotent central governments; and the lack of necessary political skills of the new generation of political leaders.
It was at this stage that the Armenian-Azeri war reached its peak, as well as the civil war and armed ethnopolitical conflicts in Georgia (South Ossetia and Abkhazia).
In both cases, there were endogenous political factors together with an exogenous factor, Russia's indirect presence.22
Irrespective of the answer to the question of whether the conflicts in the post-Soviet Central Caucasus were caused by endogenous factors or developed under the impact of external forces, one thing is clear: weakness and the low level of sociopolitical cohesion of the regional states made the external geopolitical impact effective. This is true of the entire post-Soviet space and is amply confirmed by the comparison between the Central Caucasus and the Baltic states, another post-Soviet area.
The three Baltic states are fairly heterogeneous in the ethnic and confessional respect; their numerous communities are tied ethnically and linguistically to Russia.23 All the newly independent states felt the impact of the economic and sociocultural disintegration of the Union state; Russia's geopolitical interest in retaining its domination in the Baltic region was as strong as, for instance, in the Central Caucasus. This means that if we regard the exogenous political factors as the most important, along with the ethnic and confessional structure of the post-Soviet space, the Baltic states were no less prone to conflicts than Central Caucasian. Things proved different in reality. The three Baltic states sailed through the transition period without conflicts; in 2004, they acceded the EU and joined NATO; in the Central Caucasus, meanwhile, external factors are still actively manipulating the conflict potential of the regional states.
22 Russia is part of the PSM along with the Central Caucasian RSC. Hence, the term "exogenous" as applied to Russia's impact on this RSC should take into account their interconnection in the common PSM structure.
23 In 2009, ethnic Russians in Estonia comprised about 26% of the total population; in 1989, on the eve of the Soviet Union's disintegration, Russians made up 30% of the population. The figures for Latvia are about 30% in 2009 and 34% in 1989; and about 6% in 2009 and 9.4% in 1989 in Lithuania.
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The Table shows that the three states of the Central Caucasian RSC have a low level of sociopolitical cohesion and that there is a clear asymmetry of strength/weakness among them.
The three states of the Central Caucasian RSC are fairly vulnerable in terms of their sociopolitical cohesion. From time to time their vulnerability is obviously associated with what their neighbors do. In the early 1990s, armed conflicts deprived two of the states (Azerbaijan and Georgia) of control over parts of their territory populated by ethnic minorities.
The inner tension in Georgia is fed by the continued tension with Russia. In August 2008, it developed into a war. Georgia's relatively weak economic potential allows us to describe the challenges to its sociopolitical cohesion as much more obvious than in the case of Azerbaijan and Armenia.
In the Armenia-Azerbaijan duad the former is less vulnerable because of its ethnic and religious homogeneity, among other things. At the same time, these countries' negative interdependence due to their involvement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenia's weak economy, as well as its dependence on external actors, equalizes risks to the sociopolitical stability in both states.
As a result of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan lost about one fifth of its territory (the part very important in the cultural-civilizational respect). During the war of 1991-1993, each of Armenia's military successes plunged Azerbaijan into a grave political crisis and regime change. Today, the Nagorno-Karabakh issue remains the most important factor of the split/unity of Azerbaijani society.
Armenia, which won the war and established its control over this part of Azerbaijan populated by Armenians, has to spend more on the arms race; the logic of the security dilemma has made it dependent on external actors (Russia) for its security; it was excluded from the economically advantageous regional transportation and energy projects and must be prepared to confront its economically stronger opponent. This can hardly be described as a positive factor when assessing the sociopolitical situation in Armenia. The political crisis during the last presidential election of February 2008 demonstrated that society was split and there was no agreement on the issues described
above.24
The Nagorno-Karabakh issue, which ties the two states together, determines the dynamics of their military and political rivalry in the region. This also explains the asymmetry of strength between them.
Both Armenia and Azerbaijan regard this territory as a vitally important component of their national security. Azerbaijan treats it as part of its territory according to international law; its loss might weaken its position in the regional balance of power. Given the military-strategic specifics of Azerbaijan's central and western parts and Armenia's military-technical capabilities, Armenia's continued military control of Nagorno-Karabakh (even if Azerbaijan restored its sovereignty over the valley regions of Karabakh) will threaten a large part of Azerbaijan's territory (crisscrossed by the Baku-Supsa and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipelines and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline—the main sources of the republic's income).
To a certain extent, the weakening of Azerbaijan in this context is related to the negative political repercussions inside it. As most other multinational states, Azerbaijan cannot relinquish part of its territory in order to avoid a possible domino effect; other compact ethnic communities might try to detach themselves from Azerbaijan. In 1993, the country found itself on the brink of similar developments when there were attempts to set up a "Talysh-Mugan Republic" in the southeast of Azerbaijan.
24 During the presidential election in Armenia, the bulk of the protesting electorate supported Levon Ter-Petros-sian, who wanted integration with the West, less dependence on Russia, and better relations with neighbors. According to the official figures, he gained 21.5% of the votes against 52.8% gained by Serzh Sargsyan, who represented the ruling party. The opposition accused the country's leaders of falsifications and started mass protest actions; about 10 people died in the armed clashes; a state of emergency was introduced.
