On the Future of the South Caucasus

or Whether Armenia and Azerbaijan Can Build Real Peace

We Are Our Mountains, image by Naré Gevorgyan

I have spent a good chunk of my life wrestling with how to think about the South Caucasus, where I am originally from. I don’t even like the term for the region in all honesty, but I suppose there has to be a word to describe the combination of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—three small, yet undeniably consequential post-Soviet countries.

Throughout my personal, professional, and academic life, I have seen and participated in many conversations about Armenia and Azerbaijan that collapse under the weight of slogans: “resilience,” “peace-building,” “dialogue,” “reconciliation,” etc. These words sound noble, but often dissolve because of the reality of how people in this region think and act. That is why in my writing and analysis, I have always returned to the same uncomfortable truth: peace without a normative revolution in mentality is an illusion, and security without dignity is a powder keg.

I have argued that Western and EU mediation efforts, while sometimes useful and genuine, too often assume that the future of the region can be built on workshops, declarations, and political agreements while ignoring the hard realities on the ground. Realities like the hateful war propaganda Azerbaijan’s autocratic government still carries out five years after winning the brutal war it launched or Baku’s persecution of peace activists who dare even speak to ethnic Armenians. Realities like Armenia’s struggle to decide what it wants and the current leadership’s absolute incompetence when it comes to the urgent questions of survival in an unforgiving neighborhood.

I have also pushed back against the comforting narratives that blame only Russia or Turkey for this region’s problems, which are prevalent both in the Armenian society and diaspora and in Western policymaking circles and the expert community. Geopolitics has always been and will be at play in a region that has historically sat at the crossroads of large, rival empires and their successor states. And yet, local agency and the unresolved traumas within these societies are just as responsible for the cycle of violence we cannot seem to escape.

As you may have gathered by this point, I am not an optimist when it comes to the South Caucasus. But even as I have held these convictions, I have found it impossible to fully let go of the idea that something different is possible. I have seen how narratives of heroism, victimhood, and deep-entrenched societal insecurities shape what we believe is possible and negotiable. That is why I am usually dismissive of the peace talk, as they tend to mean an end to violence or a victory over the other, without addressing the root cause of it all. I am also skeptical of the neoliberal promise of economic connectivity as a solution. Only someone from Washington or Brussels who has read about the Franco-German reconciliation and the EU’s founding without ever living in the region can still continue believing in this flawed “solution.”

But I admit that I have also seen small gestures—exchanges between civil society groups, collaborations across divides, honest admissions of fear—create spaces where the future does not feel entirely predetermined. And that’s exactly what I found a week ago in Berlin, Germany of all places, where a group of Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, and all those interested in this strange, complicated, and beautiful region came together to talk about the echoes and futures of the South Caucasus.

I was surprised when I was invited to this conference to speak at a panel about the future of the South Caucasus and discuss a paper I had written about the failure of the Armenian-Turkish reconciliation process in 2009. I was told the crowd would be from the social and economic left, the agenda seemed to emphasize decoloniality in thinking about the South Caucasus, and many panelists seemed to be activists and dissidents. Anyone who knows me and my professional work when it comes to the region can tell this isn’t the crowd I am usually around. And there I was, about to bring the cold-hearted geopolitical analysis and pessimistic view of the region to a very different kind of intellectual exercise.

But somehow, it worked.

I now recognize that the weight of past convictions may have overshadowed my previous openness to a daring idea: what might emerge when people who have every reason to mistrust each other sit down in the same room?

Of course, many of the participants and panelists shared ideological convictions in terms of politics and values, with some exceptions (including me). But something about coming together with Azerbaijanis who not only had broken through the pervasive indoctrination of the Aliyev regime, but also took a risk by being there, felt inspiring. We may not have agreed on everything, but we all had a vision of a real reconciliation, even if none of us had the roadmap.

The shrewd ones will spot “real” in that last sentence, and as anything that I do or say, it is not there by accident. So much of our lives, especially in politics, is spent on performative actions. No surprise that the “performative male” meme is gaining traction on social media now.

Performative diplomacy was the central theme of my argument during my panel, and the message I had brought to the conference. I had studied the Turkish domestic political situation and the negotiation tactics during the 2008-2009 process to normalize relations with Armenia, now remembered as the “football diplomacy.” I had analyzed Azerbaijan’s role in the process and dismissed the view that Baku pressured Turkey to backtrack what was seen as a commitment to negotiations without pre-conditions. Instead, Turkey, under the masterful play by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had engaged in performative diplomacy—a process that Ankara neither had real incentives nor the genuine desire to see succeed, but that it used strategically for diplomatic wins elsewhere.

The lesson, I argued, was clear: political theater will not bring peace to the region. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan can travel to Turkey and Western capitals all he wants, but it won’t change his position and image internationally: a defeated, hysterical, and selfish populist who will do anything to hold onto power. He has been and remains a pawn in Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s game, and whatever document he may sign at the end of the so-called peace negotiations will not be enough for a sustainable and long-term peace and reconciliation.

And while Pashinyan’s government is bankrupt and without diplomatic gunpowder in the ongoing peace process, the opposite is true on the other side. Aliyev is a victor, conqueror, and a national hero for his people; a reliable energy partner for the West; and a respected autocrat for Turkey, Russia, and the other authoritarian players involved in the region. He may not be the best personally at projecting power and confidence—Aliyev’s now infamous showing of his fist is quite a cringe scene to watch time and again—but he has earned the respect and cooperation of essentially every major player, legitimizing his forceful takeover of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region through war and ethnic cleansing. We live in a weird political era where quite a few cringe leaders make it to the top.

In such a situation, it is hard to see why Mr. Aliyev would even consider making any concrete step towards genuine reconciliation, which would require symbolic and practical concessions and owning the victory he brought to Azerbaijan with grace and humility. These words are foreign to Aliyev, however. He has made the public humiliation of Pashinyan and of the Armenian people a regular exercise, while the Azerbaijani state continues to do the exact opposite of everything a country desiring peace would do. From jailing peace activists to destroying Armenian cultural heritage in Karabakh, from continuing to indoctrinate Azerbaijani children to hate everything Armenian to rearming aggressively, Azerbaijan is pressing ahead towards what has been and remains the personal goal of Mr. Aliyev: the destruction of Armenian statehood, in practical and symbolic terms.

Now, the old question remains: can Armenia and Azerbaijan build real peace? I think the answer will vary depending on where we look. When we look at Mr. Pashinyan and Mr. Aliyev, we see two men with clear psychological traumas they have clearly not overcome take it out on the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples. But when I rethink my experience in Berlin just a week ago, seeing the genuine desire in the hearts of people to turn the page of war and work towards building a relationship, I see the seeds of what the future of this tumultuous region may hold.

I remain a skeptic. But I have learned that skepticism does not have to mean cynicism. In the South Caucasus, peace will never come from declarations or summits. If it comes at all, it will be because ordinary people, burdened by history but hopeful of the future, decided to write a different ending than the one they inherited. It will require leadership and sacrifice—two things neither Pashinyan nor Aliyev are capable of.