Geopolitics in the 2020s.

[vikingTON]

Quote

Despite the PP’s victory, the PSOE, led by the acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has the best chance of forming a new government. But to do so, Sánchez will have to rely on the support of Junts, the hardline Catalan independence party led by the former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont, who fled Spain six years ago to avoid arrest over his role in masterminding the unilateral and unlawful attempt for independence.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/23/protests-madrid-amnesty-catalan-independence-leaders-spain

The absolute fucking nick of this.

A timely reminder that self-determination only applies for liberals if you're the dominant ethnic group of a sovereign state - or of course a minority within an opponent to NATO. 

[Wee-Bey]

Wonder what they're cooking up ?

 

[O_Kahn]

On 19/09/2023 at 14:28, LongTimeLurker said:

So was what the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians did back in the 1990s when seizing a sizable chunk of Azerbaijan they had no reasonable claim to. The Azerbaijanis could have easily finished off NKR/Artsakh whatever you want to call it three years ago, so intransigence on the part of the Armenian side subsequent to that such as the recent presidential election was unlikely to lead to it all ending happily ever after for them. Sometimes in life you need to take the hint that you don't hold a winning hand and need to take the best deal you can. Accepting that the de jure borders are where they are appears to be the price Armenia will have to pay to be able to break with Moscow and have more of an EU and NATO sort of orientation in future.

As an aside, I didn't realise until AFC played them that Qarabag's "home" until 1993 was in a town that was captured by Armenian forces during the first Nagorno-Karabakh War. Aghdam was a town of around 30,000 inhabitants, but became a ghost town after being captured, with Qarabag's old stadium demolished.  

I don't think we'll see widespread massacres in the coming days - for one thing the Azerbaijanis look to have the land for the long-term. Of course it may well suit them if ethnic Armenians leave now if (understandably) they don't want to take the chance.

Weirdly, as well as the traditional support from Turkey, Azerbaijan also has backing from Israel.  The cards have fallen in the worst way from the Armenian perspective.

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by O_Kahn
typo

[Guest]

Now that access has partially opened up to Nagorno-Karabakh, we're starting to get more concrete reports of what the Azeri military did to prompt the ongoing Armenian exodus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66925791

Indiscriminate massacres spreads terror among the targeted group which results in them fleeing for safety.

[Guest]

On 25/09/2023 at 19:55, O_Kahn said:

As an aside, I didn't realise until AFC played them that Qarabag's "home" until 1993 was in a town that was captured by Armenian forces during the first Nagorno-Karabakh War. Aghdam was a town of around 30,000 inhabitants, but became a ghost town after being captured, with Qarabag's old stadium demolished.  

I don't think we'll see widespread massacres in the coming days - for one thing the Azerbaijanis look to have the land for the long-term. Of course it may well suit them if ethnic Armenians leave now if (understandably) they don't want to take the chance.

Weirdly, as well as the traditional support from Turkey, Azerbaijan also has backing from Israel.  The cards have fallen in the worst way from the Armenian perpesctive.

 

The only thing I'd clarify, though, is that this situation isn't analogous to the '88-'94 and 2020 wars. This time its not been Armenia v Azerbaijan, its been Azerbaijan v Azerbaijan. This is not a conflict between two nation states but rather its a single nation state murdering and terrorising a regional population of their state in order to ethnically cleanse that population out of their state. 

Armenia officially relinquished their claim to Nagorno-Karabakh last October and recognised it as territory of Azerbaijan  (https://jam-news.net/azerbaijan-and-armenia-recognize-each-others-territorial-integrity/).

Azerbaijan then began a blockade of the region two months later in December. Once that blockade had sufficiently weakened the population there, Azerbaijan bombed them. The final step has been to now open up an exit for them to flee. 

[moses1924]

Why does Israel support Azerbijan?

[doulikefish]

8 hours ago, moses1924 said:

Why does Israel support Azerbijan?

Iranian influence in Armenia and oil 

[welshbairn]

9 hours ago, moses1924 said:

Why does Israel support Azerbijan?

There's also a substantial Jewish population and Israel was one of the first countries to recognise its independence, along with it being one of the few Muslim majority countries to have extensive trading relations with Israel and military cooperation.

Edited September 28, 2023 by welshbairn

[Guest]

I checked to see what my old friend's been tweeting recently.

