The Azerbaijan-Armenia War and Biden’s Good V. Bad frame on China-Russia

• Azerbaijan’s conflict with Armenia flared up last week.
• The two countries are part of a web of cooperation with Russia and its Western rivals.
• Those overlapping relationships show the folly of basing American policy on “good” democracies and “bad” autocracies.

Azerbaijan started shelling along its border with Armenia last week, rekindling the long-standing conflict between the two countries.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought several wars over the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a predominantly ethnic Armenian state in Azerbaijan that it recognizes as a separate republic called Artsakh, and which Armenia has long sought unification with. .

In the year The Armenian conquest of the early 1990s allowed it to control a large corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh and the territory of Azerbaijan with Armenia proper, but in

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is only one part of the geopolitical competition.

While Armenia and Azerbaijan both have warm relations with Russia, Armenia has a security agreement with Russia as part of the Common Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a post-Soviet alliance of six states in Central Asia.

In contrast, Azerbaijan, whose population is predominantly ethnically and linguistically Turkic and religiously Muslim, enjoys strong support from Turkey.

Turkey and Armenia have been at war for a long time. The shadow of the Ottoman Armenian genocide in 1915 continues to fall between neighboring countries.

In recent years, Ankara has sought an independent course with Moscow, despite its membership in NATO. On the one hand, Erdogan has tried to maintain good relations with Putin, especially since the failed coup in 2016 raised doubts about Ankara’s cooperation with the West. More recently, Erdogan has acted as a diplomatic broker in the Ukraine war and bought Russian military hardware to buy Western sanctions.

On the other hand, Turkey and Russia compete for influence in the territories around the Caspian Sea, a region that Moscow and Ankara see as the rightful legacy of the imperial legacy. Russia and Turkey have supported opposing sides during the Syrian civil war, and in 2015, the Turks were temporarily embroiled in an international crisis following the downing of a Russian fighter jet.

The timing of the most recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan may not be a coincidence.

Azerbaijan was emboldened by the successful Ukrainian counter-offensive around Kharkiv against the recent attack on Armenia and Russia’s poor performance during the war in Ukraine.

In the year Analysts of Armenia’s disastrous defeat in 2020 say that the equipment provided by Russia is ineffective against the advanced drone technology provided to Azerbaijan by Turkey and Israel, and the Atlantic Council interprets Russia’s refusal to directly intervene on Armenia’s side as a sign of weakness.

The US has portrayed its rivalry with Russia and China as a battle between democracy and autocracy for the future of a “rules-based international order.” But the unrelenting Azeri-Armenian conflict prompts a surprising response, underpinning the narrative that Putin is primarily motivated by fear of democracy or popular revolution among Russia’s neighbors.

In the year Armenia, a small democratic country that underwent a revolution in 2018, is mainly supported by Russia and Iran, while Azerbaijan, a dynastic dictatorship with a large population and wealth, is constantly supported by NATO member Turkey and Israel. Be the only democracy in the Middle East.

The ironies don’t end there. Armenian-Americans have a strong lobby based in US congressional districts such as California’s 28th, the home of Representative Adam Schiff, who, among other roles, has been the vice chairman of the Congressional Armenian Caucus and has been awarded a state Order of Merit. Armenian government.

Schiff made a national name for himself as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, and is one of the most public faces of the “Russiagate” investigation, which has contributed to the deterioration of US-Russia relations.

In the year When Trump’s impeachment was first filed in January 2020, Schiff said, “The United States is helping Ukraine and its people so that we can fight Russia there and not fight Russia here.” However, Azerbaijan’s aggression against Armenia following Russia’s failure in Ukraine drew swift condemnation from Schiff, who introduced legislation to end US aid to Azerbaijan.

The complex politics of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict demonstrates the folly of guiding US foreign policy along the Manichean divide between “good” democracies and “bad” autocracies. They also emphasize that a military alliance such as NATO is not an equal, lasting agreement of benefits among all its members.

Finally, with Russia’s defeat on the battlefield in Ukraine, and the rekindling of conflict in other post-Soviet states like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, it’s worth considering what the unintended consequences of an unstable Russia might be for Russia’s neighbors.

Christopher McLeon is a fellow at Defense Priorities.