Mark Hertling, Commanding General of US Army Europe and Seventh Army: "The Caucasus remains a complicated tangle of security concerns"

Lieutenant-General Mark Hertling, the current Commanding General of
the US Army Europe and Seventh Army, where he is responsible for
training American soldiers, published a report in the Foreign Policy
journal, in which he stated that the Caucasus "remains a complicated
tangle of security concerns".

" Ethnic tensions still affect long-standing territorial disputes,
internally-displaced indigenous people align with or oppose powerful
diasporas, and an increasing nouveau riche -- an oil-fueled minority
upper class -- is growing in an area once known only for desperate
poverty," the report of Hertling reads. "While the Minsk Group

spearheads the OSCE's efforts to find a political solution to the
conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia and Azerbaijan both
remain frustrated with the lack of political resolve; military leaders
on both sides proudly and unjustifiably claim they could "settle it"
quickly. The recent Georgian experience with Russia has left
significant cross-border scars that will likely not heal anytime soon,
especially as Georgia desperately seeks NATO membership and European
acceptance. The spider-web relations between Iran and Israel with many
of those in this region confuses even the experts; and the borders
between Turkey and many of her allies -- especially Armenia -- are
subject to political resolution of multi-generational disputes between
those two countries," Hertling believes.

In the report Hertling asserts that the presence of US forces in
the world is necessary in order to maintain and expand security
cooperation and "eliminate the tyranny of distance". At the same time,
he believes that thanks to the efforts of the Georgian, Armenian and
Azeri security forces it is possible to further strengthen security in
the region and avoid escalation of conflicts.