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      25 Years On, The Dayton Peace Agreement Is a Ticking Time Bomb

      by

      Throughout Danis Tanovic’s Oscar-winning film “No Man’s Land,” a viewer waits distressingly for the bouncing mine to explode below the body of Cera, an injured Bosnian soldier lying in a trench. The last moments of this antiwar satire do not capture a real ending for the story — or the Bosnian war: Cera was left behind motionless by the departing UN blue helmets.

      Will Bosnia and Herzegovina Ever Rise Above Its Ethnic Divisions?

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      Tanovic’s movie also depicts the disheartened departure of a curious TV crew, hungry for breaking news. Unlike the UN peacekeepers, reporters were oblivious to the fate of the soldier left behind in a ditch. In a non-fiction plot, Bosnia and Herzegovina is kept equally alive and motionless with the real ticking time bomb that can explode and blow everything in the vicinity.

      Two Paths

      For a dozen years now, the Balkan state has been plodding along two gloomy paths, heading for a dangerous collision. On one hand, Russia’s collusion with local proxies is destabilizing the liberal vision of collective security within the context of future Euro-Atlantic integration. Russia also continues to be the only state opposing the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its steering board’s communiqués, including the last statement from June 3 this year.

      On the other hand, the Bosnian Serb-majority entity, Republika Srpska, is reversing the peace process while simultaneously courting Russia as an ally. Its nationalism, kept away like a genie in a bottle due to pressure from the European Union and American unipolar dominance, has managed to free itself from captivity. Thus, the Serb member of the rotating Bosnian presidency, Milorad Dodik, once hailed as a “breath of fresh air” by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, has held at least 10 official consultations with Vladimir Putin over the last several years.

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      During his second consecutive meeting with the Russian president in the midst of the 2014 Ukraine crisis, Dodik shared his unequivocal affiliation with Moscow: “Naturally, there is no question that we support Russia. We may be a small and modest community, but our voice is loud.”

      This trajectory with opposing power dyads within the Bosnian state is often lamented as a nightmare for the Dayton Peace Agreement that put an end to the bloody Yugoslav War in 1995 and kept the country in one piece. Dayton is dead; Bosnia and Herzegovina is “sleepwalking” into another Balkan crisis; it is on the brink of collapse; its president wants to break up his own country; goodbye Bosnia and Herzegovina, welcome Republika Srpska’s exit — these are just some grim headlines that suggest nightmare scenarios.

      However, most experts on the subject rarely discuss wider security dilemmas of this critical geopolitical divergence, namely the Bosnian Serbs’ effective breakaway from both Bosnia and Herzegovina and the West. Unlike the two times Russia played a limited hand effectively — and, as some would argue, defensively — in Georgia and Ukraine, the Kremlin’s subversion of Europe’s soft underbelly is essentially an offensive posture that possibly inflicts fatal damage on the already shaken Euro-Atlantic pillars: liberal order, Euro-Atlantic integrity and European security.

      Should the EU fail to protect its mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ensuing turmoil will eventually turn into a great-power rivalry. If the perilous trajectory in Bosnia and Herzegovina is allowed to proceed unrestricted, the West needs to fasten its seatbelts and brace for impact.

      Slippery Slope

      The Bosnian Serbs’ secessionist direction is not a given, but the slope is a slippery one. A unilateral breakaway would effectively tear apart Bosnia’s postwar constitutional order of two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, and other political and institutional arrangements that have gradually restored peace and security over the last 25 years. The Serb secession would also signal an existential threat to the survival of a multiethnic state and the Bosnian people in particular.

      Similar past attempts to impose Serb hegemony over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s had disastrous consequences and resulted in more than 100,000 deaths, 2.2 million refugees and displaced persons, culminating with genocide in Srebrenica in July 1995. Since pro-Bosnian authorities in Sarajevo want to protect the liberal multicultural order and see the EU and the US as preferred allies, it is only natural for them to expect appropriate reactions from the Euro-Atlantic community.

      On the other hand, a secessionist party would also face a critical struggle. Its immediate insecurity stems from the NATO-trained Bosnian army across the Inter-Entity Boundary Line (IEBL) that currently subdivides Bosnia and Herzegovina into two administrative units. As Republika Srpska’s political leadership largely opposes the liberal multicultural order and looks to Russia as a preferred ally, it would also rely on Moscow for political and military support.

      Republika Srpska’s collision with a Bosnian-led government would probably escalate from threats and barricades along IEBL to larger-scale clashes that a small number of UN-mandated EUFOR troops will hardly deter. In a vicious cycle, Bosnia could eventually end up in pre-Dayton chaos that, in the early 1990s, also included the Bosnian Croat component and its own secessionist aspirations. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Serbia, which shares a long border with Bosnia and Herzegovina and nationalist sentiments with the secessionist movement, is probably the first contender to be caught in the Bosnian fire for both internal and external reasons. In its substance, patronizing Bosnian Serbs has continued since the time when Slobodan Milosevic was at the pinnacle of his power in the early 1990s. Patriarch Irinej of the Serbian Orthodox Church, for example, proclaims that borders between Serbia and Republika Srpska do not exist. Serbia’s academics also view Serbia’s national borders as temporary frontiers.

      As Serbia’s confidence grew over time, emboldened by the return of Russia to the Balkan theater and by China’s global rise, Belgrade became more assertive in its behavior. Within months of the joint Serbian-Russian Slavic Shield military display in October 2019, Serbia’s defense minister, Alexander Vulin, announced, among other strategic objectives, the intent to defend the Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbia’s new national defense strategy thus transcends national boundaries, marking a shift from defensive sovereignty to a more offensive approach.

      At the same time, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is the only politician from the region, if not the whole of Europe, who has held more bilateral consultations with President Putin than Dodik. The Kremlin’s transcript from the last meeting between Vucic and Putin on June 23 exposes Russia’s views that two countries were developing “pragmatic but still very special and very good allied relations.”

