The Greater Caspian Project 23 by Modern Diplomacy

EDITORIAL RUSSIA BETWEEN ECONOMIC CRISIS AND GEOSTRATEGIC PROJECTIONS GIANCARLO ELIA VALORI

CAN AMERICA EVER MATCH RUSSIAN CYBER INNOVATION? LAURA GARRIDO

THE POSSIBLE FUTURE OF AMERICAN-IRANIAN-SAUDI TRIANGULATION DR. MATTHEW CROSSTON

TRANSCAUCASIAN SEPARATISM PROF. DR. VLADISLAV B. SOTIROVIC

NORTH KOREA & INDONESIA AS ‘MENTORS’ FOR IRAN STEPHEN SARTY

GREAT POWER JOCKEYING IN THE CASPIAN KEVIN AUGUSTINE

SCO SECURITY AGENDAS AND TRANSNATIONAL POLICING DR. MATTHEW CROSSTON & ANONYMOUS

PAKISTAN’S URGE FOR NATIONAL & ENERGY SECURITY BAHAUDDIN FOIZEE

NATURAL GAS AND THE ‘LESSER’ CASPIANS HOW NEW PLAYERS MIGHT BE GOOD FOR EVERYONE TROY BAXTER

TURKEY’S CURRENT WISHES GIANCARLO ELIA VALORI

KAZAKHSTAN’S SNAP ELECTION AFFIRM NAZARBAYEV’S POWER IN UNCERTAIN ENVIRONMENTS SAMANTHA M. BRLETICH

IS CAUCASUS THE NEXT SYRIA? DON’T FORGET OSCE ALEKSANDRA KRSTIC

THE grEaTEr CaSPIaN PrOJECT BI-WEEKLY DIgITaL EDITION www.moderndiplomacy.eu Caspian@moderndiplomacy.eu Dimitris Giannakopoulos Modern Diplomacy, Editor-in-chief Dr. matthew Crosston The Caspian Project, Director

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by foolsâ&#x20AC;? Thucydides

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ANALYZING THE PENDULUM OF CRISIS AND OPPORTUNITY Prof. Dr. Matthew Crosston MD Advisory Board Vice-Chairman, Director, The Caspian Project

nstability comes in many forms: economic, political, social, cultural, religious, ethnic. Unfortunately, the greater Caspian region has and does experience these various forms of instability in one degree or another across many of its states. But one of the lesser appreciated aspects of domestic, regional, and international turmoil is how often the kernels of opportunity and progress can reside simultaneously within these seeds of discord and conflict. Issue No. 23 of the GCP examines this fascinating phenomenon in earnest. What our devoted readers will discover is how instability in and of itself does not need to be immutable: opportunities of leadership, achievement, and positive change do exist and can blossom, even in areas we currently consider to be hopelessly opaque and convoluted. In many cases it is just a matter of perception and where the relevant actors are willing to focus their energies, as well as the under-emphasized essentiality of not being afraid of change and not being enslaved to the status quo.

Thus it is with this issue we try to reveal these hidden opportunities while still seriously analyzing such troubling concerns as separatism, economic crisis, geostrategic manipulation of natural resources, theocratic evolution, cyber innovation, and transnational policing. We are by no means here at the GCP and our parent group Modern Diplomacy pie-in-the-sky-Ivory-Tower naĂŻve scholars: we know that in all of these issues, across all of these cases, when the pendulum swings more to the end of crisis, then the end result is unfortunately untold human suďŹ&#x20AC;ering and sacrifice. But despite this we still force our readers to recognize that it is indeed a pendulum and not a compass: the direction it presently points does not have to be a fixed geographical consideration, but is rather a dynamic process that can move and shift to something more positively powerful. It may only be a hope, in some cases perhaps even an unrealistic one. But hope is never a bad thing, especially in our GCP world of diplomacy, geopolitics, and international security.

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RUSSIA BETWEEN ECONOMIC CRISIS AND GEOSTRATEGIC PROJECTIONS GIANCARLO ELIA VALORI Advisory Board Co-chair Honoris Causa Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr Valori has lectured on international aﬀairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York.

s Lev Tolstoj maintained "There is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time". These are two of the most characteristic traits of the soul and psychology of the Russian people. On the other hand, if you follow Sun Tzu’ strategic guidelines, whoever has time masters also space. The fact of getting accustomed to suﬀering and sacrifice have always been typical of the Russian people who, as Vladimir Putin said by quoting Gogol, "have the sharp word which comes from the bottom of the heart."

Today this is perhaps the most rational way of analyzing the state of the Russian economy and its new geopolitics, which started with the Russian armed forces’ engagement in Syria in favor of Bashar el Assad and against the very complex system of local and international jihad. The slow but relentless increase in oil prices, organized by the oil and gas futures market during the current diﬀerent, albeit parallel, crises in Iran and Saudi Arabia, is already an important sign of renaissance for the Russian Federation’s economy.

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Furthermore, after the recent Doha summit of April 16, all oil market analysts predict that the oil barrel prices will increase rapidly throughout the second half of 2016 while investors, however, still cautiously maintain short term positions. This is the result of a mix of factors such as the slow, but stable, global economic recovery and the planned decrease of oil extraction as a result of the decisions recently taken in Doha. Certainly the Doha Summit failed because of the tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia, but all the latest OPEC projections point to a gradual increase in oil prices per barrel, although there are no explicit messages to that eďŹ&#x20AC;ect by the Vienna cartel. Hence Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s accounts are stable and are bound to improve, despite the severity of its recent economic crisis. Since the beginning of 2016, inflation has been falling as a result of lower consumption. In March 2016, however, the Russian prices increased by 7.3% as against the previous year, after an 8.1% rise in February. Anyway the Russian consumer prices are below market forecasts, which pointed to 7.5%. Moreover the current rate of Russian inflation is the lowest of the last two years. Thus inflation has absorbed the ruble devaluation, by also allowing further monetary easing margins. Nevertheless the decrease of disposable income was over 5% in 2015, with rapidly falling wages and an obvious massive impoverishment. However, the share of the Russian population living below the poverty line is already limited compared to the data of previous years. Russian poverty grew from 3.1 million needy people to 19.2 in 2015, the highest rate ever since 2006, and is now partially on the wane.

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Again last year wages and salaries fell by 2.6% on average, while the Russian Stock Exchange index (MICEX) grew by 7.9% according to the 2015 data. Nevertheless all Western analysts maintain that the worst is over for the Russian economy. All Russian macroeconomic data and statistics point to a significant growth of exports throughout the second half of 2016, while the strategic link between the growth of the Iranian economy, after the JCPOA signature, and the increase in Russian oil and non-oil exports, makes us think that Russia used its military forces in Syria well, also at domestic geoeconomic level. In all likelihood, the rational solution taken by the Russian government was the increase in oil and gas taxes decided in 2014.This 15% increase in the oil and gas taxes allowed to reduce the tax burden on other Russian productive sectors, more oriented to the internal market and, in the future, to exports.

Another Russian rational decision was to make the ruble fluctuate, so as to save on currency reserves and better absorb the downward shock of oil prices. Hence more rubles for oil and gas units exported, with a longer duration of the reserve fund. All while the public deficit, already low by current Western standards, can be easily covered by the issue of government debt securities for the domestic capital market. Basically the Russian economic crisis, which had been planned to "file Russian strategic nails" is now over and the Russians’ infinite patience mentioned by Tolstoj will do the rest. After the sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation in 2014 and the drop in oil prices, which have delayed recovery, also the World Bank has predicted a slow improvement of Russia’s economy. Hence, a timid growth which, according to US analysts, will be based particularly on the fiscal and monetary policies of President Putin’s elite.

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Moreover, despite persisting sanctions, the Russian Federation is using the weak ruble to expand nonoil exports, which are already rising especially after the agreements between Russia and China and between Russia and the Eurasian Customs Union. However, which is the link between the Russian economic adjustment underway and its current and future geopolitics? Perhaps the key factor lies in the creation of a new political and military entity, namely the Russian National Guard, recently established by President Putin. In principle, it is the merger of various pre-existing armed structures and units. As many as 170,000 soldiers from the troops of the Ministry for Internal Affairs; an unreported amount of staff coming from the Ministry for Emergency Situations; 40,000 operational units of the OMON police forces, specialized in managing and suppressing riots; 5,500 officials of the SOBR rapid- reaction forces, in addition to the Operational Reaction Forces and Aviation of the Ministry for Internal Affairs, selected by its Special Designation Center, including the Zubr, Rys and Iastreb Special Forces units. In the latter case we speak of at least 800 military men available for the new structure. Therefore the total number of the National Guard military staff will range between 250,000 and 300,000 units. The Guard’s tasks and functions will be managing and preventing problems of public order, combating terrorism and taking actions against "extremist" groups, namely the Chechen gangs and the future protesters in the future "orange revolutions" almost certainly planned by the West against Russia. Then, the Guard will be responsible for homeland defense and security; the protection of State structures and special internal and foreign transport; the protection of the assets and companies of Russian

citizens and organizations approved by the Government; the support to border troops, that are traditionally an integral part of the Russian Intelligence Services; the fight against arms traﬃcking; the command of all National Guard troops and finally the protection of men and means of the Guard itself. Hence the whole internal security will be entrusted to the National Guard and this will obviously relieve the Russian internal and foreign Intelligence Services of a whole range of traditional and routine tasks. President Putin wants a more geostrategic intelligence, less overburden with public order tasks, and this is a lesson we should learn also in Italy and in the West. Some people think that President Putin wants to create a "personal army", but the Russian President’s power is such that it is thought that he does not certainly need this new Guard only to strengthen his personal power, which is already pervasive and without any credible internal opposition. Conversely, in all likelihood, with this new military organization, President Putin wants to avoid the coalescence of two dangers he sees looming over the Russian Federation’s near future. These dangers are the imported jihad and the sequence of the various orange revolutions which, even combined with Islamist terrorism, could destabilize Russia permanently and make it viable for the financial and strategic interests of the West. Probably President Putin is convinced that the United States and some US allies may make Russia pay a very high price for its ongoing engagement in Syria and the Middle East, which is the real game changer of contemporary geopolitics.

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Not to mention the fact that, by opening its SyrianMediterranean front, the Russian Federation knocks out and bypasses the whole military network that NATO and the United States are placing along the Russian Federation’s land borders, from Estonia to Poland and the Czech Republic, up to Romania. Certainly Putin thinks that this is a challenge which is worth a slow and relentless internal destabilization of the Russian society and politics. This would also explain the "free hand" given by the Russian leader to the internal Services with the creation of the new Guard. Hence the Services would now find it much easier to take actions to face external and internal threats to the Russian Federation’s political (and economic) system. The designated Head of the new National Guard is General Viktor Zolotov, former Head of the President’s Security Service. A man certainly trusted by Putin and a great intelligence expert. Zolotov was born in 1964 and is a member of the Russian Security Council, an advisory body to the President, reformed in 1996, which meets at least once a month and coordinates the Russian Federation’ security, in close cooperation with the Services’ leadership. In the past he was the bodyguard of Anatoly Sobchak, the mayor of St. Petersburg, who protected President’s Putin first steps in the very complex post-Soviet era. Member of the KGB "active reserve", as Putin, Zolotov was given up for dead several times but, as often happens in the great Russian intelligence game, he is obviously alive and "operational."

In the 2000 "siloviki war" (the siloviki are the former KGB members), which was a war between some groups of agents of the old Services and the inner circle of the already powerful Putin, Zolotov stood with the losers, the men of Viktor Cherkesov against the siloviki Nikolai Patrushev and Igor Sechin. Zolotov was later "forgiven" by Putin, as the General never made public his positions of "liberal siloviki" who supported Dimitri Medvedev as Putin’ successor in 2008. Later Zolotov took command of the forces of the Ministry for Internal Aﬀairs, now led by General Ragozhin, who has fewer ties with President Putin, while the President of the Judo Federation of St. Petersburg, a longtime friend of President Putin, who is a well-known judoka, has been appointed Head of the Military Police. Zolotov’s appointment is also an action of President Putin who intends to bring peace to the vast community of the siloviki, a highly fragmented group as early as his return to the Presidency in 2012. The fight between the former KGB agents regards power, the relationship with the economy and, above all, the struggle for the succession to Vladimir Putin. And this will be the new scenario for which the National Guard seems to be already prepared, although Vladimir Putin has recently indicated that he is likely to run again in the next presidential election.

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LAURA GARRIDO Laura Garrido is currently finishing her Master’s degree in the International Security and Intelligence Studies Program at Bellevue University in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. Her primary research interests cover the post-Soviet space and the fight against radical Islamism.

