Running head: 1

David S. Spencer

Thomas Edison State College

Author Note

This is the Final Project for the May 2014 term of POS-420-OL, Conflict in International

Relations. This project adapts the APA writing style to substitute the use of in-line citation for

endnotes. This allows for the reference of multiple sources and unclutters the body of the text.

The references section remains at the end of the project in standard APA style.

2

Beginning in a genesis of divisive imperial aggression, the Nagorno-Karabakh War

emerged as a civil struggle for minority protection and self-determination that over years and

decades deteriorated into a brutal war rife with ethnic cleansing and state terror. This paper

examines the conflict with a focus on the period of hostilities between 1988 and 1994. This

paper focuses on Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as the primary

actors in this conflict and examines them at the state level of analysis. From the actions of

Imperial Russia, Ottoman Turks, Imperial British, Soviets, Armenians, and Azeri it is clear that

the primary cause of the conflict is nationalism.

Origins of the Conflict

The conflict that begat the Nagorno-Karabakh War is a product of the modern era.

Russian and Ottoman imperial interests and mismanagement set the stage for Soviet ethnic

delineations that fixed Armenians and Azerbaijanis on an inevitable course towards conflict.

In the beginning of the 19th Century, Nagorno-Karabakh and the entire Caucasus Region

was under the control of the Russian Empire. As Russian control solidified in the early 19th

Century, there were ethnic migrations of Muslim Azerbaijanis into Persia as Christian Armenians

moved north into the Russian South Caucasus1. Throughout this period the Karabakh was

ethnically Armenian, but always administratively united with the Turko-Islamic population –

known then as Tartars, who are today Azerbaijanis2. Russian hegemony generally maintained

stability and order in the region until the end of Czarist Russian at the conclusion of World War

One. The only exception to this was internal strife encouraged by the Russian regional

authorities between the Tartars and the Armenians. This led to violence in 1905 and 1906, and

resulted in the establishment of local Armenian self-defense forces in Karabakh3.

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Transcaucasian Union Fails

With the fall of the Russian Monarchy in 1917, the Russian Provisional Government

created the Special Transcaucasian Committee to govern the entire Caucasian Region including

Nagorno-Karabakh4. After the Bolshevik overthrow of the Russian Provisional Government, the

Transcaucasian Committee formed a government independent from the new Russian Bolshevik

regime under the control of the Transcaucasian Commissariat, known as the Sejm. By early

1918 the Sejm officially declared independence from Russia and formed the Transcaucasian

Democratic Federative Republic; however, the union collapsed in May 1918 as ethnic tensions

resurfaced with the Ottoman invasion of Transcaucasia5. The area divided into three ethnic

nation-states: Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

The local leaders and people of Karabakh rejected Ottoman-backed Azerbaijani

sovereignty over the area through the summer of 1918; however the Karabakh assembly relented

to the Turks in October and allowed Azerbaijanis and 5000 Turkish troops into the ethnically

Armenian region under the promise of stability and law. The arriving Turkish troops did not

respect the terms of their admission and began arresting local leaders and intellectuals and

erecting gallows in Shusha just days before the Ottoman defeat in World War One6.

While the Ottomans controlled Shusha and major towns in Karabakh, they did not control

the highlands. Karabakh highlanders appealed to Armenian partisans for military assistance

against the Ottomans and Azerbaijanis and by mid-November the Armenians controlled the

highlands and were prepared to take Shusha7. But the Armenians did not take the town and

instead stopped all military operations at the behest of the commander of Allied forces in

Transcaucasia as the Peace Conference of Paris started. Because the Armenian leaders trusted

the Allies to resolve their conflict with the Turks and Azerbaijanis at the peace conference, they

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forfeited the opportunity to achieve a decisive victory that would have eliminated the political

separation of Karabakh from the rest of the Armenian nation.

After the war the Allies favored the Azerbaijani claims and allowed them to install local

leaders with pan-Turkish views, “which sought initially to unify Anatolian Turkey and eastern

Transcaucasia across an extinct Armenia"8. During this time the democratic and ethnically

Armenian Assembly of Karabakh repeatedly rejected British favored Azerbaijani military

control. To counter this civil resistance, Azerbaijan began a violent repression of Armenians in

Karabakh including the murder of 600 ethnic Armenians in and around the village of

Khaibalikend in early June 19199.

