Will demographics resolve issue of Karabakh?

EurasiaNet Insight has published an interesting article about the dwindling pool of potential conscripts for the Armenian army. One plan to address the problem would remove university enrollment as reason for exemption from military service. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has been growing in military strength.

It makes me wonder. Wouldn't Armenia have been better off negotiating from a position of strength? The country's military position is bound to weaken, given demographic factors and Azerbaijan's continuing petro-dollar fueled investment in military hardware. What sort of agreement will Armenia agree to when its hand is weaker? Or will internal politics in Azerbaijan move its rulers to force the issue? Nothing like a good war to distract people from corruption at the top!

EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Armenia: Military Planners Confront Conscript Shortfall, Mull an End to College Exemption

And here is an article about the current stalemate in peace talks.....

The Disease of Permanent War

"The embrace by any society of permanent war is a parasite that devours the heart and soul of a nation. Permanent war extinguishes liberal, democratic movements. It turns culture into nationalist cant." This is written by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, a seasoned war correspondent. He knows a little about war.

To reach his conclusions about the moral consequences of war, it is not necessary to travel to a war zone. You can observe the moral corrosion of war in Russia, Azerbaijan, the United States, or in any of a multitude of other nations. War requires that we view other humans as "less than human," and in so doing, our own humanity is itself diminished.

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Drugs, war, and democracy

I've been traveling a lot -and staying in places without good Internet connections. So - I've gotten behind on blogging and other activities requiring good connections.

Things such as making surveys.

So - here is my latest survey. I'll post some of the results from previous surveys a little later.....

Eyes on Gaza

I’ve just turned off the news coverage on Al Jazeera. It appears there is only one news story for the station - the conflict in Gaza. Al Jazeera’s coverage makes little pretense of objectivity but I don’t find this surprising. What I do find disturbing, however, is the sense that the residents of the United States again are not able to fully appreciate public opinion across the world because of the news media in the United States.

Scanning across the major newspapers in the United States, I see the war in Gaza gets coverage above the fold (if one can use that term for a website) but the worldwide protests get very little coverage or are not mentioned at all. What about the 700,000 people demonstrating in Istanbul? I’m assuming that Al Jazeera is not conjuring up that demonstration. If such crowds are demonstrating in a country that is an important US ally in the region, it bodes ill for US policy. Likewise, the demonstrations in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, are not mentioned in most of the papers I read.

I can understand Israel’s point - invading to stop rocket fire - but its justification appears empty to many across the world and the carnage of the invasion will only sow more hate. From these seeds of violence will grow more fighters driven by hatred of Israel.

US citizens who receive their news through the US news media are unlikely to grasp the horror of this war, or to understand the worldwide reaction to it.

Welcome back to Baku

I arrived back in Azerbaijan in the early evening yesterday. Uneventful trip, in general. The most wonderful part was flying over the Caucasus. The snow covered peaks were painted pink by the sunset. I don’t think I’d ever seen them so clearly. Really beautiful and striking how relatively unspoiled they are - not dotted with ski trails, for example, like so many mountains in the U.S. West.

Upon my arrival, I went through the regular routine. Taxi? Taxi? I had expected a friend, but because of a communication snafu, I did finally take a taxi from the airport, and was reminded of the stories I so often hear in this country.

The driver and I chatted about this and that - language, the weather, what has occurred in Azerbaijan in the last three weeks, the new US president. At one point, I asked him where he was from. Karabakh. And the familiar story ensued. He had two houses there, but they were destroyed in the war with the separatists. He and his family fled to Baku in 1993. He remains homeless. (I think in the sense of not owning his own house.)

Naturally, he railed against the perfidious character of the Armenians. And he noted that he is a observant Muslim, praying five times a day. Allah will not tolerate such injustice, he said.

I was thinking about the conversation this morning, as I read “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning,” by Chris Hedges. I’ve been meaning to read this for some time, and finally got around to buying a copy while I was in the States. The book is essentially Hedges’ reflections on his more than 20 years as a correspondent covering war. The title of the book sums up the thesis - that war provides humans a unique emotional reward - even as it destroys them. He doesn’t write about the Nagorno-Karabakh per se, but his observations are equally relevant to that conflict. Here in Azerbaijan we see exactly the same phenomenon that he describes in Croatia, Serbia or Palestine. The corrosive effect of nationalism, the demonization of the enemy, the political uses of war.