      Structural Realities

      What Serbia does in Bosnia and Herzegovina pales in comparison with a much larger geopolitical dilemma. For Belgrade, now is a turning point to choose a side between the liberal West and the authoritarian East. Its official policy of neutrality and simultaneous flirting with NATO on one hand, and Russia and China on the other, may no longer be sustainable. As the rationale goes, other powers besides the United States, primarily Russia and possibly China (to a lesser extent), will enlarge their soft-power or military footprints in the regional subsystem sooner rather than later.

      Other structural realities also encourage a more aggressive trajectory from Belgrade. First, Serbia has accelerated its military build-up at a faster rate than its neighbors. According to Global Fire Power, its current defense budget is almost twice that of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Northern Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo combined.

      Second, Serbia’s reliance on the Russian and Chinese military to balance neighboring NATO members such as Croatia, Bulgaria or Romania has also been reinforced. In 2019, Serbia received Russian donations of MIG-29 fighter jets, T-72 tanks and BRDM-2MS armored vehicles. A short deployment of the S-400 air defense system on Serbian soil also raised American eyebrows. This year, Serbia purchased, at Putin’s suggestion, the Pantsir S-1 air defense system. It also bought CH92-A drones and FK-3 surface-to-air missiles from China and kept talking about new arms.

      Third, Serbia can hardly benefit from the liberal European order in the Balkans except through EU membership, which seems to be a third-rate priority at the moment according to some academic voices in Belgrade. By siding with Russia and the Slavic Shield, however, Belgrade still aspires to redefine its borders, reclaim Kosovo (or at least part of it), possibly reestablish preponderance in Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and, eventually, become a Balkan hegemon.

      Turkey would also become entangled in the nightmare of a new Bosnian disorder. On one level, the foreign policy objectives of Turkey and other NATO allies are compatible with almost all critical issues in the western Balkans. Turkey maintains its policy that international borders of the newly independent states in the region, following declarations of independence by Montenegro in 2006 and Kosovo in 2008, have become definite. In Bosnia in particular, Turkey is among 20 contributing countries of EUFOR, providing deterrence and contributing to a safe and secure environment. Ankara is also on the same page with the US and EU members in the PIC and its steering board’s communiqués that Russia usually opposes.

      Embed from Getty Images

      On another level, Turkey projects its soft power throughout the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, relying on historical, cultural and personal ties. This year, it allocated €30 million ($36 million) to revamp and modernize the Bosnian armed forces. Turkey can also leverage its strategic partnership with Serbia to deter the latter from taking a more belligerent stance.

      However, in the event of a collision in Bosnia, having military spending 10 times that of Serbia, Turkey would probably oppose Serbian offensive behavior in the region. Ankara also represents an important geopolitical substitute for the Bosnian people should the EU, EUFOR and NATO decide to abandon their commitments to safeguarding peace, security and liberal order in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their immediate and complete withdrawal from Bosnia, which is less probable, would also invite other extra-regional actors to fill the vacuum, in which case power relations would inevitably become subject to reconfiguration and different visions for both Bosnia and Herzegovina and southeastern Europe would have to emerge.

      This scenario could set Turkey and Russia on a collision course because Vladimir Putin perceives Republika Srpska and Serbia as natural, historic and strategic allies. At a minimum, the Turkish double track toward Russia would have to pass an additional test. At the same time, these two countries possess formidable mediation capacity with confronting parties in the Bosnian theater that some European powers would oppose on geopolitical — and the more liberal ones on ideological — grounds.

      Our European Home

      As Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tweeted this summer, “Our common European home needs serious reconstruction if we want all of its residents to live in prosperity.” The Kremlin, so the perception goes, seeks to reshape the liberal Euro-Atlantic order in Russia’s image and for its own benefit. Second, Moscow is also interested in replacing the US-mandated hierarchic order in Europe with an unknown, but certainly more anarchic, multipolar structure. But Bosnia and Herzegovina is not on the Russian border, and its inclusion in the NATO structure does not pose any meaningful threat to Moscow.

      However, Republika Srpska’s secession from a country that lacks NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense guarantee presents yet another opportunity for Russia to become more influential on the European stage at the cost of the Euro-Atlantic order.

      At first sight, a local collision in Bosnia and Herzegovina would bear a striking resemblance to what transpired in Ukraine in 2013-14. Ukraine was forcefully divided along similar geopolitical and domestic lines between pro-European aspirations in Kyiv on one hand, and secessionist tendencies by the pro-Russian minority in the east on the other. However, Bosnia’s instability is far more dangerous than the crisis in Ukraine for two structural reasons, largely ignored so far. First, in Republika Srpska, Putin’s prospects are of the highest geopolitical value, namely having a loyal proxy ready to do Moscow’s bidding, not in Russia’s near abroad like Ukraine, but deep within the EU’s external borders.

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      Second, Russia’s penetration within NATO’s eastern borders also challenges Pax Americana and a 70-year-old alliance system in Europe. The latter represents a deep incursion into the system protected and deeply rooted in American and European liberal values. In that context, the nature of Russia’s disruptive behavior in Bosnia no longer remains defensive but becomes an offensive act against the West.

      Some may argue that Russia’s aims are less relevant. What matters is Moscow’s capability to project soft and hard power. In this regard, skeptical analysts largely question Russia’s ability to challenge the United States in the Balkans. Their typical reference is domestic weakness and Russia’s stagnating economy, with an annual GDP that is smaller than Italy’s. However, other great power credentials such as its sheer size, nuclear weapons capability, vast natural resources and an impressive cyber weapons arsenal enable Russia to punch above its weight on the world arena, keeping Europe and NATO vigilant.

      As Russia has shown with the annexation of Crimea in 2014, it won’t shy away from using its extraordinary military readiness for limited ends without fear of unintended consequences. Eventually, it was effective at projecting military power in areas where the Euro-Atlantic community was reluctant to do so. Bosnia and Herzegovina, vulnerable as it may be, provides an easy target for Russia, offering Moscow the best chance to keep the West in retreat.