Armenian-Azerbaijani War and Early Soviet Actions

The withdrawal of the British from the Caucasus in the late summer of 1919 set the stage

for the resumption of the hostilities forestalled by the Paris Peace Conference. By early 1920,

both sides in the conflict had accumulated significant stocks of arms. The Armenians of

Karabakh attempted to preempt an Azerbaijani attack with an uprising. This uprising was

doomed from the start due to mismanagement and was ultimately crushed when the Azerbaijanis

slaughtered the Armenian population of Shusha on 4 April 192010.

The Bolshevik invasion of Baku in late April 1920 further complicated the situation. The

expansionist Bolsheviks saw an ideological ally in Azerbaijani Pan-Turkism, as their views could

help unite the Caucasian and Anatolian Turks under Bolshevik socialism11. In August 1920, the

independent Armenian government in Yerevan yielded to the Bolshevik occupation of Karabakh

and other disputed territories. A month later, independent Armenia collapsed under an

Azerbaijani invasion. This lead to the sovietization of Armenia that began in earnest with the

arrival of the 11th Red Army in Yerevan in December 192012.

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Soviet hegemony over Transcaucasia ended the hostilities of the Armenian-Azerbaijani

War. It also largely removed the territorial conflict from local leaders and concentrated decision-

making in the Soviet high command. The Soviets kept upper, Nagorno, and lower Karabakh in

Azerbaijan as Stalin led the creation of ethnic soviet states in the early 1920s13. As part of the

creation of ethnic soviet states, the Soviets forcibly migrated populations to the state intended for

their ethnicity14. During this program of ethnic division the Soviets had two competing interests

in Karabakh to consider. The first was the ethnic divisions and the second was maintaining the

recently drawn Caucasian borders; to that end, the Soviets organized the Nagorno-Karabakh

Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) for the Armenian dominated area drawn into Azerbaijan15.

Annexation of the NKAO was a recurring Armenian demand during the Soviet era but

overwhelming central Soviet authority prevented action on the issue throughout most of the

Soviet era16.

Soviet Decline and Reignition of the Conflict

By the late 1980s the ability of the central Soviet authority to subdue regional and ethnic

tensions began to fail throughout the Russian domain. In Transcaucasia one manifestation of this

decline was the renewal of demands for the incorporation of Nagorno-Karabakh into the

Armenia. This began with Armenian demonstrations in the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh,

Stepanakert. The NKAO Soviet appealed to the USSR Supreme Soviet for incorporation of

Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia. The swelling support for integration of Nagorno-Karabakh

spread into Armenia and sparked violent protests. These protests in Nagorno-Karabakh and

Armenia led to the intervention of Soviet troops in Stepanakert and the violent deportations of

hundreds of thousands of Armenians from Azerbaijan and the over one hundred thousand Azeris

fleeing mob and state violence in Armenia to Azerbaijan17.

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After debating the issue, the USSR government declined the request of the NKAO Soviet

and Armenia, and thus affirmed Azerbaijani claim to Nagorno-Karabakh. This decision did not

settle the issue, and instead led to further violence in Stepanakert. Two months after the

Supreme Soviet decision violent clashes between Armenians and Azeri in Stepanakert led to the

nearly complete displacement of the Azeri minority from city. The USSR responded in January

of 1989 by placing Nagorno-Karabakh under Moscow’s direct administration backed up by

USSR Interior Ministry troops18; however, these measures did not quell the violence that was

quickly turning into a war.

Hostilities

The hostilities of the Nagorno-Karabakh War encompassed the full spectrum of low

intensity and conventional combat. Hostilities that started out as violent protests, became raids,

became organized barbarisms, became full-scale conventional war, and two decades after the

armistice continues as low intensity conflict to this day.

Azerbaijani Unrest

Azeris saw Moscow’s direct administration of the NKAO as dominative and an affront to

local Azerbaijani authority19. This stoked the flames of Azerbaijani nationalism and bolstered the

Azerbaijani Popular Front (APF). The APF declared a boycott of Armenia and Nagorno-

Karabakh in August 1989 and was instrumental in the organization of a railroad blockade against

the Armenians20. While the USSR restored Azerbaijani administration of Nagorno-Karabakh to

Azerbaijan in November 1989, the Soviets saw the APF as a direct threat to their interests,

regional stability, and the Baku and low-land Armenian population.