CAN AMERICA EVER MATCH RUSSIAN CYBER INNOVATION?

n February 2015, James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence in the United States, announced that the appraisal of Russian cyber capability and intention had been elevated, pushing Russia to the number one spot on the list of countries which pose a major cyber-threat to the United States. China held the number one spot for years because of the frequency of attacks on the United States. However, China’s cyberattacks were financially and economically motivated espionage rather than outright physical infrastructure attacks. Also, even though China’s cyberattacks were more frequent, it is believed Russia has more capabilities but has simply chosen not to use them all yet. Clapper also stated that Russian cyber saboteurs, spies, and thieves are widening their attacks against vulnerable American internet infrastructure, which chips away at US wealth and security over time.

Clapper’s intelligence assessment details how Russian cyber actors are creating new ways to remotely hack into industrial control systems that run electrical power grids, urban mass-transit systems, air-traffic control networks, and oil and gas pipelines. According to private-sector cyber security experts, these actors have been able to successfully compromise the product supply chains of three control system vendors so customers unknowingly downloaded exploitative malware directly from the vendors’ websites along with routine software updates. Russia is seen as an unregulated area as well as a safe haven for the development and spread of malicious codes around the world.According to senior Russian military oﬃcials, its Ministry of Defense is establishing its own cyber command that will be responsible for conducting oﬀensive cyber activities, such as propaganda operations and inserting malware into enemy command and control systems.

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A specialized branch for computer network operations is also being established by Russia’s armed forces. This is the consequence of a national security legacy, as Russia was one of the first nations to move assertively into the cyber sphere. In 1998, long before most nations even began thinking about cyber-security, the Kremlin established “Directorate K” to begin operations to monitor and defend against hackers and spammers. However, in recent years, Directorate K has taken on a more offensive role in the digital sphere. Russia has been cyber-attacking the United States for several years. In 1999, it was discovered that the Moonlight Maze virus had been stealing information from the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, NASA, and military contractors for two years. In early 2015, Russia hackers were able to access an unclassified server of the US Department of State. Through this they were able to penetrate sensitive areas of the White House computer system and access information such as the real-time nonpublic details of President Barack Obama’s schedule. The FBI, the Secret Service, and United States intelligence community overall are all involved in investigating the breach and say that it was one of the most sophisticated attacks ever launched against American governmental computer systems.

Russia was also able to hack into systems at the Pentagon in July 2015. The sophisticated cyberattack affected nearly 4,000 federal employees when it shut down the Pentagon’s unclassified email system for the Joint Staff for nearly two weeks. The attack was carried out through the use of encrypted accounts on social media and officials at the Department of Defense stated that the attack involved “new and unseen approaches into the network.Fortunately, only unclassified accounts and emails were involved so no classified information was accessed or taken from the network. These cyberattack threats from Russia are a major concern for the United States because they undermine United States economic competitiveness and its fundamental belief in maintaining the secrecy of national security information. As of now, a “cyber armageddon” is not a high risk, but low to moderatelevel attacks over time could pose serious financial security risks to the United States. In the US alone, international hacking has cost, on average, between 25 billion to 100 billion dollars annually. In 2008, cyber espionage, including industrial espionage, intellectual property theft, and theft of trade secrets caused the loss of more than one trillion dollars worldwide, with Russia always being cited as one of the main perpetrators. Russia’s tactics of using cyber-attacks to block any and all communications from within a nation-state and its ever increasing innovative capabilities could have a significant negative impact on United States’ security and interests. What the real question seems to be is not so much can Russia be stopped but does the United States have the talent pool to create similar cadres capable of matching the same innovation emerging from Russia. Classified information and state secrets aside, the jury on that question, quite frankly, remains out.

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SPYMKR PCEMKR

ThE POssIbLE FUTURE OF AMERICAN-IRANIAN-sAUDI TRIANgULATION DR. MATTHEW CROSSTON Advisory Board Vice-Chairman, Caspian Project Director Matthew Crosston is Professor of Political Science, Director of the International Security and Intelligence Studies Program, and the Miller Chair at Bellevue University

Dear Iran ,

orgive the presumptuousness of thinking a mere American Intelligence Studies professor is able to give a few lessons about innovative geostrategy to a foreign state, but sometimes it takes eyes on the outside, far away from the forest, to be able to see unique young saplings that have the potential to grow into great redwoods, even though they may currently be completely ignored. I believe this is just such the case today when we look at the global position of Iran as it considers the many diďŹ&#x20AC;erent paths and perspectives moving forward after the JCPOA. If I am being honest, so far the outlook appears less-than-rosy, as the same old-same old seems to be dominating. For the sake of the greatest future of Iran and a more peaceful global community, status quo orthodoxy should be discarded.

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Sometimes it must seem utterly comedic trying to navigate the relationship waters with the West. Since the signing of the JCPOA there have been half a dozen accusations from EACH side protesting how the spirit if not the letter of the accord has been breached. America, for its part, seems to exhibit something akin to ‘signer’s remorse,’ more obsessed about finding areas to critique the Islamic Republic rather than emphasizing how to work successfully within this new and exciting dialogue. Iran, for its part, feels strain from all sides, inside and out: internally, the domestic authorities want to tightly manage and maximize the success to be gained out of the accord in a competent and non-chaotic way (without any major political change); externally, many diﬀerent foreign sides not-so-secretly hope the accord becomes the actual undoing of the government, a facilitator of local unrest and creator of a new regime, exorcising for America at least the ghosts of 1979. And thus, the frustrating banality of politics: overdetermined to make the status quo immutable. American worries about not trusting Iran are as common and inane as Iranian worries about not trusting the United States. The JCPOA could and should be a spur for new thinking and new engagement. So far, on that note, it has been basically irrelevant. It is perhaps even understandable why that is so: Iran sees the greatest capitalization of the accord to be about increasing its economic stability and prosperity. It no doubt will do just that. But it could also do so much more. But that will require both sides, American and Iranian, to be willing to see the future in a more innovative geostrategic light and be less enslaved to the old orthodoxy where the two simply must remain adversaries.

It does not have to be that way. In fact, if people on either side could take a moment to step back and breathe, then the INEVITABILITY of this transformation would be more apparent. Yes, I said ‘inevitability’ and meant it: a new day will come. The only real question is will the leaders in Washington and Tehran take advantage of it? One of the biggest relationship elephants in terms of making such change between Iran and America is Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the ‘special’ relationship between the US and Saudi royal family now goes back decades. While both sides have always emphasized the strategic defense aspects of the relationship how the Saudis have been a de facto ‘silent aﬃrmer’ of American interests in the region, the Islamic partner Americans can work with - this has come with a steep cost: the political development of Saudi society, the evolution of its governmental system and emergence of civil liberties and citizen rights has been, to put it kindly, abysmally glacial. While many military figures would characterize this as a necessary evil to maintain a major power Islamic partner in the area, the true reality is that this moral turpitude is better explained by the economic energy dependence from which America has been unable to wean itself away and which the Saudis have brilliantly maintained and managed. Until now. And this is where the biggest opportunity sits hidden for Iran. America has finally managed to position itself to where it is at least realistic to see a near future where it is not overly dependent on foreign fossil fuels. This means the ‘special’ relationship with Saudi Arabia is inevitably going to undergo great change. Trust me.

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When the day comes that the United States no longer sees Saudi Arabia as an essential lynchpin in feeding the energy needs that power its global economic primacy, then the very next day will mark the rewriting of the Saudi-American relationship. Saudi Arabia seems to recognize this better than most: just observe some of its more self-injurious oil pricing decisions over the last several years and most recent declarations about the country’s need to push away from natural resource dependency and be more economically ‘diverse.’ So what will you do, Iran, when this comes to pass? Do you see this for the immense opportunity that it is or have you been ignoring it, determined to remain stuck in a status quo where America remains the so-called ‘Great Satan’ while you remain the hub of a supposed ‘axis of evil?’ Rightly or wrongly, the responsibility to create that new future with America rests on your shoulders. But will you take it?

As America moves oﬀ away from this foreign economic energy dependence, a political and diplomatic vacuum will emerge in the Islamic world. Who is going to fill it? Who will be the next great Islamic partner for America? Who can be? There are few true contenders. Honestly, there really have been only two: Iran and Saudi Arabia. Political relevance, military capability, economic potential, and cultural influence have always made you two the natural rivals for regional hegemony and American attention. One only need look at the situation in Yemen to understand how much this is true and dangerous when mismanaged. The unique economic relationship between Saudi Arabia and America in the post-Cold War basically shut you out, Iran, and your resentment over that fact (along with the endless sanctions) did not exactly encourage your best or most innovative behavior to enact change.

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That same reality has also powered an American blindness to certain disturbing behaviors from the Saudi side, whether that be reckless suppression domestically, clumsy maneuvers against civilian areas in Yemen, or the Faustian bribing of local radical extremists that basically meant the Kingdom de facto exported terrorism abroad in order to keep greater calm at home. But as I said, those days are the old orthodoxy. Maintaining it is egregiously short-sighted and a bit bull-headed. This is of course how most governments in the world tend to initially behave even when a new, better path appears before them. Oh how we rely on our status quo. Can you do diﬀerently, Iran, or are you just as much a slave to it as everyone else? I am not naïve. I know that the only way an initiative from you, Iran, would be received more promisingly from the United States is if you worried just a little bit less about political change within your own borders. It is a disconcerting prospect, most assuredly. On the one hand, you have China as an example of how change can be embraced and fostered without tremendous political upheaval. While the United States criticizes that pace of change, that is just America being America. Sometimes it cannot get out of its own way. But on the other hand, you have what was once the Soviet Union, an example of what happens when change dictates to a state rather than the other way around. You probably surmise: if we cannot guarantee the Chinese path for ourselves, we cannot risk the Soviet one. It is a damnable conundrum, no doubt.

But your great progress and positive change on the global stage can only come through such risks, by endeavoring to navigate through such conundrums and emerge on the other side. Your current path, where you think you can maximize the JCPOA while maintaining an adversarial relationship with the United States (and thus, consequently, guaranteeing American resistance to your very progress), is untenable. More importantly, it’s unnecessary. So here I sit, in the odd position of suggesting how two ‘enemies’ should actually look beyond their respective noses to see how much better oﬀ each will be as partners moving forward. Many assume that those of us within Intelligence Studies deal only in subterfuge, in deceit and deception. ‘Spymakers’ cannot be trusted, after all. But that is Hollywood hyperbole, where the real world suddenly thinks it is a mirror reflecting the fake world of Bond and Bourne. In truth, the best form of Intelligence Studies is simply gaining new insights from information and thus opening up new pathways to inflict LESS damage, not more. In the end, our mission is not to create chaos but curtail it. An American-Iranian partnership would be the best curtailing. And so, Supreme Leader, if a ‘spymaker’ can be a peacemaker without contradiction or hypocrisy, then why can’t Iran be a partner to America? It can. It should. Seize the opportunity.

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TRANSCAUCASIAN SEPARATISM KOsOvO BOOMERANg PROF. DR. VLADISLAV B. SOTIROVIC Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania Faculty of Politics and Management Institute of Political Science www.sotirovic.eu vladislav[at]sotirovic.eu

t the very beginning of April 2016 the armed conflict between the Armenian and the Azerbaijani militaries was shortly renewed over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an autonomous province within Azerbaijan but in fact under direct military control by Armenia. This event once again opened the question of the legitimacy of similar self-proclaimed independence cases around the world and international (non)recognition of such de facto quasi- and clientstates (Transnistria, North Cyprus, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, West Sahara, South Sudan, East Timorâ&#x20AC;Ś). However, from the European perspective, three cases from the Caucasus (Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia) have to be firstly analysed in comparison with the Balkan case of Kosovo.

A DOMINO EFFECT After February 2008 when Kosovo Albanian-dominated parliament proclaimed Kosovo independence (without organizing a referenda) with obvious U.S. diplomatic support (unilateral recognition) with explanation that Kosovo case is unique in the World (i.e., it will be not repeated again) one can ask the question: is the problem of southern Serbian province of Kosovo really unique and surely unrepeatable in some other parts of the world as U.S. administration was trying to convince the rest of the international community? Consequences of recognition of Kosovo independence by one (smaller) part of the international community are already (and going to be in the future) visible primarily in the Caucasus because of the very similar problems and situation in these two regions.

At the Caucasus (where around 50 diﬀerent ethnolinguistic groups are living together) self-proclaimed independence already was done by Abkhazia and South Ossetia during their wars of 1991−1993 against the central authorities of Georgia but up to the mid-2008 both of these two separatist regions from Georgia were not internationally recognized by any state in the world. The region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which proclaimed its own independence in 1991 from Azerbaijan with a full military and political support by Armenia, was also not recognized before Kosovo independence. We have to remember that separatist movements in the Caucasus in the 1990s occurred at the time when Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaimed their own independence from Yugoslavia and have been soon recognized as the independent states and even became accepted members of the Council of Europe and the United Nations.