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Armenia, in turn, is seeking control of Nagorno-Karabakh because of its mainly Armenian population, which fears continued Azeri sovereignty over this territory.25 There is another, structural-political explanation of Armenia's continued occupation of the southwest of Azerbaijan. According to the aggregate indices of its national power (territory, population, and resources), Armenia is much weaker than Azerbaijan. To compensate for the imbalance and in view of the far from simple previous relations, Armenia needed military-strategic advantages in the form of control over the strategically important Nagorno-Karabakh with its predominantly Armenian population.
Today, the Armenia-Azerbaijan duad presents the greatest source of instability in the Central Caucasian RSC and is responsible for the regional arms race. The military and economic inequality of the two countries is behind the asymmetry of strength. According to official declarations, the armed forces of Azerbaijan outstrip Armenia (see the Table). However, to assess the real correlation of forces, we should take into account the capabilities of Armenia's armed forces in Nagorno-Karabakh and around it.26 This presents a different picture: the numerical strength of both sides is more or less the same, while Armenia has many more tanks, infantry fighting and armored vehicles, and guns. For geographical reasons, these components of the armed forces are critically important for establishing a real military balance between the two states.
Azerbaijan is much stronger economically; its military budget is three times larger than that of Armenia. The gap will increase in the course of time because of Azerbaijan's much faster economic growth. However, in the future, the reliance of Azerbaijan's economy on the revenues from the export and transportation of energy resources might develop into a problem.27
The obvious signs of military and economic asymmetry bring to mind the Waltzian formula: the "vicious circle" of the security dilemma. The asymmetries are mutually stimulating: Azerbaijan's better economic situation urges Armenia to build up its military capabilities, while Azerbaijan is steadily expanding its economic capabilities to respond to Armenia's efforts in the military sphere. The future for both states looks sad: large-scale and ineffective economic investments in the military sphere in Azerbaijan vs. still greater military-technical and economic dependence on external actors for Armenia.
Georgia, which has its share of economic problems, also tends to spend more on defense. This is suggested not so much by its relations with its Central Caucasian neighbors as by its relations with Russia or, rather, with the separatist regimes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia supported by the Russian Federation. At the same time, Georgia, as member of other duads, may become involved in other structural asymmetries. Tension in the Georgia-Armenia duad might increase in view of the still burning contradictions over Javakhetia populated by Armenians and the development of mutually advantageous economic cooperation with Azerbaijan.
The conditions in which the Central Caucasian political system developed were hardly conducive to a more or less rapid enhancement of the maturity of interstate relations.28 The space in ques-
25 See, for example: H. Tchlingirian, "Nagorno-Karabagh: Transition and the Elite," Central Asian Survey, No. 18 (4), 1999, p. 445.
26 There are informal military units on the occupied Azeri lands presented as "self-defense forces of Nagorno-Karabakh": there are about 18,000 people, 316 tanks, 324 infantry fighting and armored vehicles, and 322 guns. They should be regarded as part of Armenian's real military capabilities.
27 According to the official statistics, in 2009 the share of Azerbaijan's oil and gas industry was 44.8% (see: Azerbaijan in Figures 2010, State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan, available at [http://www.azstat.org/ publications/azfigures/2010/en/010.shtml]).
28 The maturity of interstate relations remains a very specific parameter of structural (in)stability. (Im)maturity of relations is not a direct product of states' weakness or strength; it is determined by a socially and practically confirmed bias toward exploiting (manipulating) the weaknesses (vulnerabilities) of the opponents for the sake of its own political interests. Maturity is, therefore, a quality of the state duads (systems), in which the level of confidence is sufficient for cooperation among states, at least in the solution of common security issues. The highest degree of maturity is reached when a state is prepared to sacrifice its sovereignty for the sake of a common political entity, that is, for political integration. Two main factors come into play here: the social affinity/diversity between states and the practice of their relations. The
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tion is a conglomerate of ethnicities and religions. Samuel Huntington wrote that the line of clash of civilizations runs across these and similar areas.
The practice of relations among the Central Caucasian states has not contributed to their maturity. The history of independent development of the region's political units is very short: for long periods the ethnicities living there were parts of external imperial systems. Their Heartland location (to borrow the term from Halford Mackinder) made them the coveted targets of external actors (Russia, Turkey, Iran, and the West). In fact, the mechanisms the external actors used to achieve their aims—resettlement, pushing ethnic borders at will, and manipulations with ethnicities in the "divide and rule" style—never contributed to good neighborly relations in these regions. The problems inherited from the imperial past still cast a pall over the relations among the newly independent states. Besides, in the post-Soviet era, the Central Caucasus remained geopolitically attractive to the great powers.