In January 1990 Soviet Troops used brutal force while storming Baku with the stated

intent of protecting Armenians, but with the more likely unstated objective of countering the

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APF. The Russian incursion did little to protect Armenians in Azerbaijan and reprisals from both

sides continued through 1990 and 199121.

Pogroms and Operation Ring

Atrocities began at the beginning of the conflict in 1988, but increased significantly in

their brutality and occurrence in 1990 and 1991. The atrocities were described as pogroms22.

Pogroms are violent riots targeting an ethnic group with lethal intent23. Armenians charged that

the first pogrom of the conflict was in Sumgait, an industrial town north of Baku, in 198824. The

pogrom mob raids were committed by both sides, largely with the intent of ethnically-cleansing

territories of minority Armenian or Azeri populations. Between 1988 and 1994 it is likely that

thousands of civilians on both sides died as a result of the pogroms25.

Azerbaijani and Soviet troops also conducted systematic ethnic cleansing in the Spring

and Summer of 1991 in Operation Ring. The operation consisted of using violent force to

conduct passport and arms inspections in Armenian villages in Nagorno-Karabakh. This

operation resulted in the depopulation through deportation of 22 to 24 Armenian villages in

Nagorno-Karabakh. Operation Ring was significant in the conflict as it demonstrated to the

Armenians a systematic violation of human rights by Azerbaijan against the Armenians of

Nagorno-Karabakh26.

USSR Disintegration and Declarations of Independence

The USSR disintegrated in the autumn of 199127. Azerbaijan declared independence on

30 August 1991, while Armenia followed suit on 23 September. During this time clashes

between Azerbaijani forces and Armenians became more frequent in Nagorno-Karabakh as the

Armenians fought to reclaim villages lost during Operation Ring28.

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USSR troops in the region pulled out in the late fall of 1991, removing the last

impediments to direct military engagement between the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces.

Azerbaijan abolished the NKAO in November 1991 with the intent of fully integrating the

Nagorno-Karabakh into the newly independent Azeri state; however, in December the Armenian

government in Stepanakert declared independence and had formed the Nagorno-Karabakh

Republic by January 199229.

Full-scale Combat Operations

Full-scale combat operations commenced in the beginning of 1992 with the heavy

Azerbaijani artillery shelling of Stepanakert. Through the Spring the Armenian forces –

consisting of fighters from Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, possibly rough Russian Army units,

and mercenaries30 – made significant gains including securing highway access from the contested

region into Armenia and taking the strategic town of Shusha. By May, Armenian forces

controlled the entire mountainous region of the Karabakh31.

Atrocities and gross human rights violations increased with the escalation of the conflict.

Both sides frequently shelled their opponent’s cities and villages and pogroms continued against

minority populations that had not yet fled. One significant Armenian atrocity of early 1992 was

the Armenian and 366th Regiment of the former Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs attack on

Azeri civilian population of Hojaly32.

By the summer of 1992 both sides in the conflict had extensive stocks of heavy military

equipment and munitions including heavy armor, artillery, attack aircraft, and air-defense

artillery. The proliferation of arms was another result of the disintegration of the Soviet Union

and loss of central control of forward stationed military units33.

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Azerbaijani forces counter-attacked in June to try to regain ground lost to the Armenians

in the Spring; however, the assault was generally unsuccessful and only yielded the capture of

several villages at the cost of heavy Azerbaijani causalities due to disorganization and poor

training34. The Azerbaijani gains in this offensive were largely the result of withering artillery

bombardments that devastated the local populations35.

Despite the minor gains by the Azerbaijanis as a result of their June offensive, Karabakh

Armenian forces solidified their gained positions by September. In the first months of 1993, the

Armenian forces made significant gains against the Azerbaijanis including reclaiming territories

in Mardakert lost to the Azeri June offensive36. The Karabakh forces also secured “Azerbaijani

territory immediately to the north and to the east of their republic, as well as a portion of land

along the Azerbaijani-Iranian border to the south”37.