However, only several months after self-proclaimed independence of Kosovo on February 17th, 2008 a wave of recognition of three Caucasus separatist states started as a classic example of a domino effect policy in the international relations. It has to be noticed that the experts from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed even in 2007 their real fear that in the case of U.S. and E.U. unilateral recognition of Kosovo independence the same unilateral diplomatic act could be implied by Russia (and other countries) by recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a matter of diplomatic compensation and as result of domino effect in the international relations. It is also known and from official O.S.C.E. sources that the Russian delegates in this pan-European security organization have been constantly warning before 2008 the West that such scenario is quite possible, but with one peculiarity: from 2007 they stopped to mention a possibility of Russian recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh’s selfproclaimed independence in 1991. It was most probably for the reason that Moscow did not want to spoil good relations with Azerbaijan – a country with huge reserves of natural gas and oil. KOSOVO Kosovo is the Balkan region which became during the last 150 years contested land between the Serb and Albanian nationalisms. The region (for the Serbs Kosovo and Metochia, for the Albanians Kosova or Kosovë), however, has different historical and national-cultural importance for these two nations. For the Serbs, Kosovo is the “cradle of Serbia”– a central and pivotal land in regard to their statehood and national identity as before the Ottoman occupation of Serbia in the mid-15th century it was exactly Kosovo to be administrative, political, cultural, religious and economic centre of the medieval Serbia.

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However, diﬀerently to the Serb case, for the Albanians this region was all the time of the marginal importance concerning their national identity and particularly statehood. That became the crucial reason why the Great European Powers did not include Kosovo into the newly (and for the first time in history) self-proclaimed the independent state of Albania (on November 28th, 1912) but recognized Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia after the Balkan Wars 1912−1913. Kosovo was the birthplace of Serbia as the powerful state but also and the place were Serbia lost its real independence to the Ottoman Turks after the Battle of Kosovo on June 28th, 1389. Contrary, the region means simply nothing for the Albanian statehood, but it became a birthplace of the Albanian territorial nationalism as it was the town of Prizren in Kosovo where in June 1878 the (First Albanian) Prizren League declared a Greater (Islamic) Albania as an autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire composed by Albania itself, Kosovo, the West Macedonia, the East Montenegro and the North-West Greece. This megalomania project, nevertheless, left up today to be for all kinds of the Albanian chauvinistic nationalists as the cornerstone of their political ideology of a Greater and ethnically pure (Islamic) Albania. This process of purification of Kosovo on both ethnic and confessional bases started by the Muslim Albanians immediately after the Prizren League session in 1878 and was continued during the WWII within the borders of Mussolini’s created Greater Albania when up to 20.000 Cristian Serbs were killed in the region followed by at least 100.000 expelled Serbs. The Albanian terror against the Serbs was legalized by the Yugoslav authorities at the time of Kosovo’s very broad autonomy (in fact independence) from 1974 to 1989 but it received a form of genocide

on Serbs and all other non-Albanians from the time of the N.A.T.O.’s occupation of Kosovo in June 1999 up today (the British, U.S., German, Italian and French military forces occupied a diﬀerent sectors of Kosovo). As a consequence, the ethnic Albanians today compose 97% of Kosovo’s population compared with only 2% in 1455 (according to the first Ottoman census). On the other hand, Kosovo’s Albanians were politically oppressed by the Serb-led regimes during the interwar time (1919−1941), first two decades after the WWII and during the government of Slobodan Milosevic in the years of 1989−1998. However, for the matter of comparison, the Serb oppression had as a single aim just to prevent territorial separation of Kosovo from the rest of Serbia while the Albanian terror was inspired by much serious national goal: to ethnically clean Kosovo as a part of a Greater Albania.

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SOUTH OSSETIA On the first glance it can be said that the Orthodox South Ossetians are equally separatist as the Muslim Kosovo Albanians. However, the South Ossetians are having sympathies towards the Serbs (not because both of them are the Orthodox) but not towards, as we could expect, separatist Kosovo Albanians. The real reason of such sympathies are similar legal state rights applied by both the Serbs in Kosovo and the South Ossetians – the only European nation in the Caucasus. Historically, South Ossetia (like Abkhazia) was never integral part of sovereign Georgian state, differently with Kosovo in its historical relations with Serbia as Kosovo was not only integral, but culturally and politically the most important and even administratively central region of the medieval Serbian state till 1455 when Kosovo became occupied by the Ottomans and a such away separated from the rest of Serbia. Shortly, Kosovo before the Ottoman occupation was historical, political, administrative, cultural and church centre of Serbia populated before 1700 exclusively by the Serbs (the Albanians came to Kosovo from Albania after 1700). However, in comparison with Kosovo-Serbia relation case, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were never of any kind of centres of any kind of Georgian state as all the time they have been provincial (occupied) regions of Georgia even populated by different ethnolinguistic groups. Moreover, Georgia itself was never before entered Russia at the very beginning of the 19th century strongly and definitely united state territory, also differently to Serbia which up to its lost independence in 1459 was profoundly united with Kosovo as its national and state centre.

Also, diﬀerently with Georgia, Serbia by herself and Russian military and diplomatic support regained her state de facto independence during the Serbian Revolution of 1804−1815 against the Ottoman Empire while Georgia was waiting to regain its own state independence for the time of self-destruction of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. It has to be noticed that the present day territory of Georgia entered Russia in parts – segment by segment. Ossetia as united territory (not divided into Northern and Southern as today situation is) became voluntarily part of the Russian Empire in 1774. The Russian Empress Catherin the Great (1762−1796), in order to be surely convinced that the Ossetians are really independent, before incorporation of this province into the Russian Empire sent a special commission which informed St. Petersburg that “the Ossetians are free people subordinated to no one” (what means not under any kind of the Georgian rule or subordination!). Georgia itself became part of Russian Empire in 1804 (27 years later then Ossetia) being before that from 1783 a protectorate of the Russian Empire. This fact is the most important argument used by the South Ossetians in their dispute with the Georgian authorities. Diﬀerently to the Ossetians, Kosovo Albanians such argument do not have in relation to the Serbs. In is known that the Albanians started to settle themselves at the region of Kosovo from the present-day Northern Albania only after the First Serbian Great Migration from the region in 1689. It should be said as well that, according to several Byzantine and Arab sources, the Balkan Albanians are originating from the Caucasus Albania.

In the other words, the Caucasus Albanians left in the 9th century their homeland (Dagestan and Azerbaijan) and have been settled by the Arabs in the West Sicily and the South Italy which they left in 1043 and came to the Balkans (to the present-day Central Albania). It means that the Albanians are not authentic Balkan people diďŹ&#x20AC;erently to the Serbs who are most probably one of the oldest Balkan nations (the aboriginal Balkan Illyrians). Georgia declared its independence during the Russian Civil War in 1918, but became occupied by the Bolshevik Red Army in 1921. Georgia joined the U.S.S.R. next year as a part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Republic together with Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, Georgia became a separate Soviet Republic in 1936 like Armenia and Azerbaijan. The southern part of Ossetia (together with Abkhazia) was given to be administered by Georgia by decision of three Georgian Communists â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Jughashvili), Sergei Ordzonikidze and Avelj Enukindze.

Nevertheless, between two parts of Ossetia (North and South) never was a state border before 1994.The people of South Ossetia on the referendum upon destiny of the U.S.S.R. on March 17th, 1991 voted for existence of Soviet Union (like the Serbs upon Yugoslavia, but and Kosovo Albanians on illegal referendum to become independent from Serbia like Georgians from the U.S.S.R.) that was a month before Georgia became independent from the USSR. The referendum on March 17th, 1991 was organized two months after the Georgian army started the war against South Ossetia in which till September of the same year 86 Ossetian villages have been burned. It is calculated that more than 1.000 Ossetians lost their lives and around 12.000 Ossetians emigrated from the South to the North Ossetia. This is the point of similarity with expelled around 250.000 Serbs from Kosovo by the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army after the NATO peacekeeping troops entered this province in June 1999 and legalized Muslim Albanian terror over the Christian Serbs and other non-Albanians.

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An Independence of the Republic of South Ossetia was proclaimed on May 29th, 1992. However, this legal act has not been understood as a “separatist” because at that time Georgia was not recognized by no one state in the world as an independent one and Georgia was not a member of the United Nations. Oppositely to the South Ossetian case, Kosovo Albanian unilateral independence proclamation on February 18th, 2008 cannot be treated by the international community as a legal one (at least without a direct permission by Belgrade) as Kosovo by the international law and agreements is still an integral part of Serbia. Moreover, Serbia (differently from Georgia in May 1992) is internationally recognized independent state and a member of the United Nations. This is and common point of similarity between the Ossetians and the Serbs: both of them are fighting against separation of one part of national body and land from the motherland (Ossetia and Serbia).

Subsequently, at least one third of Abkhazian population opposed its integration into the independent Georgia in 1991. The conflict with Georgian central authorities started when the troops of the Muslim volunteers from neighbouring territories, but mainly from Chechnya, helped the local Abkhazian Muslims in their struggle against Tbilisi security forces. Georgia at that time was already involved into the civil war against the Ossetian separatists and for that reason seriously weakened. As a result of the conflict with the Abkhazian separatists, Tbilisi, which lost all control over Abkhazia, was finally forced to accept to be militarily defeated and therefore compelled to start political negotiations on extensive autonomy status of Abkhazia within sovereign Georgia. Ultimately, the negotiations between the Abkhazian government and Georgia became futile, and a very fragile peace was achieved under the civil supervision of the UN observers and the Russian military troops as a guarantor of the peace-treaty implementation.

ABKHAZIA Abkhazia is a Caucasian province that was a part of the ex-USSR in the form of an Autonomous Soviet Republic within the Soviet Republic of Georgia. However, in comparison with Kosovo status as an Autonomous Province within Serbia from 1974 to 1989, Abkhazia did not reach even half of the rights and power as Kosovo had: President, Assembly, police forces, Academy of Science and Arts, Constitution (in direct opposition to the Constitution of Serbia) and even Territorial Defence forces (in fact the provincial army). Nevertheless, in April 1991 Abkhazia became a part of the self-proclaimed independent state of the Republic of Georgia, against the will of both the Abkhazian population of the Islamic denomination (at that time 18% out of all Abkhazian inhabitants) and Abkhazian Russianspeakers (14%).

Georgia was obviously week to recover political control over the separatist republic of Abkhazia in the 1990s. The President Eduard Shevardnadze was ultimately only able to restore some order within Georgia which was at that time under de facto Russian protection and therefore with implicit politicalmilitary assistance by Russia. As a consequence, Shevardnadze signed an agreement with Russia on allowance of 20.000 Russian military troops to be present in two Georgian separatist republics alongside with the Russian right to use Georgia’s Black Sea port of Poti.The economic background of such pro-Russian policy by Shevardnadze is understood from the fact that at that time Georgia was in desperate need of direct Russian economic assistance that is quite visible from the very fact that in 1994 Georgia’s GDP declined to only 25% of its pre-independence level.

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As a direct Russian economic and financial help, Georgia’s economy became soon stabilized with controlled inflation and state spending reigned in. Nevertheless, it was clear that Georgia can maintain at least a formal authority over both South Ossetia and Abkhazia only being within the Russian sphere of influence in the region of Transcaucasia. Any change of the side would bring and de facto separation of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Tbilisi what in fact happened in reality in 2008 due to (irrational) pro-American policy by Mikhail Saakashvili – a leader of 2003 Georgian coloured revolution (the Rose Revolution) which finally removed Shevardnadze from power but six years later and Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia. INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNING AND SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS

It was quite visible in March 2004 when international organizations and military troops could not (i.e. did not want to) protect ethnic Serbs in Kosovo The main argument for the western politicians upon from violent attacks organized by the local AlbaniKosovo independence in 2008, as an “unique case” ans when during three days (March 17−19th) 4,000 of Kosovo situation, is the fact that according to “Ku- Serbs exiled, more than 800 Serbian houses are set manovo Agreement” between Serbia and the on fire followed by 35 destroyed or severely damN.A.T.O. signed on June 10th, 1999, and the U.N. aged Serbian Orthodox churches and cultural monResolution 1244 (following this agreement), Kosovo uments. was put under the U.N. protectorate with imposed international system of governing and security. The “2004 March Pogrom” revealed the real situaHowever, such “argument” does not work in the tion in the region of Kosovo – a region which had case of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as the Ossetians to be under the eﬀective protection by the internaand Abkhazians are governing their lands by them- tional community. The position of the South Osseselves and much more successfully in comparison tians in the independent Georgia from 1991 to with “internationally” (i.e. the N.A.T.O.) protected August 2008 could be compared with position of Kosovo. the Serbs in Kosovo after June 1999.