      Opposing Power Dyads

      This trajectory with opposing power dyads within the Bosnian state brings challenging dynamics for the European Union too. From the inside, the EU’s multitasking operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina would have to pass their stress test. From the outside, likely incursions of other illiberal powers in Brussels’ backyard would ostensibly place the two opposing sides on a collision course.

      A major dilemma for the EU lies between a strong multilateral reaction to protect a collective peace-building legacy and unilateral moves by individual member states to pursue their national interests. The EU’s first viable option would be to increase EUFOR’s symbolic military mission to protect order and address the grievances of local communities. As Kurt Bassuener wrote in Foreign Affairs last year, the current mission can’t defend itself against any growing uncertainty with “an institutional fig leaf of 600 troops,” “much less fulfill the mandate of the Dayton accords.”

      Should the EUFOR contributing states strengthen their capacity and act decisively within NATO’s interoperability mechanisms, the Bosnian crisis would probably not escalate. In this regard, EUFOR’s annual military exercises — which airlift reserve forces and combine them with EUFOR’s permanent troops, armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and local law enforcement agencies — are of critical importance.

      Embed from Getty Images

      An alternative scenario with dire consequences would be to evacuate EUFOR troops from Bosnia altogether. This is what happened when the Dutch battalion, under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Protection Force, pulled out from Srebrenica in July 1995, mocking the UN resolutions on safe heavens and allowing Serb extremists — today convicted war criminals — to proceed unabashedly with genocide. Such a reaction would deprive Bosnia of European military presence and set in motion a rapid geopolitical change, allowing regional and extra-regional actors to take advantage and fill the vacuum.

      If that happens, the ability of Brussels to extend stability and project soft power in the region would be severely weakened, if not completely diminished. This prospect, before long, compels particular EU member states that simultaneously live in two parallel worlds — one liberal and one increasingly illiberal — to make their final ideational preference. It also provokes complex and dangerous dynamics given opposing threat perceptions between those member states that border Russia and a few others that explore interest-based partnerships with Moscow.

      Undercurrents of this anxiety might have already surfaced when French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of the necessity to reopen “a strategic dialogue” with Russia, tweeting that Russia was a “threat” but “no longer an enemy” and “also a partner on certain topics.” Things may get extremely complicated if populist EU leaders choose to decouple from the US and the transatlantic security umbrella. Hungary’s decision to permit the transit of Russian military equipment to Serbia last year signaled an early warning that some member states are ready to circumvent common rules and jeopardize common security.

      Hence, a powerful trigger such as a new Bosnian crisis would elevate Europe’s threat perceptions to such proportions that the United States would have to rescue the alliance and its central position within it. This resonates with the poor historical record of the EU in conflict management in ex-Yugoslavia, despite much more favorable geopolitical realities in the early 1990s. With an exception of a short war in Slovenia, the EU demonstrated neither effectiveness nor capacity in preempting the bloodshed in 1991.

      Eventually, European leaders failed miserably in Bosnia, prompting a peace treaty to be negotiated and drafted in the US rather than Europe. Should this failure be repeated, the third consequential choice for the EU will be to pass the buck on to Washington, in which case this regional small-nation turmoil would transform into a great-power rivalry.

      Most Dangerous of All Moods

      Addressing the US Senate on the American mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of 1995, then-Senator Joe Biden made a powerful statement: “Europe cannot stay united without United States. There is no moral center in Europe. When in the last two centuries had the French, or the British or the Germans … moved in a way to unify that continent to stand up to this kind of genocide?” He went on: “I am not here to tell you if we do not act, it will spread tomorrow and cause a war in Europe or next year, but I am here to tell you within the decade, it will cause a spread of war and a cancer and the collapse of Western alliance.”

      Human agency aside, structural forces would also be at play and would likely determine Washington’s preferred move. First, the US is still — by all realist and neorealist accounts, such as annual defense spending, global GDP share, population growth rate and geography — more powerful, wealthier and more influential relative to any potential competitor in the international system. Even by the logic of those who support a more restrained foreign policy, with US primacy still intact in Europe, American policymakers would continue to be attracted to liberal hegemony and more so to the existing grand strategy in the European subsystem where the US is not only unchallenged but is largely accepted as benevolent.

      The US is also a rational actor that makes calculations regarding its position in a changing regional and international order. Washington understands well that Russia’s unchecked incursion so close to NATO’s eastern border would damage American-led liberal order and alliance structure and, at the same time, change the regional — and possibly even the European — balance of power to the detriment of the United States.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This brings us to what the historian Michael Howard calls “the most dangerous of all moods,” in which the US would not accept a relegation “to the second rank” in the European subsystem. So far, no US administration has shown any intention to leave Europe as a vital area of America’s global footprint in which it had invested a vast amount of blood and money over the past century. In reality, US military presence has essentially increased in Europe in recent years, bringing in more troops, investment and exercises.

      The US military also supports the peace-building process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On this 25th anniversary of the Dayton Accords, it conducted a bilateral air support exercise with Bosnian military forces using two F-16 fighter planes. So, locking, loading and bombing the party that disrupts American-led order in southeastern Europe on Russia’s behalf is not only possible, but could even become probable.

      Great powers usually do not show much interest in fighting over the squabbles of small nations. However, history is full of exceptions, when minor disputes over isolated issues have dragged great powers into quagmires. Interestingly enough, such regrettable dynamics are best illustrated in the Balkans. A minor dispute in 435 BC between the city-state of Corinth, allied with Sparta, and the city-state Corcyra, allied with Athens, soon led to a larger conflict, eventually trapping the great powers of Athens and Sparta into the Peloponnesian Wars that devastated the Athenian empire, exhausted Sparta and shattered the cultural landscape of Ancient Greece.