The Azerbaijani military lacked effective command and control from the beginning of the

conflict, and the swift and significant tactical defeats in early 1993 put the military into disarray

and threatened the stability of the running Popular Front government. The Azerbaijani military

was significantly weakened by internal factionalism that further degraded the effectiveness of

insufficient command and control structures38. A Military coup in June toppled the Azerbaijani

Popular Front government and reinstalled the former communist leader and KGB general. The

new regime was not any more effective against the Karabakh Armenians than was the former,

and by “August 1993, nearly 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory was under Armenian

occupation”39.

Conflict End State

The major powers and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE)40

had been working to secure an end to the hostilities throughout the war, and had crafted concrete

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proposals by 199341; however, these proposals were largely overcome by the events of that year.

Serious negotiations had to wait until the Karabakh Armenians had fully secured their territorial

gains that were ready to negotiate and formalize their victory; while at the same time it was not

until the Azerbaijanis had suffered unqualified defeat that they were willing to recognized the

Nagorno-Karabakh Republic leaders as a legitimate counterparty42.

The active hostilities ended in May 1994 in a Russian-mediated cease-fire agreement

between Azerbaijan and the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The cease-fire

created a line of control along the borders between Azerbaijan and the Armenians, in Armenia

and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, that is heavily mined and subject to periodic skirmishes,

paramilitary raids, and sniper attacks43. The conflict also resulted in the displacement of over

one million Armenians and Azeri as a result of ethnic violence and military operations. These

populations remain displaced and it is unlikely that they will return to their pre-war ethnically

mixed cities and villages44.

The conflict also resulted in blockades and embargoes have significantly disrupted the

lines of communication and transportation through Transcaucasia. These disruptions are

minimized in Azerbaijan by its Caspian Sea ports and significant energy and petro-chemical

economy; conversely, these disruptions have had a significant impact on the landlocked

population and economy of Armenia which faced shortages of imported food and energy in the

1990s45.

Post Conflict Political Situation

Decades after the end of hostilities, and over a century since the conflict began, the

political ramifications of the Nagorno-Karabakh war shape the domestic and international

politics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

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Azerbaijan

The Nagorno-Karabakh War left Azerbaijan with a deeply scared internal political

landscape. The war compounded political strife caused by an intransigent communist regime

that was slow to reform in the wake of the collapse of the soviet union and domestic economic

struggles46. All these factors led to the sacking of the Azerbaijani government three times during

the course of the war, with the last instance at the hands of a military coup that regressed the

liberal progress of the APF, Liberal Democratic Party, and National Democratic Party back into a

state of security-service driven strong-man politics47. Despite military defeat and internal

political turmoil, Azerbaijan was vindicated at the international-level for defending its territorial

sovereignty.

Nagorno-Karabakh Republic

In the late eighties the Armenian SSR and NKAO sought unification into a greater

Armenia; however after the breakup of the USSR, the Armenians changed their political strategy

and declared an independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. This was likely to avoid international

sanctions for violating the internationally-recognized sovereign territory of Azerbaijan. Two

decades after the cease-fire the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is not recognized by a single U.N.

member state, not even Armenia48. While not legally integrated into Armenia, the Nagorno-

Karabakh Republic operates economically and militarily as a vassal of Armenia. It is also

politically integrated to some degree as politicians from Nagorno-Karabakh have become senior

leaders in Armenia49. This is also true internationally, as the trilateral negotiations that achieved

the 1994 cease-fire by 2006 shifted to bilateral negotiations where the Armenian President

represents the interests of both Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic50.

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Armenia

Despite severe economic hardship, Armenia suffered the fewest political ramifications

from the hostilities. This is largely due to three factors. First, Armenian and Armenian allied

forces were highly successful during the course of the war. Second, the conflict was seen as a

protection or liberation of the Karabakh Armenians and this view served to unify the Armenian

public in support of government. Third, Armenia managed to continue to support Nagorno-

Karabakh Armenians against Azerbaijan while skirting international law after the breakup of the

Soviet Union, and thereby avoided international sanctions.

Assessment

It is clear that throughout the century long history of this conflict that armed violence could have

been averted and true peace achieved if it were not for the corrosive effects of nationalism.

Through each stage of Transcaucasian modern history, narrowly defined and nationalist self-

interest further developed a conflict that should never have happened.

The ethnic populations of Transcaucasia have been heterogeneous for millennia as

different cultures and empires rose and fell across the region’s varied terrain. The beginnings of

the conflict started with Russian Imperial aggression in the area in the nineteenth century. Local

Russian leaders chose to divide and conquer to limit the need for direct military intervention.