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Diﬀerently with Kosovo case after June 1999, or even after February 2008, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria showed much more political-legal bases to be recognized as the independent states as they showed real ability to govern themselves by only themselves but not by the international organizations as it is in the case of Kosovo. They also proved much more democracy and respect for human and minority rights in comparison with the Albanian-ruled Kosovo Republic which is in fact transformed into the Islamic State of Kosovo (Kosovo I.S.I.L.). NAGORNO-KARABAKH The region of Nagorno-Karabakh is the most contested conflict-area in Trancaucasia during the last three decades. It became a part of Azerbaijan with an autonomous status in 1936 within the Soviet Union but not a part of Armenian Socialist Republic established as such also in 1936 as one of 15 socialist republics of the U.S.S.R. During the whole time of the existence of the Soviet Union there were tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia over enclave (province) of Nagorno-Karabakh which was at the Soviet time populated by Islamic Azeri majority and the Christian Orthodox Armenian minority. However, the enclave was historically with majority of the Armenian population but due to the Islamic terror the Christian Armenians became a minority on their own land what happen as the same with the Christian Orthodox Serbs in Kosovo in relations to the Muslim Albanians. For the Armenians, Nagorno-Karabakh enclave was unjustifiably separated from Armenia by the Soviet authorities and included into Azerbaijan in order to keep good political relations with neighbouring Turkey.

The Serbs, similarly to the Armenians in regard to Nagorno-Karabakh, were complaining about the same practice with regard to Kosovo status from 1974 to 1989 when the “cradle of Serbia” was practically teared oﬀ from the rest of the motherland and granted actual independence from Serbia having much stronger relations with the neighbouring Albania than with Serbia. The frictions between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh ultimately led to the open bloody war mostly within the enclave which started in 1989 when the central Soviet authorities already have been in the process of collapsing. The war led in 1993 to the Armenian occupation of NagornoKarabakh and some strategic territory of Azerbaijan. Consequently, Armenia became cut oﬀ from Azerbaijani oil supplies and as naturally being devoid of mineral resources or fertile soil Armenian economy collapsed in the mid-1990s. For instance, Armenian GDP had fallen to 33% of its 1990 level followed by the inflation of 4000%. Naturally, as politically supported by Moscow, the Armenian economy became mostly oriented toward Russia: for instance, 60% of Armenia’s export went to the Russian market. Up today, Armenia was not directly attacked by Turkey exactly for the reason that it is politically but also and militarily protected by Russia whose armed forces are located on the territory of Armenia nearby Turkey’s border. There are several similarities but also and great dissimilarities between conflicts upon NagornoKarabakh in Transcaucasia and Kosovo at the Balkans.

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In both cases the international community is dealing with autonomy of compact national minority who is making a majority on the land in question and already having its own national independent state which is bordering this contested territory. Both NagornoKarabakh Armenians and Kosovo Albanians do not want to accept any other solution except separation and internationally recognized independence. Both conflicts are in fact continuations of old historic struggles between two diﬀerent civilizations: the Muslim Turkish and the Christian Byzantine. In both conflicts the international organizations are included as the mediators. Some of them are the same France, U.S.A. and Russia as members of both Contact Groups for ex-Yugoslavia and Minsk Group under the O.S.C.E. umbrella for Azerbaijan. Both Serbia and Azerbaijan have been against that their problem-cases (Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh) would be proclaimed by some kind of the “international community” (the U.N., the E.U., the O.S.C.E., etc.) as the “unique” cases as it would be (as the Kosovo Albanians already proved on February 18th, 2008) a green light to the Albanian and the Armenian separatists to secede their territories from Serbia and Azerbaijan without permission given by Belgrade and Baku.

However, there are and significant diﬀerences between Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh cases. Kosovo is internal conflict within Serbia (which is after June 1999 internationalized) but in the case of Nagorno-Karabakh we have to speak about external military aggression (by Armenia). In diﬀerence to Armenia in relation to Nagorno-Karabakh, Albania formally never accepted any legal act in which Kosovo was called as integral part of state territory of Albania (with historical exception during the Second World War when Kosovo, the East Montenegro and the West Macedonia have been included into Mussolini’s sponsored and protected “Greater Albania”).

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Delegation from Albania did not take any participation in the talks and negotiations upon the “final” status of Kosovo between Pristina and Belgrade in 2007, while Armenia has official status of “interested side” in the conflict concerning Nagorno-Karabakh. However, the Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh such status still did not obtain. Official regular army of Albania never was involved in Kosovo conflict (differently from great number of volunteers from Albania), while Armenia’s army (i.e. from the state of Armenia) was directly involved in the military operations in Nagorno-Karabakh from the very beginning of the conflict, but officially part of the independent state of Azerbaijan. As a result, Armenia occupied 1/5 of Azerbaijani territory and the victims of ethnic cleansing are primarily the Azeri as more than one million of them are being displaced as a result of the hostilities.

Diﬀerently to the case of Nagorno-Karabakh’s conflict, in which the main victims became a former majority population (the Muslim Azeri), in Kosovo case the principal victims of the war are the Christian Serbs as a minority population of the province. Nevertheless, diﬀerently from Kosovo case, weaker Azerbaijani side did not apply to the N.A.T.O. for the military help, but a weaker Albanian side did it during the Kosovo conflict in 1998−1999 and only due to the N.A.T.O.’s military intervention on the Albanian side and direct military occupation of Kosovo after the war it was possible for the Albanians to commit almost a full scale of the ethnic cleansing of the province during the first five years after the war (up to the end of March 2004).

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CONCLUSIONS

Furthermore, in 2012 (four years after Kosovo’s independence proclamation), a member of Uruguay’s foreign relations committee stated that his country could recognize Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence and the Parliament of New South Wales (Australia) called upon the Australian government to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh. Two other Transcaucasian separatist republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia became like Nagorno-Karabakh recognized after Kosovo’s independence proclamation in 2008 by several states and quasi-states: Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Abkhazia and South Ossetia (each other).

It can be concluded that the Albanian unilaterally proclaimed Kosovo independence in February 2008 is not at all “unique” case in the world without direct consequences to similar separatist cases following the “domino eﬀect” (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, South Sudan...). That is the real reason why, for instance, the government of Cyprus is not supporting “Kosovo Albanian rights to self-determination” as the next “unique” case can be easily northern (Turkish) part of Cyprus which is by the way already recognized by the Republic of Turkey and under de facto Ankara’s protection. Or even the better example: the Spanish government does not want to recognize Kosovo independence for the very “Catalan” In sum, Kosovo’s independence proclamation in reason as a domino eﬀect of separatism can be eas- February 2008 became in fact not “precedent” as the U.S.’s and the E.U.’s administration declared: it beily spilled over to the Iberian Peninsula. came rather a boomerang example of “domino efThere are around 200 territorial-national separatist fect” in the international relations. The case of movements around the world for whom the case of Crimea in 2014 was in this respect quite clear: the Kosovo “precedent” is going to serve as the best Crimean popular self-determination rights to sepamoral and legal foundation for their own independ- rate peninsula from Ukraine and to become part of ence. Subsequently, the Republic of Nagorno- Russia were at least formally founded on the same Karabakh is recognized by now by three non-U.N.’s rights used by Kosovo’s Albanians (as majority in the member states according to Kosovo’s pattern: province) to proclaim the state independence from Serbia. Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

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STEPHEN SARTY Stephen Sarty is a graduate student in the International Security and Intelligence Studies program at Bellevue University in Omaha, NE, USA. He is a former U.S. Marine and has lived and worked in the Middle East for the last 23 years.

NORTH KOREA & INDONESIA AS ‘MENTORS’ FOR IRAN

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ince the revolution, Iranian politics have progressed through a number of phases, becoming progressively more splintered as time passes, where the question of which identity for the nation - whether to continue as a purely Islamic theocratic state or to move towards a more open Islamic Democratic Republic - plays out. Internally, many of Iran’s political factions believe strongly that the future of the state is in deepening Iran’s relations with the outside world and drastically improving its own economy. In that regard, if one were to take a more holistic view in determining what lessons Iran could learn from other nations with regards to their various approaches to the same questions, one can certainly draw interesting conclusions from countries like North Korea and Indonesia to see how their experiences have helped or hurt their countries. Inside Iran one of the two main political factions are the ‘Principalists.’ This group represents Iranian Conservatives and is more closely aligned with the Ayatollah and his revolutionary ideology.While they may not like the comparison, this side of Iranian politics tends to prefer an Iran modeled very much in the mold of North Korea. Isolationist and defiant to the greater global world, they oppose such things as the recent nuclear accord and moves toward a more modern lifestyle, combining this with a deep mistrust of the West’s intensions. In North Korea, we see a country that has taken an extreme stance in both its internal and external relations. In exploring its internal politics we see a country where, while its leaders enjoy complete control over the nation’s populace, its people live in absolute poverty, the economy is largely non-existent and in shambles, and the only real means of survival seems to rest on the fact that it possesses a nuclear arsenal and is willing to convince the world it might act irrationally with it.

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On the surface Iran and North Korea have a number of similarities: both regimes were born out of revolutions that were largely founded on anti-imperialist sentiments; both regimes have consistently used the United States as a scapegoat for their own economic woes; and both find the development of a nuclear program, whether for peaceful or military means, at odds with the international community and the source of crippling international denouncement and sanctions. Finally, both are topped by non-democratic leaders, with the Ayatollah firmly entrenched as the Supreme Leader of Iran and Kim Jong-un standing as North Korea’s cult of personality. It is this approach to the nuclear issue within the global community that Iran could look towards North Korea to understand the seriousness of potential consequences if it is unable to find a solution amenable to all. While both nations have multiple layers of political and military leadership beneath them, the two Supreme Leaders share a common role in being the final word throughout all of their nations’ foreign and domestic policies. North Korea, similar to the discussions Iran is currently engaged in, came to an agreement on what the international community felt were acceptable terms with regards to its nuclear program. Adherence to the terms of this agreement would have brought in much needed fuel, food, and financial assistance, creating a major positive impact on the health and well-being of its citizenry. Unfortunately, North Korea’s adherence to the agreement was short-lived and its hardships have worsened. Cut oﬀ from the outside world, North Korea has experienced such severe hardships that some estimates horrifyingly claim up to 15 percent of its population has perished during the most recent economic downturn.

These shortages have caused the nation to attempt to erratically leverage its nuclear position to basically ‘extort’ aid. And so continues the never-ending cycle that causes outside nations to be alarmed at the increasing instability and react by attempting to tighten the diplomatic/economic noose in an effort to displace the NK leadership. With the passage of the JCPOA, Iran stands at a precipice similar to where North Korea once stood: abide by the terms of the agreement and move back into the fold of the international community or depart from the terms and sink deeper into the political and economic abyss. It is sincerely hoped that Iran will prove to be less irrational and less petulant compared to North Korea in reacting to such pressures. The main difference in Iran that could prevent this comparison scenario from continuing in a negative light is the existence of identifiable groups within both the main population and elite levels of government that provide a contrary voice and have the power to effect change. It is this voice of potential grassroots pragmatism that has been effectively silenced within North Korea and possibly has the power to force Iran’s more dogmatic leadership to move along a different trajectory, thus preventing the nation from falling into the same despair as North Korea. In contrast to North Korea, Indonesia, with the world’s largest Muslim community, provides an excellent example of how a democratic nation and Islam can peacefully co-exist within the global environment. For decades Islamic political pressures boiled in Indonesia as we currently see in many Middle Eastern nations today. These forces were kept largely in check by President Suharto’s military regime until the nation, long tired of authoritarian rule, forced Suharto to resign.

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We see some of these same pressures today within Iran as large segments of the population disagree with the powers Khamenei wields over the government and look to eﬀect at least quasi-democratic change. While many worry that Islam and democracy will never be allowed to co-exist in Iran, we have seen this as an unfounded worry inside Indonesia. While the majority of Indonesians are Muslim, the state itself is not considered theocratic. As in Indonesia, we see in Iran a populace that is supportive of such fundamental principles as the freedom of political parties, inclusive suﬀrage, freedom of the press, and a number of other civil rights normally associated with mature consolidated democracies. With an increase in religious and cultural plurality within Iran, the stage could soon be set for a more inclusive form of government similar to the Indonesian path.