Conclusion
Early in the 1990s, restoration of the anarchical political structure in the Central Caucasus was accompanied by acute conflicts. The conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia developed into armed confrontations which proved extremely destructive for the entire region. They emerged and remain smoldering for many reasons, which means that complete understanding of the problem calls for taking the fullest possible account of all the causes and factors. At the same time, this should not be taken to mean that we must ignore the range of the key factors of regional instability.
If we treat the region as a regional security system and, in particular, try to apply the RSC concept in its initial interpretation we should admit that the structural-political factors were the main determinants of the context of armed conflicts. Further development of the TRSC and the securitiza-tion conception in particular suggests that we also look for other factors, and that the factors which underlay the region's conflict dynamics are conventional and autonomous.
The three conflicts in the Central Caucasus are primarily a product of the political relations among the region's states, as well as between them and the extra-regional powers. This obvious circumstance does not allow us to limit an assessment of them to the framework of local ethnic, confessional, and other social relations, even though social factors are also present. They are of secondary importance and either increase or decrease (but not in all cases) the impact of the political factors. Otherwise it would have been hard, if possible at all, to explain why the social similarities/distinctions between states are unrelated to the amity/enmity between them. Indeed there are the Azerbaijan-Georgia, Georgia-Turkey, and Armenia-Iran duads, on the one hand, and the Georgia-Russia and Azerbaijan-Iran, on the other. In the first three duads ethnoconfessional distinctions do not interfere with political closeness, while in the latter two cases social closeness did not prevent mutual mistrust, enmity, or even a war (the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia).
An assessment of the political factors of the Central Caucasus' proneness to conflict inevitably raises the question of the region's political structure. This brings to the fore two key parameters: the stability/instability of the region's political structure and its involvement in a wider security macrosystem.
The (in)stability of the political structure of the regional security system alone cannot account for the region's proneness to conflict; at the same time, it is responsible for the conditions conducive
former is ensured by ethnic, linguistic, and confessional specifics and shared or not shared political values (institutions and ideologies). The latter is created by the states' history: what prevails in the history of their relations—amity or enmity. In other words, confidential relations among states, the predictability of their conduct and, therefore, their cooperative relations depend on their social affinity, friendly relations, and the absence of conflicts in the past.
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to amity/enmity of the political relations in the region. In this way, it affects the regional actors' determination to use force to settle their disagreements. The (in)stability is determined by three factors: inner weakness/strength of the states in a regional system; (a)symmetry of strength and (a)symmetry of vulnerability among them; and (im)maturity of their mutual relations.
The (in)stability of a political structure can be described as an independent endogenous variable of a RSC, if only the latter does not belong to a large system (in this case, it follows the development pattern of the larger system).
The political structure of the Central Caucasian RSC is unstable; the sociopolitical cohesion of states can hardly be described as high. Their independent development, especially in the early and mid-1990s, was aggravated by serious internal problems and an acute feeling of vulnerability. At the same time, different countries have different ideas about their vulnerabilities and threats; the levels of their weakness are likewise different, which points to the system's structural asymmetry. Moreover, the relations among the states in the region have not become mature and cooperative enough to play down the negative impact of their weakness, vulnerability, and structural asymmetry.
The Central Caucasian RSC is part of the Post-Soviet Security Macrocomplex. Today, a complete understanding of the security relations within the Central Caucasian RSC is possible only within the web of interdependences of the regional system of the post-Soviet space. This means that when talking about the structural factors of conflicts in the Central Caucasus we cannot ignore the structural specifics of the entire PSM.
Russia is the only pole of power in the PSM; this means that the relations between the states within all the three sub-complexes are shaped largely depending on its security interests, regional policy, and relations with the extra-regional powers. The Russian Federation has succeeded to a much greater extent than the other powers also interested in the post-Soviet space in making regional conflicts its political instrument. The August 2008 war with Georgia and the postwar developments (recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, legalization of its military presence in these Georgian provinces, etc.) speak volumes about Russia's direct involvement in the regional conflicts.
On the whole, the political structure of the Central Caucasus encourages continued conflicts; it looks as if the dynamics of the security relations typical of moderate regional conflict formation will prove to be a fairly consistent stage in the development of the Central Caucasian RSC.
The relations in the Armenia-Azerbaijan duad contain the most acute security dilemma for the region. This means that Azerbaijan should spend more money on its military component while Armenia should seek external patrons; this spells its greater dependence on Russia. Large-scale and prolonged military action in the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are hardly possible in the near future for the simple reason that this will revise the relations between the Central Caucasian states with Russia, something which the only power pole of PSM hardly needs.
This equally applies to the conflicts in Georgia, where the situation was clarified by the August 2008 war. This war and recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by Russia and some other states did not transform them into independent political actors in the region. In fact, they became even more dependent on the Kremlin. NATO membership for Georgia, which will bring the alliance directly to Russia's borders, is one of the most serious external threats to Russia's security and the war with Georgia was a geopolitical instrument designed to avert this threat. While the threat remains on Russia's security agenda, it will continue using the conflicts as its instrument of regional policy. This means that in view of the structural specifics of the PSM, armed conflicts will be preserved in their frozen forms across the entire space of Russia's "near abroad."