This process began a modern balkanization that was not existent in the late middle ages. This is

the genesis of the conflict and was the source of hostilities at the turn of the twentieth century.

The allies contributed to the conflict by not resolving the first Armenian-Azerbaijani war

through the Paris Peace Conference. The Allies – principally the British – insisted that hostilities

against the Turks and Azeris stop and that the conference would resolve the conflict peacefully;

however, allied national and imperial interests prevented this promise from being fulfilled.

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Instead of resolving the conflict, the allies memorialized it in international law and demonstrated

outside mediation as ineffective.

Despite the failure of the Paris Peace Conference, the region was able to briefly unite in

the ethnically diverse Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. The TDFR was likely

the greatest chance to peacefully avoid balkanization and the Karabakh conflict. It could have

united the region under a Caucasian nationalism rather than under divisive ethnic nationalist

views. The TDFR lasted only months as Pan-Turkic nationalism from within and from the post-

Ottoman Kamalist Turks fractured the union under Turkish military pressure.

The early Soviet action of ethnic national delineation and ethnic cleansing further

institutionalized the conflict into the structure of the USSR. The issue of Karabakh was debated

by the Soviets; however, they found it in their national interest to sidestep the issue in the

creation of the NKAO.

The late Soviet actions of the 1980s were no better than those of Lenin and Stalin.

Moscow’s efforts in the region were more focused on the immediate pacification of militants

than the resolution of the underlying conflict. These counter-insurgency tactics and strategies

laid the groundwork for the main period of hostilities and was the last missed opportunity for

peace of the Soviet era.

While all the other opportunities missed to create a lasting peace were largely due to the

nationalistic policies of outside actors, the most recent failures were internal to the region. In the

early stages of the hostilities the Azerbaijan government missed a key opportunity to recognized

the Karabakh Armenians’ grievances and solidify civil political authority over the region;

instead, the Azerbaijanis undertook Operation Ring and thereby solidified the hostility of the

government against the local population.

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For two decades since the cease-fire the conflict has been frozen51. The post-conflict era

is continuous failure to achieve a lasting peace. The status quo and nationalist struggle has

emerged as an integral part of the legitimacy of both the government of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In conclusion, it is unlikely that there will be a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh War

until there is a significant change to the region’s political, economic, or military environment.

International institutions have been able to hold the negative peace, but only the Azeri and

Armenian people themselves can create a lasting positive peace.

Running head: 15

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Endnotes

1 Farhadoglu, 20142 Walker, 1996, p. 973 ibid.4 Khlevniuk, Raleigh, & Transchel, 1995, p. 235 Walker, 1996, p. 986 ibid.7 ibid., p. 998 ibid., p. 989 ibid., p. 9910 ibid., p. 10011 ibid.12 Drobizheva, 1996, p. 22913 Khashan, 201314 Martin, 199815 Drobizheva, 1996, p. 22916 ibid., p. 23017 Human Rights Watch, 1994, p. 118 ibid.19 Brown, 200420 Human Rights Watch, 1994, p. 221 ibid.22 Drobizheva, 1996, p. 23123 Elon, 2002, p. 10324 Drobizheva, 1996, p. 23125 Human Rights Watch, 1994, p. 626 ibid., p. 527 Drobizheva, 1996, p. 23228 Human Rights Watch, 1994, p 629 Batalden & Batalden, 1997, p. 11330 Human Rights Watch, 1994, p. 631 Drobizheva, 1996, p. 23332 ibid.33 ibid.34 Batalden & Batalden, 1997, p. 11335 Human Rights Watch, 1994, p. 736 Drobizheva, 1996, p. 23437 Batalden & Batalden, 1997, p. 11338 Human Rights Watch, 1994, p 11; Drobizheva, 1996, p. 23439 Drobizheva, 1996, p. 23640 CSCE changed its name to OSCE in 199541 UNSC Resolutions 822, 853, 874, 88442 Drobizheva, 1996, p. 23743 Batalden & Batalden, 1997, p. 11344 Human Rights Watch, 1994, p. 10245 ibid., p. 13046 Batalden & Batalden, 1997, p. 11447 ibid.48 Human Rights Watch, 1994, p. 15549 Brown, 200450 Zourabian, 200651 Ajemian, 2011