The story of my taxi driver could be re-told in any number of war-torn countries. The story of the internally displaced families, struggling to survive. The story of bitterness and resentment that will fester for generations.

Hedges’ book differs from so many of the books I read on war while studying political science at the university. It does not analyze particularly why there are wars - unlike work by Bueno de Mesquita or Kenneth Waltz, for example. But Hedges brings his rich experience to bear in crafting a penetrating and disturbing work.
(Photos: juxtaposition of woman cleaning up melting snow and Father Christmas and the Snow Princess; dawn of Jan. 4, 2009.)

Azerbaijan's delicate position

I have been watching television footage of an explosion that occurred after a train hit a mine near the Georgian city of Gori today. At least 10 railway cars carrying oil are reportedly on fire. This latest event underscores the problem that Azerbaijan is facing. One of the ways that the war in Georgia has most concretely affected Azerbaijan is that it makes movement of Azerbaijan's oil and gas to market more precarious.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline is one of the main conduits of oil from Azerbaijan. About 1 million barrels of crude per day normally flows through the pipeline.

The war in Georgia poses a threat to the pipeline, which has been closed for about two weeks. The immediate cause of the closure, however, was fire set by Kurdish rebels in Turkey. BP officials this week said that the pipeline is now being tested and full operations could begin again this coming week.

The gas exports from Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia were suspended for a couple of days because of the conflict in Georgia, but gas exports began to flow again last week. The pumping of oil through the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline, however, remained on hold. Also, an explosion at the Caspi bridge in Georgia meant that more than 1000 containers used to transport Azerbaijani oil were stranded in Georgia. Following the explosion, Azerbaijan suspended oil exports through the ports in western Georgia.

Just for the record, Russia denied any involvement in the bridge explosion.

President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan issued a statement last week, noting the damage caused to Azerbaijan's exports. The volume of Azerbaijani oil and gas exports has "dropped dramatically," he said.

This economic sensitivity helps explain the delicate position for Azerbaijan.

On one hand, the Azerbaijanis have fresh memories about the heavy-handed rule of Soviets here. In every small Azerbaijani city I've visited, there is some sort of memorial to Black January. On January 19, 1990, 26,000 Soviet troops entered Baku in an attempt to quash a nascent independence movement. More than 130 people were killed and 700 people were wounded. Unarmed civilians were shot and run over by tanks. Ambulances and hospitals were attacked. The massacres of January 19, 1990 never received that much attention from the rest of the world, but the memories endure here.

On the other hand, Azerbaijan is keenly aware of its strategic position vis a vis Russia and the West. And the same people who decry the events of Black January will also frankly say that things were better under the Soviet Union.

One friend here recently described Azerbaijan as a bridge - neither East nor West. Azerbaijanis can be just as fiercely nationalist as Georgians, but in my discussions with them, the Azerbaijanis portray themselves as less stand-offish than the Georgians. (This not scientific polling, just impressions gathered from many conversations.) I think the implication may be that Azerbaijanis perceive themselves as more pragmatic. Part of this pragmatism may be a recognition of the delicacy of its position. Azerbaijan needs peace and a cooperative partner in Georgia if its current mode of exporting oil and gas is to continue. And it would like the support of the United States to balance the power of the Russians. (I'm not even going to get into the Russian role in the conflict with Armenia!)

Joshua Foust has a good piece about press coverage of the conflict in Georgia in the recent Columbia Journalism Review. In general, the coverage has been predictably bad, with little attention to the history - which is bloody on both sides.

Thinking about global politics at sunrise

At this point in the summer, the morning is not just the best time for walking; it’s the only time for walking. That is, if you want to walk comfortably without being soaked in sweat. At 9 a.m., the temperature is already more than 30 degree Celsius (85 or so Fahrenheit). So, I walk early in the morning.

It’s also a beautiful time for walking, the sun rising, the traffic sparse. On the pedestrian boulevard by the Caspian Sea, the ice cream vendors sleep on benches or next to their stands. The exercise aficionados of all ages walk, run, or roll along the pavement. The fishermen line the pier, tugging on their long poles in the strange hope of landing a fix perhaps three or maybe four inches long. The sun rises. I’ll include here some photos, and also a video clip I’ve put together.