She's found us a Brexit bonus. Now that we're no longer constrained by EU consensus we're more free to stir up shit in Kosovo.

 

She wants to put Kosovo in NATO. Kosovo already has a permanent NATO presence and a huge US military base. All that would happen if they were actually put into NATO is that their public money would get wasted on weapons purchases. Kosovo is the poorest country in Europe. It needs what limited money it does have to be spent on education, healthcare, housing and the rest. Not bombs, guns, tanks and jets. Plus any transfer of public money to private (military hardware) companies will see huge cuts of deals being siphoned off by corrupt individuals.

She's also been amplifying Kosovan demands for Serbia to be sanctioned. The worst actors in Serbia are already under OFAC sanctions, all that's left is the option of broad sanctions that would punish Serbian society. The same Serbian society that's currently mass protesting against their government (https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/27/the-democratic-fervor-of-serbian-citizens-is-not-dead/). Sanctions would likely curtail that movement.

This is all it ever is from folk like Kearns, weapons and sanctions. Find the poorest countries you can and either sanction them or build up their military to the detriment of their civic institutions. Then waffle a load of shite about security and stability to justify it.

Edited September 29, 2023 by FreedomFarter

[vikingTON]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/29/the-flare-up-of-violence-in-kosovo-shows-the-folly-of-the-wests-appeasement-of-serbia

Leaving aside the use of the West's beloved a-word, the fundamental flaw with this is the idea that Balkan politics can be viewed meaningfully through a NATO v Russia prism. All the local actors - and there are fucking dozens of them even at one level before the sovereign state - are applying their own agency to get what they want. Russia is no more responsible for Belgrade's policies than it was for Hilary Clinton losing Wisconsin in 2016 - these are liberal excuses for their failure of political vision. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, virginton said:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/29/the-flare-up-of-violence-in-kosovo-shows-the-folly-of-the-wests-appeasement-of-serbia

Leaving aside the use of the West's beloved a-word, the fundamental flaw with this is the idea that Balkan politics can be viewed meaningfully through a NATO v Russia prism. All the local actors - and there are fucking dozens of them even at one level before the sovereign state - are applying their own agency to get what they want. Russia is no more responsible for Belgrade's policies than it was for Hilary Clinton losing Wisconsin in 2016 - these are liberal excuses for their failure of political vision. 

Ha! Jasmin Mujanovic, that's funny. I noticed him start appearing on Twitter timelines fairly recently, being boosted by Alicia Kearns and similar. Now there he is with his first article in the Guardian. Well guess where he's from? Canada. The land of ethno-religious diaspora nationalism.

A quote here from the opinion I linked in my previous comment (https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/27/the-democratic-fervor-of-serbian-citizens-is-not-dead/)

Quote

While the potential for lasting change ultimately lies in the hands of the people, outside observers should support these efforts by amplifying the protesters’ concerns and advocating for far-reaching institutional reforms such as stronger electoral standards that will bolster Serbia’s lagging democracy and deliver better outcomes for the public.

The Serbian working class are currently struggling admirably against their corrupt and repressive ownership class. Anyone who actually wants improvement in Serbia is supporting that movement. Which is not Kearns and Mujanovic because they view everything through a top-down lens, as they learned in their International Relations classrooms. They don't even consider the common folk. Mujanovic in that article doesn't call just for the EU sanctions on Kosovo to be lifted (which they certainly should be), he wants them "reversed", ie. put on Serbia instead. So he actually supports squeezing people's living standards just so long as they're of an ethnic group he doesn't like.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, virginton said:

fundamental flaw with this is the idea that Balkan politics can be viewed meaningfully through a NATO v Russia prism

I saw this on his Twitter just now:

So its not just Serbia, its Croatia too that are Russian stooges. He cites some obscure Republican congressman as his authority.

Our media gives so much space to these diaspora charlatans to peddle their shite.

[vikingTON]

13 hours ago, FreedomFarter said:

Ha! Jasmin Mujanovic, that's funny. I noticed him start appearing on Twitter timelines fairly recently, being boosted by Alicia Kearns and similar. Now there he is with his first article in the Guardian. Well guess where he's from? Canada. The land of ethno-religious diaspora nationalism.

