Azerbaijan, Turkey, China: The risks of conflicts of opportunity grow on the uncertainties in Ukraine

By attacking Ukraine in February 2022, Russia will not only have endangered peace and security in Europe, but worldwide. Indeed, many latent conflicts, constrained by the joint action of Moscow and the European and American capitals, are emerging again, to the point that one can fear that major conflicts may even arise in several places around the world, some of which could potentially further undermine the difficult economic balances on which the West is built. In recent days, some of its theaters have flared up, or show signs of extreme tension, as the Russian armies are under unprecedented pressure from Ukrainian forces supported by deliveries of Western military equipment. What are these high-risk conflicts, and what could be their consequences on the already severely weakened international balances?

Resumption of combat in Nagorno Karabakh

For a few weeks, shortly after the redeployment to Ukraine of part of the Russian troops positioned in Armenia in order to keep the Armenian and Azerbaijani belligerents at bay following the 2020 war, tensions between Yerevan and Baku have returned to the rise. It should be remembered that in the fall of 2020, Azerbaijani troops had severely outclassed the Armenian defenses of Upper Karnabakh and recaptured most of this disputed territory since the beginning of the 90s. Supported by Turkish advisers and benefiting from advanced equipment delivered by Israel, the Azerbaijani armies had thus swept away the Armenian defenders, and could probably have pushed their advantage well beyond Nagorno-Karabakh alone in the firm intervention of Moscow, imposing a de facto Pax Ruskova in the region. Since then, the Russian troops had managed to keep the belligerents at a distance, without managing to calm the situation.

The withdrawal of part of the Russian troops deployed in Armenia and along the demarcation line, as well as the relative weakening of the aura of power of the entire Russian Army following the conflict in Ukraine, will most likely have ended to convince the belligerents to maintain the status quo, violent exchanges of artillery having made at least 49 dead on the Armenian side having taken place last night. If Baku and Yerevan blame each other for this deterioration, it is clear that Armenia had no reason to rekindle the conflict, its armies having been largely damaged by the 2020 conflict, without being able to compensate for their losses and renewing their military equipment ever since. Conversely, the Azerbaijani armies had preserved most of their military capabilities, which were also much higher than those available to the Armenians in 2020, and were able to maintain their modernization efforts over the past two years, taking advantage of the windfall represented by the revenues related to oil exports from the Caspian Sea.

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