      What took place in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, was another striking incident that triggered a chain of adverse reactions that set the whole of Europe, and then the world, on fire. Bosnia and Herzegovina is again a danger zone on the European geopolitical map where competing opponents face the pressures of being bogged down in protracted rivalries due to rapidly shifting power dynamics. Such settings create a space for a modern-day Gavrilo Princip to fire his bullet and trigger a chain of regrettable events.

      Hence, not stemming the Serb breakaway from the Dayton mandate, from both Bosnia and Herzegovina and the wider Western liberal order, would be tantamount to allowing a ticking time bomb to go off. Paradoxically, this threat comes at a time when the Balkan region has a good chance to institute a viable order, secure lasting peace and fulfill its Euro-Atlantic aspirations. The decision is there for the taking.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Will America Survive the Republican Zombie Apocalypse?

      by

      The 2017 film “Bushwick“ begins like a lot of zombie flicks. An unsuspecting couple is walking through a subway station in the working-class neighborhood of Bushwick in Brooklyn. The station is eerily empty. They hear gunfire outside. The boyfriend goes out to investigate, and you know from the conventions of a zombie film that this is a very bad idea. No need for a spoiler alert: He dies.

      The girlfriend ventures out to find the residents of Bushwick fighting an invading horde. But it’s not a horde of zombies, even though they are committed to the same relentless violence. The invasion force turns out to be a right-wing paramilitary bent on securing the secession of Texas and most of the South from the United States.

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      Why are they in Brooklyn? That’s not entirely clear. The grunts, all dressed in identical black riot gear, are just following orders. They didn’t expect resistance, but the diverse community has banded together — African Americans, Orthodox Jews, bearded craft beer connoisseurs. So, like zombies, the militia members are killing every resident they encounter.

      Worst-Case Scenario

      Militia violence. Rejection of the federal government. Right-wing crazies promoting a civil war. Bushwick was made at a time when Hillary Clinton looked like she’d be the next president and right-wing resistance inevitable. Instead, the Electoral College tilted toward Donald Trump. As the new head of the federal government, Trump preempted the worst-case scenario. His more extreme followers wouldn’t weaponize their grievances as long as one of their own was “running” the country.

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      At the same time, Trump implicitly promised to maintain this tenuous status quo as long as he won reelection. In the first presidential debate, Trump told the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group, to “stand back and stand by.” The extremists waited, locked and loaded. A landslide — against Trump and against his Republican Party enablers — might have put this worst-case scenario to rest. Instead, with Trump refusing to concede the election and the Republican Party celebrating its congressional and state house victories, the country is now inching ever closer to the “Bushwick” plotline.

      Accelerationists like the Boogaloo Bois, who want to bring down the existing system through a violent race war, are chomping at the bit. A raging pandemic has separated Americans into the cautiously masked and the defiantly maskless, further undermining what remains of the country’s cohesion.

      As for zombies, they have rampaged across American popular culture at least since “Night of the Living Dead” hit movie theaters in 1968. They have now lurched off the page and out of the multiplex into real life. For how else would you describe the millions of Americans who deny the effects of a disease that has killed nearly 250,000 people and the results of a free and fair election that repudiated Donald Trump? Jeez, something must have eaten their brains.

      The Disease Spreads

      In 2016, the virtual equivalent of zombies — bots operating through social media and the comment sections of websites — intervened in the US presidential election. In 2020, those bots were less influential. But who needs virtual zombies when Americans themselves have become so willing to spread disinformation? The Russian intention back in 2016 wasn’t so much to get Trump elected. No one, including Donald Trump himself, thought there was much chance of that. Rather, the disinformation campaign sowed doubt about the political system more generally.

      What started out as marginal hobbyhorses became widespread delusions. Don’t trust the candidates, the media, the NGOs. A conspiracy lurks behind the façade of normalcy. The Democrats are actually pedophiles (the Pizzagate conspiracy), the financiers are actually Nazis (the Soros conspiracy), and government officials are part of a deep-state resistance to Trump’s agenda (the Fauci conspiracy, among others).

      And then there’s the one conspiracy that rules them all. The QAnon notion that all the world’s a Satanic child-trafficking ring — Pizzagate raised to the nth degree — is so absurd on the face of it, that no reasonable person could possibly entertain it. But plenty of people have embraced equally wacky theories. L. Ron Hubbard’s “Dianetics” has been a bestseller for decades, and all too many Americans were willing to believe that Barack Obama was a foreign-born Muslim despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

      Of course, it’s a lot easier to deny the existence of something if it remains far away in time or space. Those who live far from the ocean can blithely refute the evidence of the rising waters. That’s not so easy when those waters have reclaimed your land and your house tumbles into the sea.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Misinformation about COVID-19 — that masks are not necessary, that vaccines should be avoided or that herd immunity is a viable strategy — has been lethal. That denialism should have disappeared as COVID-19 infection rates began to spread to every corner of the United States before the election. The increasing proximity of the threat should have motivated Americans to come together as one to fight the virus. At the very least, fear should have kept people at home instead of venturing out to the potential superspreader events that President Trump was sponsoring as campaign rallies before the election. But no. Thousands still showed up to what Democrats should have called Trump’s “death rallies.” Even more unbelievably, Trump went on to defeat Joe Biden in those parts of the country hardest hit by the virus. According to the Associated Press, “in 376 counties with the highest number of new cases per capita, the overwhelming majority — 93 percent of those counties — went for Trump, a rate above other less severely hit areas.” Even in hard-hit areas that ultimately voted for Biden, Trump often improved his showing from 2016, NPR reports.

      Well, zombies don’t know that they’re zombies. One day they’re ordering BLTs, and the next they’re eating their next-door neighbor. They’re completely unaware of how the abnormal has become normal.