Such a successful outcome, however, would require a political disengagement of the current religious leadership that currently sits atop Iran’s power structures. That may well be unattainable at this moment but it is certainly not outside the realm of possibility in the future, through either peaceful or non-peaceful means. Economic hardships combined with Persian nationalism could well force Iran’s leadership to eﬀect change within the state in order to ensure its own political survival, even if at a lessened capacity. Once that door is opened, who knows how swift and dramatic potential changes could be? Peaceful and progressive revolutions aimed at JOINING more tightly to the global community are less noticeable and far harder to predict than strident ideological movements bent on separating further from the international stage. Iran has already had this latter revolution. Now it is time to hope that the former is on the visible horizon.

GREAT POWER JOCKEYING IN THE CASPIAN

The GeoGraphical lynchpin

Kevin Augustine Kevin Augustine is a graduate student in the International Security and Intelligence Studies Program at Bellevue University in Omaha, NE, USA.

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bigniew Brzezinkski defined “Eurasia” as one of the most important geopolitical concepts. He observed, “Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power. A power that dominates “Eurasia” would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over “Eurasia” would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in “Eurasia”, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. “Eurasia” accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.” In the Western sense, when political scientists talk about “Eurasia”, they generally mean Russia. Russia has been marginalized at the edge of a Westerndominated political and economic system and in recent years has begun to stress a geopolitics that puts Russia at the center of a number of axes: European-Asian, Christian-Muslim-Buddhist, Mediterranean-Indian, Slavic-Turkic, and so on. A strategy towards Eurasia is paramount in deterring any Russian aggression in Eurasia.

Russia is one of three states running interference against American objectives in Eurasia, the other two being Iran and China. Russia poses the biggest threat against American objectives in the region due mainly to a supposed historical security imperative to control the Eurasian landmass. However, this explanation doesn’t fully fit the evidence. Russia does not act the way it does based on centuries-old habits. Instead the strategy lies in the much newer habit of senior Russian policymakers who belonged to the all-Union elite before 1991 and have the tendency to see the post-Soviet Eurasian states as though they were still Soviet Socialist Republics, that is, still largely geopolitically beholden to the power of Russia. Probably the biggest and often most overlooked region in Eurasia is the Caspian Sea. If the U.S is to have a grand strategy to deal with Russia and an emboldened Iran, policymakers in Washington cannot ignore the Caspian region for the sake of convenience. The Caspian Sea is important for many reasons and beyond a doubt Russia and Iran are the two biggest actors in the region.Furthermore, China has invested heavily in a number of infrastructure projects in Central Asia and Moscow is keeping a close eye on Beijing’s motives in the region and views Beijing as a potential competitor for influence in the region in the same way Russia sees Iran.

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They are Russian partners, but partners with a tinge of rivalry and tension. The United States has four primary goals in the Caspian region: assisting the Caspian in becoming a stable and secure transit and production zone for energy resources; checking Russian and Iranian meddling in the region so the countries in the region are stable, sovereign, and self-governing; keeping radical Islam out; and resolving the frozen conflicts in the region because Moscow exerts most of its influence through these conflicts. However, even with these interests, U.S. engagement in the region remains minimal. Due to the proximity of the Caspian Sea, out of the five Caspian littoral states of Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, it is easy to see how the regional powers of Iran and Russia are able to exert significant influence in the region. Even Turkey, who is not a Caspian littoral country, is able to exert significant influence. What are China’s motives in the region and how do they compare to those of Iran and Russia? China is always looking for new economic and energy opportunities and that is the main motivation behind its presence in the region. However, as the country becomes increasingly embedded in the Caspian region, the U.S. can expect Beijing to exert considerable influence in the future. Beijing is investing billions of dollars in projects, not only to upgrade and modernize rail networks, pipelines, and roads, but also to encourage cultural exchanges-all with the goal of maximizing Chinese influence in the region. Iran, Russia, and China, in their quest for dominance in the region, are increasingly marginalizing Western influence.

For the most part the actions of these three “quasiadversarial” states are individualistic. The goals of Moscow in the Caspian today and for the foreseeable future are the following: marginalize Western influence in the region; integrate the countries in the region into Russian-backed organizations; discourage outside investment in Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan that could facilitate the flow of oil and gas to Western markets by bypassing Russia; increase economic activity with the other Caspian states; and maintain regional hegemony over Iran. Iran is less active here than it is elsewhere in the Middle East but Tehran is not idle in terms of activity in the Caspian region. Tehran’s policy toward the region relies on three things: more financial resources; less dependency on Russia; and more confidence on the international stage. Now that Iran and the U.S. have reached a compromise on a nuclear deal in Vienna, Iran will have the resources to increase its influence in the Caspian region. Also this will mean less dependency on Russia for support, undermining Russia’s interest in the region. Without a doubt, Russia has a more visible presence in the Caspian region. Russia has the strongest navy and military activity in Caspian waters tends to reflect its strength. Russia participates in virtually every military drill and operation there and much of the equipment used is made by Moscow. The strategic importance and hydrocarbon interest of the Caspian Sea brings all nations involved into semi-tense conflict with each other. As the interest of the countries involved diverge, so too do their naval strategies. Caspian Sea states can and will lead to imminent conflict but the states will also always try to maintain stability as best they can because they understand that instability could invite external intervention-something none of them want.

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Luke Coffey, an expert from the Heritage Foundation, offers a list of steps that America can take to safeguard its political, economic and security interests in the region. He states the U.S. should: show a more visible presence in the region support a peaceful and speedy resolution of Caspian Sea ownership strike a balance between promoting human rights and safeguarding other U.S. strategic interests Offer political support for the construction of the TAPI Offer political support for the construction of the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor project encourage Caspian countries to diversify their economies encourage countries in the region to stay away from Russian-dominated organizations Promote economic freedom in the region engage more with Azerbaijan Help regional countries to improve their security and defense capabilities Counter the rise of Islamist extremist in the region Monitor the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia’s close ties with Russia Discourage Europe from becoming dependent on Iranian oil and gas Provide military and security assistance to all deserving allies in the region

As implied, Russia and Iran have the most influence in the region. Beijing, in its quest for economic and energy opportunities in the region, will soon have considerable influence in the region given its growing status in the world. Russia and Iran have diﬀerent priorities but both share the same goal of reducing the influence of the West. The Caspian region has been, is, and will continue to be an area of geopolitical importance and competition. If the U.S. is to have a grand strategy to deal with a resurgent Russia and an emboldened Iran and to improve Europe’s energy security, policymakers in Washington must recognize that the geographical lynchpin of this future hinges in the Caspian.

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DR. MATTHEW CROSSTON

ANONYMOUS

Advisory Board Vice-Chairman, Caspian Project Director

Anonymous is currently a graduate student in International Security and Intelligence Studies at Bellevue University and works within the US governmental system. The opinions expressed are strictly personal and do not reflect a formal endorsement of or by the United Statesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; government and/or Intelligence Community.

Matthew Crosston is Professor of Political Science, Director of the International Security and Intelligence Studies Program, and the Miller Chair at Bellevue University

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PROGRESSIVE POSITIVITY SCO SECURItY AgENDAS AND tRANSNAtIONAL POLICINg DR. MATTHEW CROSSTON & ANONYMOUS

ooperation between the nations of the SCO on terrorism, separatism, and extremism can be viewed as progressively positive. Russia and China taking the lead across general Central Asian cooperation has been critical in keeping terrorism and extremism from creating safe havens throughout the region. China and Russia establishing consensus and agreeing to tackle drug traﬃcking, financing, and online recruitment in the expansive fight against terrorism and extremism is a big step towards containing the problem regionally. In addition, the SCO’s broader cooperation with Afghanistan, Mongolia, Iran, India, Belarus, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, creates a stronger regional commitment framework against terrorism and extremism. The SCO’s RATS (Regional Anti-terrorism Structure) teams work with the aforementioned

states to train military and intelligence services to monitor terrorism. This will create a more uniformed approach to stop transnational financing and recruiting. To the member states, the SCO is “a political commitment of Russia and China to the international fight against terrorism where the West has totally abdicated this task.” This includes the fight in Syria and Iraq where RATS’ objectives are to stop DAESH expansion. Beyond Afghanistan and DAESH expansion, China is anxious to prevent the infiltration of foreign terrorist, extremist, and separatist groups in the restive Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in its Northwestern territory. The area has long had its own homegrown violent separatists who jeopardize the security of the Chinese state, according to the ruling regime. Xinjiang, which was first incorporated into China in 1949, shares borders with other SCO members - Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.

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The population of Xinjiang is predominantly Turkicspeaking Muslim Uighurs that share strong historical, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious ties with the Uighurs residing in these other Central Asian countries. Separatist militants such as the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement and the Turkistan Islamic Party are known to be operating partly from these neighboring countries and have committed terrorist acts in their fight for an independent state or at least autonomous territory. These terrorist activities peaked at the end of the 1990s / beginning of the 2000s, coinciding, as Hansen points out, with the rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Thus, for China, security in this region is extremely important and the partnerships with the Central Asian states through the SCO allow cooperative security initiatives to target extremism and terrorism that directly impact Chinese national interests and agendas without necessarily taking excessive criticism from the international community for unilateral initiatives. Security is also Russia’s primary focus for the SCO. Any breakdown of security in Central Asia would directly threaten Russian national security perception in general terms because of the approximately five million ethnic Russians who live in the region. Russian is still the common second language of most of the region’s populations and the countries in the SCO have generally maintained a cooperative and non-provocative attitude toward Russia. Most obviously, they have all provided use of military facilities and troops to Russia when necessary. Central Asia is also one of the only areas that Russia does not yet have to compete with so-called “infiltration” by the EU and NATO.

For Russia, the SCO plays a supplementary and consolidating role in the region in which its national security interests largely go unchallenged. Pairing with China also reduces what could have been a potentially adversarial dynamic, as China seeks to gain economic growth by tapping into the vast energy resources across Central Asia. As noted by Reeves and many other academics, the SCO RATS also allows Russia to less bombastically counter US and NATO influence in the region. In 2005, the SCO was able to collectively lean on Western powers to set a final timeline for cessation of their temporary use of military bases in Central Asia as a launching pad for operations in Afghanistan. They also called for the withdrawal of troops from SCO members’ territories. Ultimately, Uzbekistan terminated the US military’s rights while Kyrgyzstan only allowed the US military to stay after drastically renegotiating the rent for its base. For other member states the SCO’s anti-radicalism policy provides additional support and strength to their own local security measures, with the final delineation of their borders with China and Russia stabilizing some disagreements at home. The Central Asian states have always been acutely aware of their precarious position between two major powers, with yet another distant American power commonly initiating contact because of its own security agendas within the region. The SCO, therefore, provides Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan some ability to balance Russia and China oﬀ of each other and carve out some maneuverability and space with the United States. Ostensibly, the training and enforcement of counterintelligence operations against terrorism, local insurgency, and drug traﬃcking has helped keep internal instability at bay.

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Many of the members have always been concerned that the unrest in Afghanistan could spill over their borders, especially into places such as the Fergana Valley. These areas have often shown increases in extremist Islamic movements, such as the Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT). The Fergana Valley is artificially split between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan and Central Asian militaries and intelligence agencies have routinely performed poorly in combatting such movements as individual states. RATS provides better communication channels and more eďŹ&#x192;cient strategic coordination to combat groups like the HT, in addition to much needed security services training, that was simply not available before the SCO. Many of the SCO observer states face similar issues at home with drug traďŹ&#x192;cking, terrorists, extremists, and separatists, and want to be included more formally in the SCO to benefit from these exercises, training, and transnational policing eďŹ&#x20AC;orts. India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan all have their own fights domestically and on shared borders.

All of them have interest in the economic and security advantages of being linked to the SCO. Iran could gain further critical economic and military trade that has long been blocked by economic sanctions by the West. India and Pakistan have good relations with the West but seek to have better political relationships with Central Asian powers and need help combatting border infringement, terrorism, and insurgency in order to find the regional territorial stability their countries need. Ultimately, what can be seen over the past decade is an international organization that was often criticized for its lack of seriousness and gravity is slowly but surely evolving across several measures and within multiple layers of connective interactivity to be an IO of note.