As I walked, I thought about conversations of the previous day. I heard from a friend of mine in Moscow. We had a lively little e-mail exchange. I was curious about his opinion, because he is Western educated, and he was not a fan of Putin when Putin came to power. But in recent years, I have sensed that his opposition to the status quo has diminished. Like many Russians, he shares an understandable sense of being disrespected. In the last seven years especially, the United States has acted too often as if the objections of Russia to US strategic plans do not need to be taken seriously. The war in Georgia put the United States and the rest of the world that yes, Russia does still matter. Quite a bit. (My friend recommended this recent article in The Guardian for an even-handed treatment of the issue.) Here's another article that provides a some different perspectives. It's a bit rambling - but it makes some good points.

I was also thinking about a conversation with another friend – alluded to earlier – about the Russian people being losers in this war too. I think this is true. In fact, as I think about it – the one player who seems to act as if he has won from this situation is John McCain. I was thinking about this especially after a recent NY Times poll about voters and their priorities. If the voters are focused on the economy, McCain comes out behind. But the US public appears to think that he would be a better commander-in-chief. (This perception drives me crazy – because I think he is incomparably worse than Barack Obama in that regard too. To my mind, McCain’s statements on foreign relations have been rash and foolish. We do not need another fool in the White House.) So, creating some sort of international crisis situation plays to McCain’s perceived strength. Also, don’t forget that McCain’s top foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann received more than $730,000 in lobbying fees from Georgia since 2001.

So, it would be in McCain’s benefit if Georgia President Saakashvili felt emboldened to take aggressive action against the South Ossetians and their Russian protectors. The response of the Russians was almost entirely predictable, but it could be worth it for Saakashvili if he understood that the United States would support him.

Of course, Scheunemann couldn’t guarantee that support, and the Georgian people lose in the gamble. But John McCain gets an opportunity to look aggressive in a situation that seems to benefit a hawkish stance. Look at the polls. In the week after the fighting in Georgia, McCain has done well versus Obama. Reuters even produced a poll last week that showed him up by five points over Obama.

In general, I am not a conspiracy theorist. Conspiracy theories tend to make the world simpler than it is. But – secret arrangements in government and between governments occur all the time. Reality can be just as weird as anything dreamed up by Robert Ludlum. (Remember Oliver North?)

Moon

I have not turned on the television news today, but I did listen to the BBC today. The report: that the Russians are not hurrying to move from their positions inside Georgia. Surely this is no surprise. The Russians are looking for further security guarantees. The cynicism would really be amusing - but war isn't funny.

The Washington Post had a good piece today on the conflict. The article methodically mapped out the events that led up to open warfare last week. Good because it paid attention to the role that both parties played. Of course, both parties will complain about the bias - so this is probably a good sign. Yes, the Georgians endured month and months of taunts and provocations - but the fact remains that the evidence appears to show that it was the Georgians who started the shelling of Tskhinvali. Of course, this was exactly what the Russians wanted - a response to their provocation, the excuse to begin a complete invasion.

I remarked yesterday to an American friend that the war has really been a tragedy for all concerned, not least the Russian people. Why the Russians? he asked. I think the Russian people - as opposed to the insiders at the Kremlin - will suffer if the conflict widens or persists. Yes, the Russian government budget sits on a comfortable surplus now, but this doesn't mean that the Russian economy as a whole is healthy. It remains overly dependent on its energy resources. The country needs investment in its infrastructure and its people. And the fat energy revenues mask serious problems in the economy. Corruption and inefficiency are persistent problems. These problems will only be exacerbated if Russia become further economically and politically isolated as a result of this conflict.

But - because the country's leaders do not fear democratic elections, the real interests of the country don't rank very high in the decision-making criteria.

Then again - my own country is supposedly democratic - and I sometimes wonder if its leaders consider the long-term interests of its people.

By the way - here is a blog also written by a Baku resident, also talking about the war in Georgia. It was recommended to me recently by a friend.

On a separate topic entirely, the lunar eclipse was quite visible last night in Baku. I woke up about 1:30 a.m. and happened to notice as the sun's shadow starting easing over the big silver moon. Took a photo or two - but they were really unimpressive. Instead - here's a show I took of the full moon rising over the Caspian last night. And a shot of the "bulvar."