      The “Stolen” Election

      A coup requires at least some public support. The Thai military could count on the “yellow shirts.” The Egyptian military relied on those fearful of the religious leanings of the Muslim Brotherhood. Pinochet courted the rich and the middle class. Where public support is lacking, coups often wither. That’s what happened in the Soviet Union in 1991. This week in Peru, the would-be president who forced the resignation of anti-corruption campaigner Martín Vizcarra stepped down after only a week in office, as protests continued to roil the country and the police killed two demonstrators.

      Trump has the backing of millions of Americans who have bought into his allegations of a “stolen” election. As importantly, only a minority of Republican Party grandees has bowed to the inevitable by acknowledging Biden’s victory. That includes a mere four Republican senators —Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. A number of Republican candidates in this month’s election, including those who were beaten by large margins, are also refusing to concede. Errol Webber, who lost his bid to unseat Karen Bass in a California congressional seat by an astounding 72%, now claims election fraud and won’t back down. He’s not alone in his delusions.

      The question is, how far will Trump and the Republican leadership go? It’s not likely that the Pentagon would support a coup, even after the removal of Mark Esper. The militia movement is armed and dangerous, but it’s not even close to being as organized as in the “Bushwick” scenario. The “Million MAGA March” fell short of its goal by 980,000 people or so. Trump just doesn’t have the numbers — not the votes to reverse the election results in a recount, not the judges to overturn the decision through a legal strategy, not the support in state legislatures to replace the Electoral College delegates and not the people on the street for a popular uprising.

      That doesn’t mean he can’t still do damage. Just this week, he announced that the administration would sell new leases to oil and gas companies to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. He fired the Homeland Security official who declared the election secure, then narrowly failed to install wacko Judy Shelton on the Federal Reserve board. And he came close to starting a war with Iran just to destroy any last chance of salvaging the Obama-era nuclear deal. His advisers reportedly persuaded him that it would be unwise to bomb the country’s nuclear facilities.

      Meanwhile, as I explain in a new article at TomDispatch, not only is Trump throwing sand in the wheels of transition, the Republicans are gearing up to block just about everything the Biden administration will try to do from January on. The Republicans have transformed themselves into a zombie party that relies on a narrow base of zombie support. The party effectively died as a viable political force — absent gerrymandering and voter suppression — before Trump brought it back from the dead. In films, zombification is a one-way street. Once you start twitching and slavering, there’s no going back. Let’s hope that the analogy doesn’t hold in American politics.

      De-Trumpification

      In 1956, three years after Stalin’s death, Nikita Khrushchev gave a secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress entitled “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences.” Today, the speech seems rather boring, full of jargon and acrobatic attempts to separate Stalin’s crimes from the Soviet system. But at the time, it shocked the Communist Party zombies who’d hitherto been unaware (or pretended not to know) of Stalin’s crimes.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Most of those who were well acquainted with Stalin’s crimes were already dead from famine, war or murderous purges. That’s the thing about plagues: By the time you’re finally convinced of their lethality, you’re on your deathbed. For some, even death is not enough. Compare the Stalinists who proclaimed love for their leader as they were being executed with the COVID-19 patients who continued to deny the disease with their dying breaths.

      The party speech was the first major step in the de-Stalinization campaign that Khrushchev waged into the 1960s. The campaign produced some liberalization of Soviet society, but the Thaw came to an end in a Brezhnev backlash that lasted effectively until Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 (and finally published Khrushchev’s 1956 speech for all to read). Unfortunately, the de-Stalinization that Khrushchev started in 1956 didn’t completely discredit the Soviet dictator. Indeed, according to recent polls, an astounding 70% of Russians approve of Stalin’s role in Soviet history.

      Trump’s personality cult exerts a similar effect. His adherents are incapable of seeing that the man’s evil extends far beyond his intemperate tweets. No speech by Joe Biden is going to make any difference. Not even denunciations by former Trumpers — Michael Cohen, John Bolton, John Kelly — have done much of anything. Trump’s support only grew from 2016 to 2020. So, what will it take to avoid the Stalin scenario?

      In an article about three historical parallels —  Reconstruction, de-Nazification and de-Baathification — I conclude that a mere speech won’t do the trick: “Because Trumpism is a cancer on the body politic, the treatment will require radical interventions, including the transformation of the Republican Party, a purge of Trumpists from government, and the indictment of the president and his top cronies as a criminal enterprise. To avoid a second Civil War, however, a second American Revolution would need to address the root causes of Trumpism, especially political corruption, deep-seated racism, and extreme economic inequality.”

      In this way, the leader can be properly stigmatized while the followers can be progressively de-zombified. One thing is for certain: If the Biden administration doesn’t take firm and decisive action against the illegalities of the Trump team, and if Biden doesn’t address the root causes of the zombification of half the electorate, the new president will be eaten alive.

      *[This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      India’s Police: An Instrument of Injustice

      by

      When Alexander the Great marched into Phrygian, the capital of Gordinium, in 333 BC, he was told that an oracle had declared that any man who could unravel the Gordian knot — deemed impossible to untangle — would rule over Asia. After wrestling with the knot for a time with no success, Alexander drew his sword and cut the knot into half with a single stroke. To paraphrase the Bard of Avon, police reforms in India await a similar creative solution to a seemingly insurmountable problem.

      360˚ Context: The State of the Indian Republic

      READ MORE

      It is ironic that, more than seven decades after independence, the police in India are still governed by the Indian Police Act of 1861. The British introduced this act immediately after what they called the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny. As per the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the 1861 legislation was enacted with “the purpose of crushing dissent and any movement for self government.” After the 1857 uprising, the British monarchy took over from the East India Company, creating a colonial administrative architecture that would become the jewel in its crown. Along with the 1861 act, the 1860 Indian Penal Code was a major pillar of the new criminal justice system that served London well until India’s independence in 1947.