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PAKISTAN’S URGE FOR NATIONAL & ENERGY SECURITY BAHAUDDIN FOIZEE

Primarily a legal practitioner, teaches law at Dhaka Centre for Law & Economics, a University of London law graduate, regularly writes columns on international aﬀairs

esides its suﬀocation from the ongoing internal insurgencies in Waziristan, Baluchistan and other areas, Pakistan is also suﬀocating in terms of its foreign relations. Pakistan is already facing an unpleasant situation regarding Saudi-Iran rivalry. Saudi Arabia, along with its fellow Arab-Sunni states, is using its sunni brand in order to rally the sunnis around the world behind its back against its rival Iran. On the other side, Iran is playing the same game by using the card of shia-ism in pulling the shias around the world towards its cause of portraying Saudi Arabia an evil power. While Pakistan is traditionally allied with Saudi Arabia, its need for national security and energy security has been pushing Pakistan into changing its foreign policy by moving away from ‘all-out influence’ of Saudi Arabia and taking a more lenient approach with regard to Iran. In other words, Pakistan has been attempting to draw a balance between its relations with Saudi Arabia and its relations with Iran.

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TRADITIONAL PAKISTAN-SAUDI RELATIONS Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are decades old friends. Saudi Arabia was at Pakistan’s side whenever Pakistan needed a warm friend. Saudi Arabia stood beside Pakistan in Pakistan’s eﬀort to counter its arch rival India’s major moves, including Pakistan’s nuclear race against India. Saudi Arabia has been literally showering ‘economically weak Pakistan’ with billions of dollars in financial aid. A protocol was signed between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in 1982 following Saudi Arabia’s request for military manpower assistance. Pakistani military presence in Saudi Arabia continues till the day, providing Saudi Arabia support against internal and external regional threats. Naeem Khan, Pakistan's former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, stated that Pakistan considers Saudi Arabia's security as a "personal matter". Saudi Arabia needs Pakistan by its side in order to geopolitically counter Iran for three reasons: (i) Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state; (ii) Pakistan is a strong and big-in-size military power; and, (iii) Pakistan, with a Sunni majority population, is Shia majority Iran’s next door neighbour. On the other hand, Pakistan needs Saudi Arabia by its side for several reasons, but the most important ones are: (i) Saudi Arabia showers Pakistan with economic aid (funds, resources, etc), and (ii) Saudi Arabia provides aid for a large portion of Pakistan’s military spending.

TRADITIONAL PAKISTAN-IRAN RELATIONS Pakistan and Iran could not maintain a good relationship between themselves after 1979, when the accession of the Shia-clerics into the driving-power of Iran made the surrounding Sunni neighbours provoked against the newly formed Iranian regime. Pakistan and the Arabian-Gulf Sunni states’ relations with Iran deteriorated drastically. During the last few years of cold-war period, Iran was more inclined to the Soviet Union, whereas Pakistan and the Gulf states were actively helping the West (led by the U.S.) to curtail Soviet influence in the Central Asia, especially in Afghanistan.

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From that period on, the successive Pakistani regimes and the Iranian regimes mostly maintained distance between themselves. Pakistan’s increasing alignment with Saudi Arabia made the Pakistan-Iran relations worse. For decades, Saudi Arabia has been providing Pakistan with military funding and economic aid in return for nuclear-armed Pakistan’s assurance of staying aligned with Saudi Arabia and also in order to help Saudi Arabia militarily whenever it requires. IRAN’S POSITION AFTER THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL Iran is a country having land access to multiple regions and access to multiple water ways. Borders with South Asia, Central Asia, the Arab region and Europe, and coastlines with the Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean make Iran an ideal location for commercial and geostrategic purposes. Iran, despite having these advantages, had been suﬀering economically because of the sanctions imposed on it by the international community for decades. These sanctions on Iran have helped the Arabian-Gulf Sunni states, especially Saudi Arabia, to remain as the major oil exporter in the world without any annoyance. However, it seems that the developing incidents in this regard are tempting the equation of the region to change altogether. The Iran nuclear Deal was signed, and started to be implemented, by and between Iran and five permanent members of the UN Security Council along with Germany on the most talked-about geopolitically important Iranian nuclear programme. Under this deal, international economic sanctions against Iran have already started to be lifted one by one.

The lifting of the international sanctions means that Iran’s economy would be, in a matter of years, competing shoulder to shoulder with that of Saudi Arabia, which is Iran’s major rival in all aspects. With a booming economy, Iran would want not only to strengthen its military might, but also to increase its political influence over the region and the globe, especially over the Muslim world. PAKISTAN’S IMPROVING RELATIONS WITH IRAN Through Chinese led Silk Route Economic Belt (One Belt One Route) initiative, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank and other mechanisms, Pakistan and Iran along with China, India and Russia have been actively trying to establish a political, security and economic system for cooperation in order to avoid all sorts of probable conflicts among these countries, most of which have, or previously had, volatile relations with one another. Both Iran and Pakistan know well that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is part of China’s initiative to revive the ancient Silk Route, has the potential to transform the economies of Pakistan and, if accommodated, of Iran, India and Afghanistan. CPEC is most likely to bring peace and prosperity not only in Pakistan’s conflict-torn Baluchistan, but also in the Pakistan’s neighbourhood – South Asia and Central Asia. Pakistan is now concentrating on neutralizing all the insurgencies inside its territory and on shaping up a business friendly Pakistan. Pakistan’s economy is likely to become huge because of the Silk Route Economic Belt initiative led by China.

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OBSERVATIONS

Pakistan will soon, therefore, need huge supply of fuel-energy in order to fuel its economy; and Iran, after withdrawal of economic sanctions, is now able to supply the energy that Pakistan requires. From Pakistan’s recent moves, it seems that Pakistan is too keen to import oil and gas from Iran in order to enjoy easily accessible energy-supply-destination as Iran is Pakistan’s next door neighbour. That is why, Pakistan seems to be moving away from the traditional ‘all-out influence’ of its decades old ally Saudi Arabia and trying to balance between relations with Saudi Arabia and relations with Iran. Pakistan is already facing an unpleasant situation regarding Saudi-Iran rivalry, particularly in respect to Saudi led coalition’s war on Yemen’s Houthi militants. Saudi Arabia asked Pakistan for supporting the coalitions’ war through sending ground-troops to fight the Houthis in Yemen. Pakistan responded by asking Saudi Arabia to excuse it for not involving in the Yemeni war. But Pakistan assured Saudi Arabia that it would do anything and everything possible to counter any “direct” threat to Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty. In short, Pakistan denied Saudi Arabia’s request to send its own troops to fight a war side by side with Saudi Arabia, disregarding Saudi Arabia’s heavy investments in Pakistan and Saudi’s backing of Pakistan for decades in its dispute with India.

Pakistan knows very well that sending troops to Yemen would invite Iranian attempts to destabilise Pakistan internally as Iran may take advantage of the facts that (i) more than 20 percent of Pakistan’s total population are shia and (ii) Iran is Pakistan’s next door neighbour. And India, Pakistan’s arch rival, would not fall short of using such a destabilized situation to its advantage — Pakistan is aware of this too. Moreover, an army (Pakistan army) that is already waging an internal war against the militants inside its territory cannot aﬀord to lend its troops to fight a foreign war. Pakistan is substantially moving away from the West bloc to the East & South bloc. While Pakistan previously had good relations with the U.S., Saudi Arabia and China, it had awful relations with Russia, former Soviet Union, India and Iran. However, shifts in its balance of foreign relations have been taking place. Pakistan seems to be moving away from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in its attempt to coming closer to China and Iran. Even Russia’s relation with Pakistan is improving gradually. Whether good or bad, this shifts in foreign relations put Pakistan into image crisis in two ways. First, it shows that Pakistan never remains a friend (or foe) forever. Secondly, such shifts in foreign relations show that Pakistan lacks the capacity and capability to shape and design a single foreign policy for itself. Every changing government in Pakistan, civilian or not, engages with a foreign policy which is diﬀerent from that of its predecessor.

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NATURAL GAS AND THE ‘LESSER’ CASPIANS How New Players MigHt be good for everyoNe TROY BAXTER Troy Baxter is currently a Master’s Student in Bellevue University’s International Security and Intelligence Studies Program in Omaha, Nebraska. He received his Honours Degree in Criminal Justice and Public Policy from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada in 2013.

nergy: what was once a largely single-resource/two-state controlled industry has given way to other resources of significance. In turn, this has also given rise to other states as major players in the arena. Given the increased need for energy among states, there has been greater collaboration and cooperation among states with regards to energy resources. This is well exemplified by the US’ early and continued energy relationship with Saudi Arabia following World War II. Saudi Arabia may have drastically diﬀerent security and human rights priorities than the US, and yet they both have been longtime energy partners that rely on one another heavily. Relationships of this nature have grown in frequency since then and as a result the Caspian region has emerged as a major player in energy security geopolitics.

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By and large oil has been, and for the most part still is, associated with energy security. So long as a nation has access to an amount of oil commensurate with its needs, it is energy secure. However, a new player in the energy resource arena has begun to emerge: natural gas. Though natural gas has been around forever, it has taken on a position of importance in the struggle for energy security only recently. Natural gas can be used for everything from heating, cooking, and electricity generation. In fact it has many of the same applications as oil. The Caspian region is starting to exploit this resource. The region is one of the oldest oil-producing areas in the world and, though it continues to play a significant role in oil production, the control of energy in the region has begun to shift largely as a result of natural gas

Oil production and export from the region has primarily gone through Russia (or the USSR) throughout history. Caspian states, however, have discovered that they are home to some of the largest natural gas reserves in the world and now are looking to bypass Russia entirely to export it to the European Union (EU). This is significant for two reasons: first, it would shrink Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impact as a controller of energy resources worldwide, especially in the EU. Second, it would drastically raise Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s profiles over energy resources and security. Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historical dominance over the Caspian region gave it significant control over the global energy market.

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It is estimated that 17 percent of the world’s oil comes from the Caspian (primarily Iran and Russia) and it is largely responsible for providing the EU with energy security. The shift away from Russia by other Caspian states, however, erodes Russia’s stranglehold on energy resources in the region and gives way to exciting new players and geopolitics. Caspian states have already begun to break away from Russia in their bid to export natural gas to the EU. The process has been underway since the dissolution of the USSR, with concrete realization in the late 1990’s. But ultimately it was always hindered due to strong opposition, largely from Russia and Iran, which vehemently opposed the any independent Caspian projects from the other littorals. In the mid-2000s, once the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute began in earnest, the project began to gain more traction. There was a shift in allegiance between the littoral nations and renewed interest in the project sprang back to life. Since then, massive headway has continued to be made, largely to the dismay of Russia and Iran. The Russia-Ukraine dispute can truly be seen as the point when the lesser Caspian littorals decided to separate themselves from Russia as far as energy resource export is concerned. This is not to say they have separated themselves completely, as there is still collaboration on energy resources in the area. However, the dispute has led to Russia and Iran being excluded from the southern gas corridor project, which is expected to become fully operational by 2020 and supply much of the EU with natural gas. This is a boon financially for the nations involved, but perhaps more importantly, it creates a major geopolitical shift for those lesser littorals in the Caspian.

States such as Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, who have historically had decidedly smaller stakes in the energy sector, stand to gain significant traction by building and remaining in control of this corridor without major Iranian or Russian influence/interference. This can only serve to strengthen their diplomatic ties with the EU while simultaneously weakening Russia’s and elevating their status as legitimate players in energy geopolitics. Russia and Iran have opposed the pipeline repeatedly, with Russia playing a far more active and vocal role in the opposition than Iran. Throughout the last decade and a half, Russia has thrown virtually every piece of oppositional ammunition at the construction of the pipeline. Its two primary tactics have been to oppose it environmentally and by way of old treaties. The treaty option has been the strongest oppositional tool used. Specifically, Russia has been using the treaties signed by Iran and the Soviet Union in 1921 and 1940 to threaten the other Caspian states. They have pointed out that the treaties are still in eﬀect and that without support for the pipeline from all littoral states, any construction in the Caspian Sea would be illegal. There is some disagreement over whether these treaties still hold any legal bearing today. Next, Russia leveraged the environment in an attempt to oppose the project. According to Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry, pipelines along the Caspian Sea floor would be environmentally unacceptable. Aside from the fact that anytime a pipeline is placed in a body of water it has some environmental risk, this was clearly an attempt by Russia to try and generate international opposition to the pipeline.

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This is of course somewhat ironic given Russia uses similar environmentally-concerning pipeline routes. Evidently none of these attempts have had much of an impact on the project overall as it is still well underway. There is no doubt that Russia and Iran spent such a considerable amount of time opposing the pipeline due to the fact they knew its construction set a bad precedent for their continued dominance in the local energy sector. If former Soviet states can break away from Russia economically, then perhaps they can break away in yet other ways in the future. The more these lesser littoral Caspian states strengthen diplomatic bonds with Western-leaning nations, the less reliant they are on Russia. The further Russia is from controlling larger amounts of energy, the weaker its position in terms of geopolitics, something it considers anathema to its international security profile and agenda. Moving forward, the lesser Caspians will gain significant respect and authority in their development and control over future energy. This alters the geopolitical arena enough that other states around the globe need to take notice, though this awareness so far has been slow. It allows the Caspian, minus Russia and Iran, to be yet another option when it comes to building diplomatic ties and securing access to energy now and in the future. Despite the fact that the amount of natural gas they plan on moving may not radically alter the geopolitical arena overnight, there is opportunity to move enough in the future that could make a major impact. More importantly, this gives the EU a second option for energy procurement, which increases its energy security and also gives it the option to slowly cut ties with other ‘problematic’ providers like Russia.