That checks out, with Canada also being the destination that most of the Hlinka Guard in Slovakia (the organisation that literally paid the Naxi regime to transport Slovakia's Jews to the death camps) slinked off to at the end of the war. A diaspora that is similarly stuffed with scions of fascism who publish to try and revise the past and cover up daddy and granda's crimes against humanity. Not to mention the accidental saluting of a Galician SS officer the other day - mistakes happen.

@PossilYM seems to be batting for weirdo diaspora fascists of every type though. Sad!

[jagfox]

Seen other reports of 80000+ refugees. That is quite a startling depopulation. 

[Guest]

13 hours ago, virginton said:

That checks out, with Canada also being the destination that most of the Hlinka Guard in Slovakia (the organisation that literally paid the Naxi regime to transport Slovakia's Jews to the death camps) slinked off to at the end of the war. A diaspora that is similarly stuffed with scions of fascism who publish to try and revise the past and cover up daddy and granda's crimes against humanity. Not to mention the accidental saluting of a Galician SS officer the other day - mistakes happen.

@PossilYM seems to be batting for weirdo diaspora fascists of every type though. Sad!

There was a Bosniak Waffen SS unit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_(1st_Croatian)) but Mujanovic isn't of that heritage, he's a 1990s Sarajevo refugee. Canada seems to give blanket encouragement to all ethno-religious identity politics so you see folk with Mujanovic's heavily biased approach coming out their academia. With the Yaroslav Hunka incident you mention, Ukrainian diaspora "fact checkers" still responded with more lies. That contrasted with the responses of Ukrainians in Ukraine which were more fair (eg. https://twitter.com/Daria__Saburova/status/1706606013699223974). Generally, diaspora academics have access to western anglophone media which folk actually in the region do not, so all we get is the likes of Jasmin Mujanovic telling us what's up.

Mujanovic's Guardian opinion there isn't a good one. He's correct on the character of Serbian president Vucic, a definite villain, but he's almost certainly overestimating Vucic's reach. As you put, there's layers to the situation in Serbia and Kosovo. It's widely believed Vucic doesn't have much of a handle on Milan Radoicic, the Kosovo Serb militia leader. The most obvious evidence for that is Radoicic consistently doing things which make Vucic's life harder, such as instigating that recent shoot out with the Kosovo police. 

Mujanovic is outraged at Serbia announcing a day's mourning for the 3 killed Kosovan Serb militiamen. He neglects to mention that was a tit for tat response to Kosovan prime minister Kurti first announcing a day's mourning for the killed policeman. Kurti projects the idea to Kosovar Albanians that his police force are like a military in a war against Kosovan Serbs. That no doubt contributes to the Kosovo police regularly battering or even shooting Kosovo Serb civilians at random. Very few of these cases result in arrests of the culprit policemen and prosecutions are fewer still. Here's a thorough detailing of it: https://balkaninsight.com/2023/05/18/kosovo-failing-to-punish-violent-crime-birn-finds/. Most egregious recently was probably when an off-duty policeman randomly shot a Serb father and son last Christmas eve while they were walking home with their Christmas tree.

So while Vucic of Serbia is an arsehole, so is Kurti of Kosovo. It was Kurti who began this ratcheting up of tensions in the last couple of years when he imposed a 100% tariff on imports from Serbia. He's made life difficult for Kosovo Serbs and that's why the EU have sanctioned his government. It's in the news just now that Vucic has ordered Serbian military units to line the border of northern Kosovo (the main Serb bit). That gets done any time there's a flare up and the speculation is he does it to trigger more NATO troops deploying to the region. The presence of whom then forces the Kosovo police to behave themselves.

Edited September 30, 2023 by FreedomFarter

[LongTimeLurker]

So in terms of geopolitics, now there are almost no Armenians left on sovereign Azerbaijani territory after the NKR leadership decided to evacuate their population rather than attempt to negotiate in any serious way, there's no obvious need for there to be any Russian peacekeepers inside Azerbaijan's borders and the Armenians may pull out of CSTO now. Don't think this has followed the script Vlad expected it to.

Going right back to the 1980s there were opportunities for compromise but the NKR Armenians always wanted to push for maximalist goals. After the First Nagorno Karabakh War up to 2020 they appear to have assumed that they would always have Russia behind them and would hence be able hold all the land they had seized in perpetuity on that basis. Hopefully now things have finally returned to the 1991 borders it will finally be possible for Turkey and Armenia to slowly normalise their relations in the years ahead to Turkey-Greece sort of levels.