      The Legacy of the Raj

      Independent India adopted a new constitution that gave states jurisdiction over the police. Henceforth, it was not New Delhi but state capitals that controlled policing. However, those who drafted the constitution failed to craft legislation to create a new police force in tune with the new demands of democracy. The police force retained its colonial character, carrying the will of its new political masters. Order ordained by these masters had to be maintained. The rule of law and due process were to play second fiddle.

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      Like many former colonies, India became a democracy in form while its police force remained colonial in spirit. In the first few decades after independence, the combination of enlightened leaders, ignorant public opinion, some outstanding officers and the broad hegemony of one political party papered over the incongruity of the arrangement. That could not, and did not, last.

      From the 1960s, Indian politics became increasingly fractious. By the mid-1970s, the pulls and pressures on police departments, thanks to political interference, increased dramatically. Inadequate organizational structure, exploitative ethos and brutal behavior came to typify the police force. In 1975, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, used the police to impose a state of emergency on the country. As in colonial times, the police suppressed civil liberties, foisted false cases on the ruling party’s political opponents and even enforced sterilization on unwilling young men under a draconian family planning plan.

      In 1977, the opposition won a historic victory. Immediately after taking power, the new government instituted the National Police Commission (NPC) to review India’s system of policing and suggest reforms. It produced eight reports, including a Model Police Act, between 1979 and 1981. It also appointed a commission of inquiry under a retired chief justice of India, J.C. Shah. Its 1978 report chronicled the excesses, malpractices and misdeeds of the government during the emergency. It found that the police had obediently and brutally carried out instructions of its political masters, cowing the country into submission.

      To date, these reports have been gathering dust. Governments have come and gone since 1981. They have implemented peripheral recommendations but ignored substantive ones that relate to accountability and autonomy.

      Echoes Across the Country

      In 2020, the police are still bound by diktats of the political bosses. The Delhi riots earlier this year prompted allegations of political interference, a repeat of what happened in the 1984 unrest. It moved Julio Ribeiro, one of the country’s most respected police officers, to write a letter to the police chief of Delhi. He asked for a fair probe into the riots and questioned why the police did not investigate members of the ruling party for delivering hate speeches.

      Ribeiro’s question can be echoed across the country. The chief ministers of India’s 28 states control the police just as British governors once did. Politicians pay lip service to police reforms but are unable to let go of the power they wield. At its essence, there is a fundamental asymmetry of power between the police and the citizens: The former are not accountable to the latter. The police answer only to their political and bureaucratic bosses.

      The failure of politicians to reform the police has led to citizens and retired senior police officers appealing to the judiciary for change. In 2006, the Supreme Court of India passed a landmark judgment and gave seven clear directives. The government of India and its federal counterparts in state capitals were supposed to implement these directives. Instead, most have been ignored or implemented half-heartedly. As a result, many a chief justice had lamented that not a single state government is willing to cooperate: What’s to be done?

      Embed from Getty Images

      The power politicians wield in various state capitals comes from Section 3 of the 1861 Police Act, which states: “The superintendence of the police throughout a general police-district shall vest in and shall be exercised by the State Government to which such district is subordinate, and except as authorized under the provisions of this Act, no person, officer of Court shall be empowered by the State Government to supersede or control any police functionary.”

      Simply put, chief ministers and their consiglieres, the senior officers of the elite Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service (IPS), control every district in their states. The Model Police Act drafted by the NPC more than four decades ago recommended a tempering of this unfettered power of state governments. Its Section 39 provides for the state government to “exercise its superintendence … in such manner … as to promote the professional efficiency of the police.”

      The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) set up by the Indian government concluded that the proposed Section 39 was insufficient to provide police autonomy. Informal and often illegal instructions to the police are pervasive. It recommended that an amendment to the Model Police Act that expressly forbade illegal or mala fide demands from the police. It also recommended that obstruction of justice be categorized as an offense. Needless to say, the government of India is yet to accept the ARC’s recommendations, let aside implement them.

      Crime Pays

      This politics-police equation is completely lopsided, with India’s law enforcement the handmaiden of the politicians in power. This has been supported by numerous committees such as the one headed by Justice K.T. Thomas and scholars like Milan Vaishav. In fact, Indian voters have been increasingly electing politicians who face criminal proceedings against them. Money and muscle play a growing role in Indian politics. The result is decline, if not collapse, of the policing and criminal justice system.

      After 73 years of independence, the formal institutions left behind by the British Raj are weakening. For ambitious politicians, controlling the police is an important way to secure benefits for themselves, consolidate electoral gains and distribute benefits to their supporters. If politicians control the police, they can avoid criminal investigations into their activities. They can hobble opponents with false or frivolous charges. They can also dispense patronage to their core supporters who are often members of their community. This partisan use of the police furthers identity politics in an increasingly divided land. As a result, the rule of law suffers and the Indian state weakens.

      The police force itself has become politicized in many if not all states. Caste, community or religious affinity is often more important than professionalism, diligence or excellence. Many politicians try to recruit members of their own group into the police. Since police officers have job security, this social engineering of the police can institutionalize the coercive power of a group long after their politician is voted out. 

      The Indian police have been weighed, measured and found wanting on numerous occasions. In 1992, the police stood by as a mob demolished the Babri Masjid mosque and, 10 years later, they did the same during the 2002 Gujarat riots. The rise in extrajudicial killings demonstrates the failure of due process of law. In 2005, the BBC reported that India’s “fake encounters” — staged confrontations between criminals and the police, where the criminals mostly end up dead — were shockingly common. During the emergency in the 1970s and in recent years, the police have stifled dissent by slapping colonial-era sedition charges.

      The police continue to wield repression on the streets. Beating people arbitrarily is common. In recent years, marginalized groups such as Dalits, minorities, tribesmen and women who protest peacefully have faced increased police brutality. Paul Brass has found that governments have used “curfews as means of control, victimization, and outright violence against targeted groups rather than as devices to bring peace during violent times for the benefit of all.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Instrument of Injustice

      In India, the police no longer have a reputation for probity or for being an instrument of justice. In fact, the insensitive, illegal, inhuman and indefensible handling of the September murder and gang rape of a Dalit girl in Hathras, a district in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, laid bare the utterly unprofessional work culture of the Indian police. Such conduct occurs with numbing regularity because the political elite is deeply invested in the status quo.

