The expansion of NATO and the South Caucasus

"Turkey and Russia are against the intervention to Syria; only the Syrians are responsible for the fate of President Bashar al-Assad", the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said recently. Meanwhile, given that Syria is the only ally of Iran, which is the part of the infamous "axis of evil", according to American "adepts of democracy", the fall of Assad will inevitably entail the "democratization" of IRI, which will be carried out by NATO fighters, dropping tons of bombs on the heads of Iranians. The operation against Iran is bound to affect Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, because the notorious fighters with their deadly cargo will be expected to take off from the territory of these countries.

However, the current leadership of NATO and its experts and analysts persistently deny the interest of NATO in the South Caucasus, based on the fact that none of the countries of the region is a member of the alliance. However, it does not interfere with NATO and the U.S. high officials who consistently visit the three countries. In the case of Georgia, which is eager to enter the alliance, everything is more or less clear; but there are some problems with the interest of NATO in Azerbaijan and Armenia with their unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Besides, the prospects of Tbilisi for joining NATO are quite vague, and this fact is associated primarily with the processes that occur in Georgia. In addition, not all NATO member countries are willing to take this step after the war of August 2008.

Plans for the expansion of NATO to the East, together with serious problems with its own identity and the constant economic crisis in Europe, are surprising.

According to Anna Shelest, the lead researcher of the National Institute of Strategic Studies under the President of Ukraine, the alliance has not taken a single effort towards eliminating the dividing lines in the South Caucasus. In response to the calls for help to eliminate these lines sounding mostly from Baku and Tbilisi NATO officials claim that the removal of the dividing line is not an objective of the alliance, referring to the fact that the countries of this region are not its members. Each of the countries of the South Caucasus today has its own objectives, both in security and in the field of security sector reform; in fact, the three countries are at different levels of reforming this sector, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union they were in totally different conditions. Thus, at this stage, taking into account the complex relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Turkey, the establishment of a common security system in the South Caucasus is absolutely unreal. However, one must possess a considerable degree of optimism to assume that NATO would somehow respond to the possible aggravation of the situation in the South Caucasus region, particularly in the conflict zone. The maximum that can be expected is political statements. And certainly the reaction of Brussels will not be more active than during the Russian-Georgian conflict. NATO has never intervened in the peace process in Nagorno-Karabakh, because there are the OSCE Minsk Group and the EU which are engaged in it.

Meanwhile, in the opinion of Dimitrios Triantafilu, the Director of the Center for International and European Studies of the University Kadeer Khaz (Istanbul), the opinion of NATO and its position regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict depends a lot on developing its relations with Russia.

Sergei Markedonov, a visiting expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington), agrees with him and claims that NATO's interest in the South Caucasus is specific and limited. NATO is interested in the South Caucasus and neighboring countries, according to him, above all, in the context of Afghanistan and of 2014, i. e. of the scheduled withdrawal of the ISAF troops, and in the case of Azerbaijan – because of the presence of lobby, since one third of the supplies to Afghanistan passes through the territory of Azerbaijan. Georgia has provided more military personnel for operations in Afghanistan than all other NATO partners. As for Armenia, it is also a factor considered by NATO, which needs to keep abreast in the light of the Iranian perspective and the development of the Middle East process. At the same time, Brussels takes into account the opinion of Moscow on the proposed membership of Georgia in NATO, otherwise Georgia would have been a member of the alliance, but would not have received a MAP. As for Armenia, Yerevan clearly does not feel the need to enhance cooperation with NATO. There were Armenian troops in Kosovo, they were also in Afghanistan, the expansion of this contingent is also possible. Thus, the point is not only the position of a strategic partner of Yerevan, that is, of Moscow. First of all, the pragmatic interest in the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan is necessary in order to increase such cooperation; this interest comes down to the issue of the side NATO will takein the Karabakh settlement. It makes Brussels to diversify its steps and to be delicate in maneuvering between the interests of Armenia and Azerbaijan, especially considering that one third of NATO exports to Afghanistan goes through the territory of Azerbaijan. Taking into account the turbulence in the Middle East and the Iranian issue Azerbaijan is considered by NATO to be a secular Muslim state. In the Islamic world, there are few such countries. At the same time, there is not any clear choice in favor of the position of Azerbaijan in Brussels, despite the fact that relations with Azerbaijan are very valuable for NATO, given the length of its border with Iran.

In his turn, Sergei Konoplyov, director of the programs for the US-Russia and US-Ukraine relations and for the Black Sea Security of Kennedy School of Harvard University, believes that at present one can only speculate on the issue of the upcoming NATO strike on Iran. In his opinion, there are not any grounds for a military strike on Iran, at least on the part of NATO as a universal organization. The expert does not see any statements and indicators according to which NATO has at least tentative plans of operation in Iran. Iran, in his opinion, is not like Libya, and the operation here can lead to unpredictable results, and the U.S., which is the largest military and financial contributor of NATO, is still involved in two wars, and the Congress cut a significant amount of the Pentagon spending. Therefore, the funds for conducting several operations at once are not enough.

Ingo Mannteufel, the head of the department of Eastern Europe and the chief editor of the Russian edition of Deutsche Welle, also expressed his views on the relations between NATO and Russia; he believes that stagnation will dominate in these relations in the coming months. The reasons for it, in his view, are very simple: the presidential elections will be held in the U.S. in November. Therefore, neither the United States nor Russia expects the status quo to change. Russian President Vladimir Putin also made it clear by refusing to participate in the Summits of the United States and thus demonstrating the intention to wait the election of a president in the U. S., and to re-discuss the issue on the basis of this information. However, Mannteufel believes that there will not be any aggravation in these relations in the coming months, because neither the U.S. nor the European members of NATO or Russia are interested in it. At the same time, he has noted that he currently does not see the positive dynamics which would allow speculating about the future development in the relationship between NATO and Russia. The major problem in relations between Russia and NATO is a distrust of each other, which affects both sides. Meanwhile, the creation of a transit center of NATO in Ulyanovsk in order to withdraw the NATO forces from Afghanistan, which is, above all, a profitable bargain for Russia, could theoretically increase the chances of building trust between NATO and Russia.