Suspect Transnistria will be the next Russian sponsored pseudo-state to unravel if/when the Moldovans are able to break their reliance on its continuing existence to be able to have a reliable and affordable gas and electricity supply. Abkhazia and South Ossetia could have a lot more staying power regardless of how the war in Ukraine finishes because of their direct borders with Russia.

Edited October 1, 2023 by LongTimeLurker

[welshbairn]

Nagorno Karabakh is just step one. Step 2 is establishing a land corridor in Southern Armenia to Nakhichevan and through to Turkey, cutting off Armenia from Iran.

 

 https://www.reuters.com/world/azerbaijani-turkish-leaders-hold-talks-eye-forging-land-corridor-via-armenia-2023-09-25/

[LongTimeLurker]

Having a customs free transport corridor to the Nakhichevan exclave doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with the territorial integrity of Armenia. Bosnia is able to use a port called Ploce on Croatia's Adriatic coast in that sort of way without there being any suggestion that Croatia is cut in two in some way by hosting that arrangement. The obvious quid pro quo would be Turkey facilitating Armenian access to the EU market in a similar sort of way.

Edited October 1, 2023 by LongTimeLurker

[Guest]

The idea that the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were Russian-sponsored was a smear to dissuade opposition to Azerbaijan's ethnic cleansing of them. We had an alliance between mainstream media publications (https://twitter.com/DrKevorkO/status/1705309747895734782) and neocon think tankers (https://twitter.com/TarasKuzio/status/1704078289554341968) both pushing the line. We even had US government funded outlets pushing Azerbaijani propaganda (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/rfe-rl-radio-free-europe-liberty-azadliq-azerbaijan-investigation/). 

Russia along with Turkey, Israel, USA and the EU was backing Azerbaijan in this conflict. Here's a cavalcade of Russia and Turkey flags going through Baku after the end of the 2020 war: https://twitter.com/robananyan/status/1704467540095664561. Russia and Azerbaijan renewed their vows on the eve of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine: https://eurasianet.org/ahead-of-ukraine-invasion-azerbaijan-and-russia-cement-alliance.

Armenia isn't favoured because its a democracy. That means its government is accountable to its people and those people demand redistribution of national revenues. That's far more awkward for foreign investors to deal with than a dictatorship like Aliyev's in Azerbaijan. Despite the enormous sums of money pouring into Azerbaijan as Aliyev sells off its resources, Azerbaijanis don't enjoy a higher quality of life than Georgians or Armenians. Azerbajian is level with Armenia and Georgia in the inequality-adjusted Human Development Index which measures material conditions. When you factor in their huge civil liberties deficit when compared with Georgians and Armenians, Azerbaijanis have the worst lot of the three. The more our national governments and international capital enriches Aliyev, the stronger his grip will get over Azerbaijani society and there's very little by way of trickle down economics taking place there. 

The Artsakh government didn't forcibly evacuate the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, Aliyev did and he said as much: https://www.politico.eu/article/azerbaijan-launch-anti-terror-operation-nagorno-karabakh-armenia/. The suggestion they could've negotiated with him is extremely optimistic. This is a guy who created an Azerbaijani stamp in 2020 depicting Nagorno-Karabakh being fumigated (its common in Azeri discourse to refer to Armenians as insects).

Anglo Asian Mining, a UK company, signed a deal with Aliyev in July 2022 to begin mining in Nagorno-Karabakh: https://www.angloasianmining.com/operations/new-concessions/. That hastened Aliyev's desire to get the indigenous people off that land, so he could profit from it and not them. This happens throughout the developing world, the Indian government in particular specialise in it, violently clearing the land of indigenous people so that mining companies can move in. Aliyev got Armenia to agree to end their support for the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh a couple months after that mining contract was signed. Then another couple months later he began his blockade of them with Russia's help. Then he bombed them with Israel's help (https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/azerbaijan-flights-israel-recorded-nagorno-karabakh-operation). Turkey looked on approvingly and EU and USA acquiesced. The capitalist avengers all came together on this one.

 

 

 

[LongTimeLurker]

11 hours ago, FreedomFarter said:

The idea that the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were Russian-sponsored...

...really shouldn't be controversial:

Russia being allied with Armenians against the neighbouring Muslim powers that blocked their path to the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean is something that stretches right back to Tsarist times.