Widely different views of war

Unfortunately, the cynical interpretation taken by Zerkalo a couple of days ago seems to have been validated by recent events in Georgia. The news on Al Jazeera tonight is of the Russians making threatening moves toward the second largest city in Georgia, perhaps as a feint to show displeasure over the recent decision to send aid to Georgia. In any case, the conflict claims primary space in many – but not all – of the newspapers today.

Here are some examples of the front pages:

Zerkalo
“Russia marauds, rapes and burns
And the USA sends war plane and ships to assist Georgia”

Novoe Vremya
“Provocations ‘made in Washington’ in the Caucasus are not excluded”

Komsomolskaya Pravda
“Saakashvili in the eyes of a psychiatrist
Capricious puppet or little fuhrer?”

Argumenti i Fakti
“Anti-Olympic games”
(The inside coverage on pages 4, 5, and 6 mostly concerns the assault of the Georgian army on Tsinvali. Also, there is an interesting graph showing the growth of military expenditures in Georgia, marked with piles of $100 bills.)

Not surprisingly, the newspapers based in Russia give much less front-page space to the conflict.

As you can see that the tone of coverage within the Russian language press is far from uniform. But – you have to remember – that Zerkalo and Novoe Vremya are published here in Baku. Argumenti I Fakti and Komsomolskaya Pravda publish Baku editions, but the main company offices are in Russia.

On a side note, I ran across a blog site that appears to be set up to tell the Ossetian or Russian side of the story. Called “Ossetia Truth,” the blog is in English, although the blog owner uses a computer translation program. Sometimes the translation is a little clunky. “Petr” started the blog this month, apparently simultaneously with the commencement of the recent fighting.

The New Face of Fascism

While the news yesterday was of the ceasefire in Georgia, the news today was of ceasefire violations. I had lunch with a journalist today who was talking about how the city of Gori continues to be held by Russians, despite the pledge of the Russians to return to their previous lines. When I listened to the BBC later in the day, I heard confirmation of this report, with a journalist on the scene describing tanks still in the town, while South Ossetian forces looted the city.

The Azerbaijanis I’ve spoken to here are not comforted or mollified by the ceasefire. Anger against the Russians runs high. I’ve included a photo of the front page of today’s Zerkalo, one of the leading independent newspapers in Baku. The headline reads “The New Face of Fascism.” The subtitle roughly reads “Putin’s Russia very painfully reminds one of Germany in the 1930s.” The article begins with a discussion of Nazi Propaganda Chief Joseph Goebbels injunction that people will believe lies if they are big enough and told often enough. (Actually, the article misstates Goebbels original quote, which can be found here.)

(Actually, the Goebbels quote is quite interesting, bringing into sharp contrast the needs of the state and the needs of humanity. The last part of the quote is “ …for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Goebbels was a sociopath, but he makes an interesting point. Truth is the enemy of the state. There's something to chew on.)

I’ll spare you a translation of the whole article in Zerkalo, which is long and freely mixes “analysis” with news. But one of the main points is that the announcement of the ceasefire is itself a lie. Also, the author says that the Russian claims not to be seeking regime change in Georgia are false. And finally, the article argues with the Russian claims about the thousands of civilians killed in the assault by the Georgian military.

A number of articles about the conflict are found on the other pages of the newspaper. Here are some of the headlines: “Russia needs a wide-scale war on the Southern Caucasus.” “Russians recommend that Azerbaijan not make sudden movements” The text of the articles conveys generally the sense that while the incursion of Russian forces occurred in Georgia, its shock is quite clearly felt here in Azerbaijan.

You have to remember that Zerkalo is a Russian language newspaper. I'm not sure exactly what the Azerbaijani newspapers are saying today - but day.az, an Internet news portals that carries its news in English, Azerbaijani and Russian, has articles with similar viewpoints. One of the articles on the site today has the headline: "Russia may use Karabakh the way it used South Ossetia." Another article is headlined "The visit card of Russia's external policy are (sic) military actions against other countries."

Peace breaks out?

This afternoon I met with an independent journalist who has been working here since the Soviet period. I heard from him the news about the ceasefire announced by the Russians. This journalist is an optimist – and perhaps also a realist. He maintains that the Russians had certain limited objectives, and it achieved those objectives. He called the conflict not so much a real war as a war of publicity. Russia was able to visibly flex its military muscles, demonstrating for neighbors the perils of NATO membership. The Russians were able to effectively punish Georgian President Mikheil Saakashviili.