Perhaps the most interesting point of this entire development is Russia’s complete lack of desire to do anything but threaten verbally and act diplomatically. To date the nation has not taken any physical action to impede the pipeline and it has also continued to maintain trade and economic ties with the lesser Caspian nations it is protesting against. Despite having divergent views on the pipeline and actively attempting to impede it diplomatically, Russia seems unwilling to militarize the situation, something that deserves at least begrudging respect and acknowledgement. Perhaps this is a potential sign of building diplomacy over military solutions, which would be a global plus for the entire international community. If Iran and Russia realize they must recognize challenges to their energy dominance with only a need to work with other Caspian nations, even though they do not completely agree with them, then a critical future region of the globe has a chance to remain stable and at peace. In this case, maybe the entrance of new players into the arena doesn’t have to signal the start of a new bloodbath or new geopolitical tension.

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TURKEY’S CURRENT WISHES GIANCARLO ELIA VALORI

Advisory Board Co-chair Honoris Causa Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr Valori has lectured on international aﬀairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York.

s early as January 11, 2016, even though we came to know it only in March, King Abdullah of Jordan stated in Washington that Turkey was deliberately exporting Islamic terrorists in Europe, after having "produced" them in Syria and on its national territory. On that occasion the Jordanian king was not received by the US President, Barack Obama, but he clearly reaﬃrmed Turkey's commitment to support Daesh/Isis both in Syria and in Iraq, as well as to export Islamist terrorism in Europe. He did so before an audience of influential US senators and journalists. According to the Jordanian king, Turkey wants an "Islamist and radical" solution for the whole Middle East region. Hence, not only on the basis of the statements made by the Hashemite king, the Turkish issue is the real keystone of the anti-jihadist strategy in the Greater Middle East. On the other hand, Turkey itself has long been the major supplier of weapons and weapon systems to Daesh/Isis.

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Turkey acts in particular through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which are all controlled by the intelligence services MIT - and supplies are delivered by land or via the Euphrates river, by carefully mixing real humanitarian aid with weapons. One of these NGOs is the Besar Foundation, led by a MIT man, D. Sanli, that in 2015 arranged over 50 convoys to supply weapons and victuals to the Turkmen jihadists of Bayirbukac and Kiziltepe, about 250 kilometres away from Damascus, either alone or jointly with another Turkish NGO, the Yilikter Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom.The supplies were delivered through some checkpoints along the Turkish-Syrian border or, as already said, through waterways, particularly the Euphrates river.Over the past two months, the weapons sent by Turkey to ISIS have been mainly TOW anti-tank missiles, RPG-7 mortars, several 7.62 mm M-60

machine-gunners, hand grenades and various tactical communication tools.Moreover, at least according to the well-informed Russian military intelligence sources, Turkey has supplied Daesh/Isis with 2,500 tons of ammonium nitrate, 450 tons of potassium nitrate, 75 tons of aluminium powder, large quantities of sodium nitrate, glycerine and nitric acid. As is well-known, they are all primary components of explosives. The funds provided to Besar apparently come from private financers, but actually belong to MIT special accounts. Again in 2015, the NGO Yilikter organized over 25 convoys inside Syria, funded by Turkish, Middle East and European accounts managed in Turkey by the Kuveyt Turk and Vakif banks.

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One of the Turkish NGOs involved in operations designed to support Daesh/Isis is IHH, the "Foundation for the Defence of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms", explicitly backed by the Turkish government. Since the beginning of hostilities in Syria, in 2011, IHH has sent to Syria 7,500 vehicles with weapons "hidden" and mixed with traditional military aid. IHH receives funds from the Turkish State and from several private financers, that pass through the usual Ziraat and Vakif banks. With a view to supplying weapons to ISIS, the Turkish secret agents manage the military depots in the border towns of Bukulmez and Sansarin, from which they take the weapons to be hidden and mixed with humanitarian aid. Usually the Turkish weapons for Isis transit through the border crossing of Cilvegoezu, 530 kilometres south-east of Ankara.

The Turkish intelligence services support not only the "Turkmen" jihadists operating along the Western border - who, inter alia, are responsible for the shooting down of the Russian Sukhoi-24 aircraft and the rescue helicopter last January - but also Jabhat al Sham, the "Levant Front", a jihadist group operating in the area of Aleppo, as well as the many other political and military movements which quickly come in and out of the large rassemblement of the Al Nusra Front, namely Al Qaeda Syrian â&#x20AC;&#x153;section". The Turkish private business companies linked to the government buy the goods produced in the Free Trade Zone of Mersin, along the Turkish Southern coast and ship them to ISIS.With a view to avoiding border problems, the military products intended for Daesh/Isis are sent to companies registered in Jordan or in Iraq, with documents bearing the wording "transit through the Syrian Arab Republic" instead of the name of the receiver.

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The Turkish customs oﬃces concerned are in Antalya, Gaziantep and Mersin. Later the goods intended for the "Caliphate" transit through the crossings of Cilvegoezu and Oencuepnar up to reaching the areas controlled by Isis.Hence President Erdogan’s project is clear: through Isis he plans to balkanize Iraq, Syria, the Lebanon and the whole region up to the Caucasus, so as to project the Turkish power from Anatolia’s border up to Central Asia.It is the old Panturanic Islamist/neo-Ottoman temptation, which resumes backwards the route of the Turkish tribes arriving from Western Siberia up to the Mediterranean. Obviously this implies denying any autonomy to the Kurds, whom the Turkish press called "the Turks of the mountains."Furthermore, it is worth adding that this is a perspective totally alien to the strategy of NATO, of which Turkey is the Member State having the second largest Armed Forces after the United States.What does the NATO Secretary General - the young Norwegian Social Democrat leader Stoltenberg, appointed to that post in 2014 – have to say on this matter?Born in 1969, can he remember when the German Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt "froze" – jointly with the conservative French President Giscard d'Estaing - the Italian military posts within NATO, in the phase in which the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was entering the government coalition? Does he think that the "sword jihad" is just a way to "topple Assad’s tyrannical regime" in Syria and bring there the famous two-party parliamentary democracy, which is so fashionable in the West?Or do those who support the "Caliphate" think that the jihadists will easily obey Turkey’s orders or the orders of the other countries supporting them, after achieving their success on the ground?

Therefore, for Turkey, the goals to be reached by supporting Daesh/Isis, are those of a direct intervention on the Syrian territory, with the possible establishment of a large "Sunni district" as an area subjugated to Turkey.Moreover, Turkey does not really want the great anti-Iranian area that Saudi Arabia plans to create in the Middle East, or at least it wishes it only as part of its pan-Turkish project stretching from the Mediterranean to Central Asia up to Xingkiang, the Turkmen region inside Communist China.Nor does the Turkish government want to fully adhere to the Saudi geopolitics in the region, which would force it to submit to Saudi Arabia, thus taking it away from the European Union and the United States. Hence Turkey’s use of Daesh/Isis implies the idea of a "controlled fire" in Syria and Iraq, that Turkey hopes it can target both against the Kurds and towards Iran’s future expansion area, which would be finally blocked by the collapse of Alawite Syria.Therefore, currently the Turkish government operates to maintain its leadership in the region and create a corridor towards Central Asia, as well as conquer the Sunni area north of the Al Saud’s world and influence both the United States and the faint-hearted and foolish European Union.Nor does Turkey want to entirely relinquish its own relations with the United States, despite the scarce use allowed of the Incirlik air base for anti-Isis operations and the Turkish army’s merely cosmetic actions against Al Baghdadi’s Caliphate. Furthermore, controlling and manipulating migration flows to the EU enables Turkey to open and close the EU “valves” both for a future EU membership and as a financial and political blackmail against EU institutions.

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Hence Turkey maintains contacts with the United States (and not with the Atlantic Alliance, in which it is scarcely interested), which is a traditional ally of the Kurdish groups in Syria (that now sympathize more with Russia), so as to avoid the United States pushing for an Independent Kurdish State – and in that case Turkey could still use its good relations with Isis, as a sort of blackmail. Moreover, Turkey is worried about the crisis in Ukraine and the Black Sea, which is one of its primary strategic points. Moreover, President Erdogan’s support to ISIS allows to support the Islamist electoral faction within the ruling party, namely AKP, against the still wide "secular" areas and mindful of Ataturk, the electorate and the Turkish ruling classes. The trial against Ergenekon, the neo-coupist and secularist military network, ended in 2013 with the conviction of 275 people, including the Chief of Staﬀ, Ilker Basbug, and the leader of the socialist "Patriotic Party", Dogu Perincek. Obviously if an Independent Kurdish State were founded in Syria and Iraq, the mass of Kurds in Turkey would feel entitled to follow suit. The Kurds account for 10% of the total Turkish population, and they are almost all spread throughout the Eastern provinces, in close contact with their Syrian compatriots.

If tension mounted in that region, Turkey would be faced with two negative scenarios: the Russian (and Rumanian) power projection onto the Black Sea and the possibility for Russia to hold in check both the Turkish territory and its trade routes eastwards, which are key to Turkey’s Panturanic strategy. Nor does Turkey wish to completely turn against Russia, from which it receives most of its oil and gas supplies which, however, are bound to double by 2020 as to oil and to quadruplicate as to natural gas. And, indeed, the only rational source of supply is the Russian region, which will certainly make its weight felt and its voice heard if Turkey used the jihadist lever even further in the Syrian crisis. Should the European Union be able to think strategically, these could be the issues at stake in the Syrian-Iraqi region.

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KAZAKHSTAN’S SNAP ELECTION SAMANTHA M. BRLETICH

Samantha M. Brletich is a researcher and writer specializing in Central Asia and governance, security, terrorism, and development issues. She possesses a Master’s in Peace Operations Policy from George Mason University in Virginia, United States. She works with the virtual think tank Modern Diplomacy specializing in Central Asia and diplomatic trends. Her work has appeared in multiple publications focused on diplomacy and Central Asia respectively. She is currently an employee of the U.S. Federal Government.

he Kazakhstan snap Parliamentary elections were held on 20 March 2016. The snap elections were called amidst economic turmoil and fears that the Kazakhstan government would lose voter and public confidence because of the economic situation in Kazakhstan. The elections will solidify autocratic President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s rule over the country and make it appear that he has the unwavering support of the people of Kazakhstan. Reports of crackdown of dissent suggest otherwise. The crackdowns, aimed at political dissidents and non-conformists to President Nazarbayev’s policies, is a way to control civil unrest and silence critics which is a longstanding criticism of the Nazarbayev Administration.The elections did not generate significant diﬀerences in the country’s political landscape which has remained relatively unchanged since Nazarbayev gained power in 1989.

Arguably, the elections are part of Nazarbayev’s attempts to make Kazakhstan appear as a democratic country and are part of “managed democracy.” The elections are being held against the backdrop of a failing economy, fluctuating tenge, low oil revenue prices and the oil market crash, political dissent, and Nazarbayev’s need to be reaﬃrmed by the people of Kazakhstan. The election will also show regional countries that Kazakhstan handle economic problems and is a reliable partner. Nazarbayev’s victory was predictable and negative implications stemming from a minor Parliamentary mix-up are nonexistent. A Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) mission monitored the elections. Kazakhstan’s past elections have fallen short of international standards citing lack of competitive candidates and corruption.

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As many as 234 candidates from the following six parties vied for 98 available parliament seats: the ruling Nur Otan party and the Party of President Nursultan Nazarbayev (127 candidates), Ak Zhol (35 candidates), Auyl (19 candidates), the Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan (22 candidates), the Nationwide Social Democratic Party (23 candidates) and the Birlik party (eight candidates). Over 1,000 candidates are running for seats in the lower Parliament. Not much has changed as the other parties platforms do not vary that greatly. Political parties are prohibited from forming blocks. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the results of the March 20, 2016, parliamentary elections show, “that three parties will have seats in the Majlis[:]Nur-Otan got 82.15 percent of the vote; Ak Zhol, 7.18 percent; and the Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan took 7.14 percent.”

