In the world the political situation continues to be complicated. The military actions are not over yet in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is not yet clear in what direction the states of Northern Africa will develop, even the ones, which are coordinated by the west. The circle around Syria is stretched and the rumors in relation to Iran are becoming more radical as well as the latter’s response to the west. The Serbians of Kosovo are asking Russia to give them Russian citizenship with all the logical consequences originating from that possibility. Both North and South Caucasus are far from being peaceful. What can be expected from this? We have discussed this and many other matters with the Strategic Research Institute expert, academician of the Academy of Public and Military Protection Vladimir Ivanov.
– After the collapse of the USSR the Caucasus turned into a hot spot and continues this status till now. There is silence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and perhaps this is temporary. There is tension around the NKR conflict. In its next year budget Azerbaijan has allotted 3 billion Euros for its military needs. As a response, Armenia is also stressing its “muscles.” There is extreme accumulation of ammunition in the region and it may even fire or possibly fire.
– Armenia and Azerbaijan have focused 80% of their arms on the border. Let me frankly say that Armenia’s own capabilities of progressing its military force and buying arms are pretty limited and it mainly relies on Russia and is armed by the military hardware of Russia. I don’t think that there is a big chance of collision in the NKR because the US, which has pretty good relations with Armenia (and the US has a strong Armenian lobby), is trying to regulate the tension all the time. But the conflict is not resolved although there are certain agreements around the cease fire. Turkey’s stance has a great role to play here. It constantly supports Azerbaijan. But to the extent I understand here no military collision will take place because Turkey, US and Russia got interests in this region and none of them will benefit from war.
– When we speak about the assumptions that Azerbaijan’s material abilities are higher than of Armenia’s the Armenian side mentions the high military preparedness of the Armenian army and claims that this is more important. What do you think about that?
– Armenia established its army in 1993. In the opinion of many experts, including the ones from NATO the level of preparedness of the Armenian army is very high. The officers’ personnel is also professional. In Armenia there is a system of educating and preparing officers. Regardless of this fact a part of Armenia’s officers are being trained in Russia, part of them are trained in Greece, with which Armenia has traditionally warm relations and it considered one of the first countries that recognized Armenia’s genocide. Nonetheless, it is still very difficult to claim that Armenia has a very strong army because it is small and is mostly equipped by the Russian ammunitions and most of it is outdated. It is evident that Armenia cannot afford to buy modern military hardware despite the fact that it spends 10% of its budget on military costs. Let me specially emphasize that Russia provide ammunitions at a very cost-effective and discounted price. This being said, I wouldn’t say that the Armenian army is a dominant power in the region. This claim wouldn’t be very realistic.
– The Presidents of Russia and USA periodically speak about the “reload” of relations. However, in the Southern Caucasus relations don’t change and they don’t look like constructive relations either. The US continues strengthening its positions in the region and tries to oust Russia from this process. How can this “reload” affect the South Caucasus?
– The question is the following, “USA is trying to oust Russia from the region” because Russia has traditionally played a significant role here. And if the Americans are intending to settle in the South Caucasus then they can’t do it without isolating Russia. America is trying to create its own model of the world by making it uni-polar, where it would dominate. There is not a single spot in the world, which America wouldn’t consider a spot of its national interest. But the Caucasus has always been a complicated region and Russia has always played a decisive role there. As of Armenia, during the soviet era Russia had a serious influence of the military industry of Armenia. Having not produced any kind of military arms Armenia was catering 40% of electron components for the Soviet Union necessary for military production. Currently Armenia’s industry is not in a very good shape but it’s ready to be exploited. Moreover, I’d like to add that the most part of the former military industrial complex is currently under Russia’s control. For this reason at this stage there is no need to speak about the chances of the US to fortify their positions in this region despite their provision of military ammunitions. For example, recently they have allotted approximately 7 million USD for the development of the management system of Armenia. At any rate, the key player of this region is Russia.
– Recently the South Caucasus pundits, despite the conflict of interests between their countries, seemingly express a unanimous opinions, which is “whoever dominates in the South Caucasus dominates the world.” Are not these opinions artificially exaggerating the role of this region?
-This region is really important. For example, the Americans are interested in the Azerbaijani oil. Georgia and Armenia don’t have such resources. They are attractive in a different aspect. Back in the day Georgia was trying to cover Armenia’s influence in the region. But all that was done in vain because without Armenia’s role they got nothing in this region. We all know that Armenians live all over the world – Iran, America, where there is a very powerful Armenian lobby, even in Afghanistan. With all this, it’s hard to claim that Caucasus is very important and has a really essential role in the world. Here it is relevant to speak about the internal issues, which have always existed. But I don’t think it’s right to give them worldwide importance. This is exaggeration and has a political color and those people, who publicize their political publications, are most interested in that. So I think that the claim “Whoever dominates in the Caucasus dominates the world” is quite exaggerated.
– What can you say about the idea of the US to unite the North and South Caucasus? Is that a game or a real policy?
– These are political games, which are taking place with the lead of the US. I have already said that the US is trying to play a key role everywhere, including the Caucasus, and it is also trying to use all the possible means to oust Russia from the region. And in this light for Russia Armenia is a key country because it is the only country, where it has deployed its military base – in Gyumri. This is a quite powerful military base and it’s necessary for Armenia as well because its economic means to maintain its military potential are extremely limited. So it’s very difficult to believe that the US is going to succeed in uniting the North and South Caucasus. This region has always been quite radical. We may even claim that it has been historically tribal. Most probably, these are the political games of the US, which is trying to create a uni-polar world, including in this world.
– In the region there are two more key players – Iran and Turkey and it’s impossible to ignore their role. What can you say about their role?
– Everybody knows that Turkey has complicated relations with Armenia and we don’t see any tangible results of improvement of these relations. The Turks mostly endorse Azerbaijan. There is no need to speak about the relations of Armenia and Azerbaijan either because of the conflict of the Nagorno Karabakh. Iran develops relations with Armenia… In the regional aspect the relations are pretty tense. The US is trying to establish balanced relations with all the countries of the region but it has contradictions with Iran. In a word, no essential resources are available to improve the situation in the region. More accurately, this is a slowly moving conflict, the stability of which is to a certain extent maintained by the Americans.
– There was a leak that the US jointly with Israel and Great Britain is planning an assault on Iran. How possible is this and what can the consequences be?
-I also think these are political games because they have been speaking about the possible attack on Iran for years now. Yes, certain things are planned. Israel was even provided with bunker bombs to organize strikes but the situation is pretty complicated. If Israel (and it will never start a war without Americans. Its abilities are not sufficient) strikes Iran then it will significantly destabilize the situation in the world. Besides that, they have a pretty serious budget gap in the amount of trillions of dollars and they are concerned how to fill in this gap. And the new war will cost them at least 100 billion USD. The Americans will hardly take this step.
– But they have done it to Iraq.
-Iraq was invaded by George W. Bush. And he invaded with a concrete goal – to attain the Iraqi war. And all the conversations about the axis of evil, nuclear proliferation and Saddam Hussein’s threat to the world were merely elusions. As it’s known they haven’t found any weapon in Iraq. Today in the US many famous pundits confess that the war in Iraq was a campaign aimed at possessing the Iraqi oil. And it ended successfully.
– The same thing is in the case of Iran. The rumors that Tehran is going to launch its nuclear weapon proliferation program and it will become uncontrollable after that.
– This is evidently exaggeration. Indeed, Iran is conducting active scientific research in that direction. It is trying to possess nuclear technologies but all that it still in the embryonic stage and it is not right to say that soon Iran will become a nuclear empire.