But to actually occupy the country would be very expensive in every way. The Russian budget is rich from energy wealth, but Russia still needs Western expertise to develop its economy. Also, enough Russians have traveled in the West to have some taste of how the rest of the world works. They do not want to turn the clock back to the isolated days of the Soviet Union.
According to this journalist’s interpretation, the course of this conflict was scripted at the highest levels – even to the point of a tacit agreement between Bush and Putin – about how far the Russian incursions would go. I don’t know. I wasn’t present at that conversation.

Anyway, these were the journalist’s points. They have some validity. I just read the articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times about the ceasefire. Let’s pray it holds. War is a tragedy for all involved.

Soldiers shooting civilians

This morning, I talked with a taxi driver who had driven up to the Georgian border town of Krasny Most with some journalists. The journalists are still in Georgia. The taxi driver came back. He didn’t see bombs, but he smelled them. Also, saw many refugees. Not all of them Georgian. Many Azerbaijanis live there too. People unfamiliar with this area don’t realize how many ethnic groups exist, all mixed in together, without regard to national borders.

He also said that witnesses spoke of Russian soldiers shooting civilians. Just shooting everybody.

Another Azerbaijani with connections inside of Georgia told me today that the Russians have taken Poti, a city near one of the factories of SOCAR, the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic. Gori is now without Georgian troops, and many Georgians are trapped within their own country, unable to get to Tblisi and unable to get to safety.

I have e-mailed one of my contacts within Tblisi, but I haven’t heard back from her yet.

People in Azerbaijan are taking this very seriously. It's not like they are expecting an invasion exactly, but they recognize the naked flexing of power by Russia. It is familiar. And the situation looks terrible for the Americans. They have been shown again to be faithless and untrustworthy. Georgia had been doing everything it could to qualify for membership in the community of Western nations, but in the end, Georgia’s Western friends could not or would not help it.

Georgia on my mind

I was going to write about my experience with piti here. Not pity. Piti is much more tasty. A lamb stew with chick peas and saffron that is a specialty of the Sheki area. But in the last 36 hours, the attention of this region of the world has been drawn to the human suffering and danger that is lying across the border in Georgia. While the eyes of much of the world were focused on the Olympics in China, a much more important contest was beginning in in the break-away region of Southern Ossetia. This is occupies our attention in this part of the world. The situation is perceived generally as yet another invasion by Russia, another attempt to subdue the independence of countries on its periphery.

I am a Russian-speaking American - but I have quite a few Azerbaijani friends at this point and I can understand their perspective. While Georgia is entirely distinct culturally, Azerbaijan and Georgia do share some elements of history, mainly a history of Russian domination. While I was planning to visit Georgia, I have not visited there yet - but from what I hear that country is even more anti-Russian than Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijanis have special reasons for resenting the Russians, because they are perceived to be the essential backers of the break-away area of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijanis believe that without Russian support, this conflict could not have occurred. And while other ethnic conflicts in this country do not come close to breaking into the news, there are other ethnic groups that the Russians are perceived to bolster in the hopes of weakening Azerbaijan. The Lezguins in northeast Azerbaijan and the Talysh south of the country both have been named as receiving Russian support for their separatist aims.

I also have many Russian friends, and I've already heard from one of them - defending Putin's actions. I know that in the Russian media, the situation is being painted as a genocidal act of the Georgians against an ethnic minority that sought political union with Russia.

At this point, however, I think most people outside Russia can see the import of the Russian action. Whatever its original justification, the Russian military are now well positioned to achieve a more important goal than the protection of any ethnic minority: the subjugation of a neighboring republic that was acting far too independently. So, Georgia will be subdued, and the control of Russia over the energy supply to Europe will be strengthened.

As an American, my primary regret is for the role of my government. The U.S. government has been saddled for the last seven years with an immoral and incompetent administration that has squandered its material and immaterial resources. Because my country has been consumed by fighting a war that the Bush administration chose to start, it is in no position to offer real support to the Georgians. Its energy policy is bankrupt. The country's economy is foundering. The US military is overextended. And the United States policy has been so blatantly hypocritical about defending "democracy" that even the most optimistic of its friends see its claims as hollow. So, the Georgians are yet another group to suffer from the unintended consequences of George W. Bush's adventurism.

There are a lot of other people writing on this subject at the moment. Here's one link to some blogs:
http://wordpress.com/tag/southern-ossetia/