      Prospects for reform seem dim. In 2003, R.K. Raghavan, a former director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, observed that the police would continue to do the politicians’ bidding unless certain basic reforms were enacted. The judiciary cannot enact these reforms — it is the politicians’ duty. Until “they look upon the police as a tool to settle political scores with their adversaries, nothing will improve.” Raghavan went on to argue that prospects for police reform were bleak “because the corruption that cuts across party lines, brings with it unanimity that the status quo should remain.”

      In September 2020, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a speech to graduating IPS officers and called for a trust-based policing system. He argued that those who believe that instilling fear among the populace is the most effective policing strategy are out of sync with the march of the nation and its vibrant democracy. Modi’s actions have not matched his rhetoric.

      India does not need another report or judgment. It awaits a statesman who can rise above the temptations of short-term electoral gains and work for long-term national benefits and who will not hesitate to wield the sword to cut the Gordian knot that keeps the politician and the police bound together. Only then will India have rule of law, not mere order, and justice for all instead of for a privileged few.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Alex Acosta and the Guidelines of the Elite

      by

      Two fundamentally ambiguous events concerning the Jeffrey Epstein affair have left many people wondering how far the web of influence around the convicted sex offender extended. The first was the trial that ended with a sweetheart deal allowing Epstein, an American financier, to be virtually free while serving prison time. The second event was his apparent suicide in prison as he was awaiting trial on separate charges. 

      The conditions surrounding his suicide are so spectacularly equivocal that any rational person can only be dumbfounded by the uncritical acceptance by the media of New York City’s medical examiner’s declaration of suicide as definitive. CNN, for example, reporting on the most recent news concerning the 2005 trial and the sweetheart deal writes drily: “Epstein died by suicide in a federal jail in August 2019.”

      Zambia Is The Economist’s Damsel in Distress

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      In the article, CNN cites a review by the Department of Justice finding “that Alex Acosta, President Donald Trump’s former Labor secretary, exercised poor judgment when, as a US attorney in Florida, he gave sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein a non-prosecution agreement.” It adds that “the review did not find that Acosta or other prosecutors engaged in professional misconduct.”

      The article mentions that Acosta was guilty of a second count of poor judgment “when he failed to notify the girls and young women who alleged they were sexually abused by Epstein about the decision to not prosecute the multi-millionaire on federal charges.

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Poor judgment:

      The commonly attributed failing that explains why a crime committed by any member of the elite (defined as those empowered to judge the acts of others and exempt from being judged by others than their own) cannot be considered a crime since the mistake of showing poor judgment eclipses in gravity the crime itself

      Contextual Note

      As a federal prosecutor and then President Trump’s secretary of labor, Acosta belongs to the middle ranks of the judicial and political elite just as Epstein belonged to the middle ranks of the financial and social elite. Epstein appears also to have been associated with the international intelligence elite. That offered him supplementary security because intelligence can never be accused of crimes since its duty is to be engaged in serious criminal activity. By virtue of their belonging to the elite, both Epstein and Acosta knew they were at least theoretically protected from ever being convicted of serious crimes. But so were people like Harvey Weinstein, who belonged to the entertainment elite, or Bernie Madoff, who worked his way into the financial elite.

      Epstein, Weinstein and Madoff demonstrate that it’s possible to go too far in exercising poor judgment. All three had, at some point, probably lost any notion of there being such a thing as “too far.” They thus learned they weren’t quite as elite as they imagined themselves to be.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The Epstein case helps us to understand one important principle: that in the circles of the elite, there are always two levels of logic that protect them. The first is the phenomenon of the first offense, or the first occasion in which the subject crosses a line that could expose the nature of the game. The less timid or cautious actually push their luck to discover where that line may be before pulling back to their safety zone.

      The second is the security deriving from the self-interested solidarity of the elite. They will never betray the secrets of their peers, whom they learn to protect passively. Passive protection translates as the rhetorical skill of denying even awareness of actions deemed compromising. It is important to avoid recourse to active protection, such as rising to the defense of a peer. This is frowned upon because it may raise suspicions of complicity. Individual sins can be brushed away. Collective sins require more effort.

      Sexual crimes (Epstein, Weinstein) — typically individual sins, but not crimes — if found out and verified, are paradoxically the least forgivable, especially today, after the Weinstein scandal and #MeToo. Judicial crimes and crimes of political influence, such as Acosta is accused of, are easily dismissed because they are generally viewed as part of the job of balancing interests out among the elite.

      Then there are serious political crimes, including war crimes. In some sense, they are the easiest to gloss over because they are motivated by “noble” (i.e., nationalistic) intentions. But because they concern public policies, they become highly visible and can draw the attention of political opponents. Protecting them becomes more complicated, requires working closely with the media and takes time.

      Take the example of Elliot Abrams, President Trump’s special envoy, first for Venezuela and then for Iran. He was convicted of lying to Congress in the context of the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration. He even admitted in an interview to being seriously involved in the micro-management of the Contra death squads in El Salvador. President George H.W. Bush pardoned Abrams in 1992, who continued to provide his services to George W. Bush and now Trump.

      All this is public knowledge, which means mildly embarrassing but not compromising. It explains why a prominent member of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, Kelly Magsamen, can even today justify her active collaboration with Abrams in a now-deleted 2019 tweet visible here. Defending her work with Abrams on the Trump administration’s shambolic effort to provoke regime change in Venezuela, Magsamen explains: “I worked for Elliot Abrams as a civil servant. He is a fierce advocate for human rights and democracy. Yes, he made serious professional mistakes and was held accountable. I’m a liberal but I’m also fair. We have a lot of work to do in Venezuela. We share goals.”