These results are similar to the 2012 Parliamentary elections which highlights the lack of political variety and true democracy in the country. The elections were hailed a success by regional organizations, the SCO and the CIS. The ODIHR did not agree as Kazakhstan has a long way to go to fulfill its democratic agreement. International observers were not surprised at the results. As early voting commenced on Sunday, the Kazakh Central Election Committee, stated that the elections were transparent. The OSCE have been heavily involved as “the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission opened in Astana on17 February, with an11 member core team and 28 long-termobservers deployed throughout the country.” Whether or not the elections will expedite the reforms or guarantee implementation, the economy continues to slow.

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If Nur Otan retains its majority in Kazakhstan’s Parliament, the speed of implementation would not be eﬀected. The snap elections directly are not being held to give the government a mandate on “100 steps.” The legitimacy of “100 steps” is derived from the President and support from Parliament and the overall willingness to reform Kazakhstan. Fifty-nine laws have already entered into force citing information from the Astana Times. The snap elections center on economic recovery and political change. The snap elections are supported by the Majlis, and the miners and metallurgists to allow for “further implementation of reforms,” under Plan of the Nation (or “100 Steps”) and to “understand how we work in a new way, what laws should be adopted to meet the requirements of a market economy,” according to the Kazakh BNews news portal. The Head of the Assembly of Peoples of Kazakhstan (APK) stated elections will benefit the country politically and economically. Kazakhstan’s People’s Democratic Patriotic Party, known as “Aul” Party, also supports the snap elections. Support from Aul makes the elections and the decision not so one-sided appear pluralistic. The Astana Times, published astonishing, but not surprising, poll results about voting in a new Majlis and reforms: “92 percent of citizens believe the early elections make the public more confident the new reforms will be implemented.” Other poll results are similar. Recently, on 12 January 2016, protests were held in Astana against the Kazakh Bank and the falling tenge. In response, the Kazakh government oﬀered powdered mare’s milk on the global market which “can generate product worth $1 billion (a year)” to mitigate declining global oil prices.

Another recent incident was the firing of the Sovereign Wealth Fund manager, Berik Otemurat, stated Kazakhstan’s National Oil Fund would run out in the next six or seven years. The National Oil Fund, often used as an emergency fund, has fallen 17% from $77 billion since August 2014 and the government is withdrawing about according to the Wall Street Journal. The tenge strengthened slightly in February after the currency declined after the government began to float the currency and the country is still experiencing weakened GDP growth. By midMarch the tenge has recovered by 10%. Two activists in Kazakhstan, Serizkhan Mambetalin and Ermek Narymbaev, were convicted and sent to prison for two and three years respectively for Facebook posts “inciting national discord” (Article 174 of the Criminal Code) and the “authorities claimed the clips amounted to a ‘serious crime against peace and security of humankind’ ” according to Human Rights Watch. The two men were arrested in October 2015 and their trial began 9 December 2015. A third activist, Bolatbek Blyalov, has movement restricted for three years and cannot “[change] his place of residence or work, or [spend] time in public areas during his time oﬀ.” The punishment for the three activists violates many of Kazakhstan’s international commitments. On 22 February, the head of the Union of Journalists of Kazakhstan National Press Club, Seitkazy Matayev, was arrested on charges of corruption— accused of tax evasion and embezzlement of funds. According to TengrinNews, “the state anti-corruption agency said Matayev was detained along with his son Aset Matayev who heads the private KazTAG news agency.” Seitkazy Matayev was President Nazarbayev’s press secretary from 1991 to 1993.

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The Committee on Protecting Journalists reported that the Mateyevs sent statements to Adil Soz (a local press group) indicated harassment by city and state authorities began in January 2016. There was also a recent protest in Almaty on 18 March 2016 about the incarceration of activist Yermek Narymbayev, one of the facebook activists, jailed for incitement ethnic strife (Kazakhstan Criminate Code Article 174). Kazakhstan repeatedly has fallen short of commitments for democratic reforms (particularly press freedoms) and instead has strengthened Nazarbayev’s soft authoritarianism. Edward Schatz categorizes Kazakhstan as a soft authoritarian regime that engages in managed information and “[discourages] opposition and [encourages] proregime authorities.” Information management, according to Schatz, is not only through media, but by staging “many events to convey information dramatically.” Nazarbayev has a history of staging political events. Applying this notion to snap elections, Kazakhstan’s citizens know of the economic troubles. Snap elections are unnecessary to highlight the problem and snap elections give the impression the government is actively handling the problem and that political change is imminent.

Kazakhstan does consider itself a democracy and whether or not Kazakhstan’s democracy meets international standards will be revealed once institutions are strengthened. The Kazakhstan-based Astana Times calls the 20 March elections the first step towards returning “to the levels of growth and prosperity we experienced.” Constitutional reforms may give more power to the lower house, redistributing more power from the strong Presidential system the country now has (in theory). Poor economic conditions are simple a pretext for squashing dissent and reducing political opposition. The poor economic conditions should be viewed as an opportunity to engage and strengthen civil society, establish dialogue between the government and non-governmental organizations, strengthen financial institutions, and explore alternatives in the energy sector.

The crash of the commodities and oil markets presents Kazakhstan a unique opportunity to diversify its economy. The elections also present the opportunity to implement electoral reform as Nazarbayev has not picked a successor which greatly increases political instability and the possible formation of a power vacuum. Kazakhstan during its time as the Chair for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has failed to live up to its democratic obligations. The early Presidential elections of April 2015 showed that democratic reforms have yet to materialize. However, failure of democratization (all-encompassing to include media and political rights) and constant criticism has not stopped Kazakhstan from taking on the role of an international mediator on many high-profile conflicts—Iran and Syria— and from becoming a reliable and cooperative economic, trade, and security partners to its neighbors.

Kazakhstan’s slow rise on the stage fuel autocratic behaviors. Kazakhstan’s elections, while varied, reflect Kazakhstan’s wavering commitment to democracy and lack of party pluralism. Snap elections and early Presidential elections provide an opportunity for Kazakhstan to slowly implement electoral reforms and most importantly media reforms. Kazakhstan’s Election Law is weak as it does provide for equal party distribution and fails to provide a concrete and non-ambiguous criteria for campaign finance.

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IS CAUCASUS THE NEXT SYRIA? DON’t fORgEt OSCE AleksAndrA krstic Aleksandra Krstić, studied in Belgrade (Political Science) and in Moscow (Plekhanov’s IBS). Currently, a post-doctoral researcher at the Kent University in Brussels (Intl. Relations). Specialist for the MENA-Balkans frozen and controlled conflicts.

he recent all-shoot out in Azerbaijan between the ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijani forces brought yet another round of casualties, psychological traumas and property destructions. Sudden and severe as it was, the event sent its shock waves all over Caucasus and well beyond. Is Caucasus receiving the ‘residual heat’ from the boiling MENA? Is this a next Syria? Is a grand accommodation pacific scenario possible? Or will it be more realistic that the South Caucasus ends up violently torn apart by the grand compensation that aﬀects all from Afghanistan up to the EU-Turkey deal? Most observes would fully agree that for such (frozen) conflicts like this between Azerbaijan and Armenia, mediation and dialogue across the conflict cycle have no alternative.

Further on, most would agree that the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) with its Minsk Group remains both the best suited FORA as well as the only international body mandated for the resolution of the conflict.However, one cannot escape the feeling that despite more than 20 years of negotiations, this conflict remains unresolved. What is the extent of the OSCE failure to eﬀectively utilize existing conflict resolution and post-conflict rehabilitation tools? The very mandate of the Co-Chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group is based on CSCE Budapest Summit document of 1994, which tasks them to conduct speedy negotiations for the conclusion of a political agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict, the implementation of which will eliminate major consequences of the conflict and permit the convening of the Minsk Conference.

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In Budapest, the participating States have reconfirmed their commitment to the relevant Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and underlined that the co-Chairmen should be guided in all their negotiating eďŹ&#x20AC;orts by the OSCE principles and agreed mandate, and should be accountable to its Chairmanship and the Permanent Council (PC). Nevertheless, as it emerged from this sudden eruption of violence in the region in late March/early April of 2016, the OSCE and its Minsk Group have been side-stepped from the settlement process. Why? Over the years, the role of the OSCE and its participating States, including those that are members of the Minsk Group, has been limited to extending formal support to the activities of the Co-chairmen.

It gradually led to change the conflict resolution process into conflict containment activities as reflected in artificial and out-of-mandate prioritization of tasks of the co-Chairmen to focus on prevention of escalation rather than lasting solution, and interference with the activities of other international organizations wishing to contribute to the true and comprehensive settlement of the conflict. In parallel, one may observe rather selective approaches by some OSCE Member States and regional groupings to the principles with regard to the protracted conflicts in the OSCE area. As an ending result, the Organization as such lost its control over the process. Such a lack of control over the activities led to negligence to inherent balance and inter-linkage between the principles of the most fundamental Security structure of Europe achieved ever â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the Helsinki Final Act.

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It is rather dangerous and counterproductive to equalize the principles of non-use of force against the territorial integrity of political independence of the States, territorial integrity and equal rights and self-determination of peoples, which some publicly present as a basis for a settlement. Misinterpretation is evident even in naming of these principles. These voices claim that there is no hierarchy among the above mentioned principles and that these elements should be observed and applied independently of each other. In fact, such a voluntary interpretation of the principles is in direct contradiction to the letter and very spirit of the Helsinki Decalogue and its Final Act, which in seven out of ten principles places strong emphasis on the necessity to fully respect internationally recognized borders of states and their territorial integrity against any attempt of forceful acquisition of territories or change of borders, and (one-sided) application of self-determination. Such a deviation from the agreed character of the principles unfortunately provided Armenia with a card blanche to justify its territorial claims against Azerbaijan, consolidate the status-quo and made the process of settlement dependent on whims of the Armenian side. Several FORAs (incl. the OSCE mechanisms) openly claim that they have no responsibility for the conflict resolution, and that the parties need to demonstrate political will and to make necessary compromises (‘no way to exert pressure on the sides’ and ‘we can only be a communication channel between the two conflicting parties’ lines of usual rhetoric). In the meantime, Armenia keeps holding a premium over the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan, which it continues to occupy.

Clearly, that ‘process’ is far away from OSCE principles and commitments, and will dangerously backfire elsewhere in Europe. Unless we want another Syria, and yet Europe entirely enveloped by the insecure neighbourhood all the way from Mediterranean to Caucasus, we need a tremendous progress in the settlement of the conflict. Over last years, most of conflict resolution-potent initiatives have been blocked in the OSCE. Discussion on the conflict has been turned into a taboo within the OSCE, even when the informal discussions are in question – and so, not only when Caucasus was in case.

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If we want to revive this particular process and return it from a de facto conflict containment back on track to the conflict resolution process, the following steps for Caucasus are needed: to unblock and fully revitalize the OSCE Minsk Group, and intensify the efforts towards earliest pacific solution of the conflict, especially by using the best services from the member countries willing to constructively solve the problem; serious attempt of the Osce to re-establish the dialogue at the level of the communities affected by the conflict is more than essential stabilizer. It is an indispensable instrument for any confidence building measure. To it related as complementary is the exchange of data on the missing persons, a mechanism foreseen in a tripartite approach by the French, Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents late last year. It should be coupled and further enhanced by variety of the P2P programs that could bring Armenians and Azerbaijanis all profiles, ages and origins together; items above surely presuppose the relaxation of tensions and renunciation of usage of military effectives as a means of conflict resolution. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan (either at different occasions, also through their top diplomats at the OSCE Vienna, ambassador Arman Kirakossian and ambassador Galib Israfilov) signalled their wishes and efforts to move beyond this status quo. That is in line with all statements of the UN and OSCE in past 20 years. Surely, the best way to shake this status quo of containment back on track to the lasting solution, is to eliminate the military factor;

regrettably, the only military factor remaining in the region in/around Nagorno Karabakh is the presence of the Armenian troops – something that surely does not service Armenian community there on a long run! (Min how much Serbs harmed their own community in Kosovo by their rigid military stance.) If, as currently as of now, Armenian Government is serious of the danger and incidents along the Line of Contact they should withdraw their troops. If so, people could at least feel safer in those territories, halt the massive migratory wave, and plan their own future viably; And finally, a pacific, orderly and balanced re-integration of the currently occupied territories back into the Azerbaijani political, legal, social and economic system – that serves ethnic Armenians on a long run the most. It will shield them from an otherwise lost demographic battle. This would be the best way to reinvigorate the OSCE’s relevance in mediation eﬀorts and create an environment in which the OSCE as an organization can play a meaningful role applying its existing tools – all for the lasting benefits of the peoples and nations of Caucasus. The OSCE area should be what is meant to be – the area of security and stability. Stubbornness and irrational pride should never be an obstacle to this higher end.

“The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept” Thucydides