Keynote Speech to the Second Baku Forum of Association of Scholars of International Relations (ASIRS)

These days people use the word “unprecedented” a lot. But there is a truly new international situation around the South Caucasus. Both Russia and Turkey are strong states in the international system, and they have mutually friendly relations. This has never happened before and certainly not since the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which unified the European international states-system.

Moreover, today Russia and Turkey are both revisionist powers, i.e., they seek to revise the “peace settlement” from the end of the last war, which was the Cold War—not a shooting war, but nevertheless a worldwide conflict that produced an outcome that fundamentally altered the structure of the system to the detriment of the opposing sides. Some observers have asserted that Turkey wishes in fact to revise the peace settlement from the First World War, but I shall not address this somewhat simplistic interpretation here.

Iran also wants to revise the post-Cold War “peace settlement,” although some observers believe that in fact it wishes to revise the settlement of a perhaps still more distant war. One way or another, Russia, Turkey, and Iran are all revisionist powers, and this makes for a very difficult situation for Azerbaijan, which is situated in the middle of all three of them.

Viewed from this perspective, the choice of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) over Nabucco West introduces an element of equilibrium into the Greater Southwest Asia hydrocarbon energy complex which is constituted by the Azerbaijan-Russia-Turkey triangle. The triangular approach to analysis is important, because it overcomes the emphasis on bilateralism, which is outdated in a networked world. The triangular building-block approach enables triangles to be embedded in one another, as for example the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey entente within the Azerbaijan-Russia-Turkey constitutive triangle.

However, the choice of the TAP over Nabucco West means that there will not be in the near future any Greater Southeast European hydrocarbon energy complex that might include the East Balkans. Also the absence of Azerbaijani gas in this region means that there will be no intersection between such an East Balkan complex and any East Central European hydrocarbon energy complex, each of which also had triangular potential foundations. Such a link between the two complexes would have had to have had Azerbaijan-Turkey as a side of the triangle. Perhaps this will eventuate in future, perhaps not, but a few further words about it are due below.

Elsewhere, I have set out in detail an analytical summary of the evolution of the Greater Southwest Asia hydrocarbon energy complex in three stages: 1993-1998, 1999-2004, and 2005-2010. (What comes after 2010, I will say momentarily.) These phases of evolution may be designated: Emergence, Self-Direction, and Cohesiveness. Regional experts and those involved with the region in one way or another can instinctively understand, on the basis of their familiarity with the facts on the ground, the common-sense basis for such a periodization, which—although not based upon the history of the BTC—also accurately depicts the phases of its implementation.

It is perhaps not so surprising that this periodization also arises out of the evolution of the formation and deployment of Azerbaijan’s national interests.

One of the things that is clear in the post-Cold War world with its analytical emphasis on triangular relations, is the importance of international networking. The multi-vectorial export policy of Azerbaijan is paralleled also by Kazakhstan’s, illustrating the point. But it is necessary to go beyond the immediate neighborhood of Russia, Turkey, and Iran.

Azerbaijan has begun and should and will continue these vectors of networking beyond its three large neighbors. To the West, Azerbaijan has sought to promote exports across the Black Sea, for example CNG or LNG to Bulgaria; also the AGRI project, and also the EAOTC via Ukraine. Maybe in the further future some of these will be implemented, but they will not have a structuring, foundational influence on the overall Eurasian networks, such as they would have if they could have been established at the present stage.

And this brings me to the Eastern direction across the Caspian Sea. There could have been a possibility to establish a Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan triangle, but this has not happened and it is fair now to say that neither of the projects on which it would have been based (TCGP and/or KCTS) will be implemented in the foreseeable future.

I wish to suggest that it is nevertheless appropriate at this time in the evolution of Azerbaijan’s national interest to pursue the deepening of relations with the Central Asian countries, even if this does not now include significant energy trade in the first instance. For the three periods I mentioned (Emergence, 1993-1998; Self-Definition, 1999-2004; and Cohesiveness, 2005-2010) represent only a metaphase of Emergence introducing a metaphase of Self-Definition that we have now entered. We could even specify that the definition of Azerbaijan’s national interest, of which the implementation evolves with the changing international circumstances, is now in the phase of the Emergent Self-Definition.

At such a stage a state, the establishment of the international network of relations, not suggest an aggregation of aggregation relations, becomes most significant. The network, not just the Azerbaijan-Turkey-Russia triangle and not just Azerbaijan-US bilateral relations extending relations southward to Israel, westward to the European Black Sea states, and eastward to Central Asia, can help to anchor the stability of Azerbaijan in its own turbulent Russia-Turkey-Iran neighborhood. Imagine the relations with Israel, the Western Black Sea states, and Central Asia as like ropes that secure Azerbaijan’s stability against the upsets that may be caused in the closer neighborhood by the trampoline of the Russia-Turkey-Iran triangle threatening to overturn it.

Also such unity of policy may create an identity of policy that becomes a fertile ground upon which new developments, unforeseeable at present, could take root. It is a natural and reciprocal process for relations to be extended and then in turn to nourish that place from which they are extended.

It would be well to focus on Kazakhstan in the first instance, although of course without forgetting the other Central Asian states. Kazakhstan is and will continue to be the geo-economic driver in Central Asian development. Besides, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have certain clear similarities—not just industrial, but also cultural, that mark the development of such relations as a kind of common sense. Moreover, as Kazakhstan grows more and more squeezed between Russia and China, as the domestic political situation there has an increasingly unclear future, as the US withdrawn its attention from the region and certainly as a strategic region, it makes sense for Azerbaijan to put forward a foreign-policy image, which would be self-fulfilling, to be an anchor and point of reference for Kazakhstan, as Azerbaijan’s economic performance shows that it is possible to overcome certain economic difficulties that Kazakhstan has yet to confront with complete success.

I do not have the time to make remarks on the other Central Asian countries: Uzbekistan, where the social as well as political situation will one day show the difficulties now covered over and show the instability; or Turkmenistan, which is another difficult and very particular situation.

Azerbaijan is a relatively small state, and that can in fact be an advantage. Because it is a small state, no one can suspect Azerbaijan of having a hidden agenda or having ulterior motives. In that sense, Azerbaijan represents potentially a stabilizing influence in Central Asia, drawing also upon its cultural-historical inheritance, as well as laying groundwork for future developments.

To be sure, such a new foreign-policy vector in Azerbaijan’s international policy would facilitate the east-to-west transit of Central Asian energy resources. Thus Azerbaijan, whenever the correlation of forces in the evolving international situation makes that project feasible. But aside from that, such a new vector has now become possible on the basis of Azerbaijan’s very impressive foreign-policy accomplishments up to the present day. Such a new vector will further enhance Azerbaijan’s international profile and also its national interests in the present time.