      Goals justify everything. But mistakes happen, leading to accusations of “poor judgment.” Convictions also happen, sometimes followed by presidential pardons. That is what is called “being held accountable.” Most significantly, bygones become bygones.

      The elite has a job to do and solidarity is an essential part of that job.

      Historical note

      The capacity of elite networks to protect their members, especially when it involves national security (i.e., the intelligence community), has always been impressive. Not only can they accomplish enormous tasks that may or may not involve serious criminal activity — from massacres of civilian populations to assassinations of political leaders and even scientists — they are particularly skillful at covering them up, delaying and distorting the perception of truth and influencing the commercial media to disseminate their version of the “truth” while characterizing all other accounts as conspiracy theories.

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      Alex Acosta’s public explanations of his sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein was anything but convincing, as any spectator should be able to notice. In response to the question raised by his own explanation that Epstein was an “intelligence asset,” he responded: “There’s been reporting to that effect, and let me say, there’s been reporting to a lot of effects … and I would hesitate to take this reporting as fact.” He then added: “I can’t address it directly because of our guidelines but I can tell you a lot of reporting is just going down rabbit holes.”

      The strategy is impeccable. Call the issue “reporting,” meaning it could just be hearsay. Then mention that other hearsay exists, suggesting that it is all equally incredible. Then invoke “guidelines” that no one understands but everyone accepts as being crucial to our common security. The final touch consists of asking for questions from another reporter to avoid follow-up questions to one’s evasive answers.

      History provides us with many examples of how the work of the elite to cover up its most public crimes produces effects that last decades and disqualify the truth, even when it finally emerges to the light of day.   

      Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 52 years ago. The evidence that the bullet that killed the senator was fired by a second gunman is overwhelming. A lengthy interview half a century later with one of the forensic pathologists consulted for the autopsy (but not for the trial) not only presents that evidence but reveals how and why it was covered up at the time.

      This is just one startling example of how the media continue to create enough doubt about decades-old affairs to protect the elite of the past. It appears to be part of their job protecting today’s elite. Acosta has nothing to worry about.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      What the Democrats Need to Understand About America

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      The most-watched election in the world is over, and the United States will have a new president. Democrats succeeded in removing Donald Trump from office — the first one-term president in nearly 30 years and the fourth in the last century — but the Republican Party won this election. Joe Biden will begin his presidency …
      Continue Reading “What the Democrats Need to Understand About America”
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      Welcome to Joe Biden’s Socialist States of America

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      One of the sillier notions advanced during this US presidential election campaign was that if Joe Biden were to win, he and his party would transform the United States into the promised land of socialism. I guess not even the Republican strategists who promoted this canard seriously believed it to be true. Unfortunately, the message …
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      Is the internet breaking our grasp on reality? The 11 November Guardian Weekly

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      One of the many worrying aspects of 2020 has been a rise in online conspiracy theories, with supporters of some of the wildest – such as QAnon – even rising to elected office. Others have documented losing their loved ones down the conspiracy rabbit hole. In the first of a new Guardian series on how big tech has thrived during the pandemic, Alex Hern investigates why people are losing their grip on reality online and what Facebook, and others, are doing to stem the flow.The spread of online disinformation may even be influencing the man still sitting in the Oval Office in his refusal to concede. More than two weeks after election day in the US, Donald Trump has continued to proclaim his “victory” on social media and to delay the transition to the incoming Biden administration. As Simon Tisdall writes, this mess doesn’t just have implications for Americans but is giving cover to enemies of democracy elsewhere to play out their worst impulses while Trump causes a distraction. Also in the US, we look at what a mixed performance in the elections means for the Democrats – can Joe Biden keep his own party united, let alone a whole nation? We also look at the five intrinsic flaws that are causing democracy in the US to wobble.Britain is about to enter an absolutely vital few weeks when it comes to finalising post-Brexit trade terms – not to mention its Covid response. So it’s perhaps not surprising that last week No 10 was preoccupied by a toxic war between staff that culminated in the dramatic departure of Boris Johnson’s top aide, Dominic Cummings, and the PM finding himself back in Covid self-isolation … We look back at a wild week. What does it mean for the future of the government?Get the magazine delivered to your home More

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      What Is Russia’s Stake in the Nagorno-Karabakh War?

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      As the world discusses the sudden cessation of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the deployment of Russian “peacekeepers” to the region to monitor the truce, one critically important question is overlooked: Why did Russia not discourage Azerbaijan’s military offensive? A powerful security rationale implies a strong Russian interest in deterring a war that might change the regional status quo. Preserving a favorable status quo, by strategic logic, is the central security interest of a regional hegemon like Russia.

      Armenia and Azerbaijan Clash Again

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      The six-week-long war has instead weakened Armenian control over Nagorno-Karabakh, which had endured for over two decades only because it served Russia’s interests. The risk of spillover across the volatile Caucasus presents another security threat to Russia. The war has altered the balance of interests in the region — unfavorably for Moscow — creating openings for regional interventions by Turkey, the United States and others. So what objectives are worth the Kremlin taking such risks?

      Controlled Chaos

      Russia’s ultimate goal in the post-Soviet space is to politically reintegrate its former satellites into an interstate union. Yet its attempts to achieve this over the past three decades have produced only failures. The most recent experience with Belarus suggests it might be possible in a case where an authoritarian leadership feels extremely threatened. Heightening insecurity in the population has historically been another favorable condition for political integration. Moscow’s ability to put pressure on Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been limited.

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      A recent report reveals that the Kremlin views Pashinyan as a “Soros appointee” and accuses him of “promoting pro-American politicians.” The Kremlin’s Armenia desk apparently receives its information from agents representing actors Pashinyan excluded from power. They discreetly sold to the Kremlin the idea that Pashinyan needs to be replaced by a more loyal politician.

      The war and the Azeri territorial gains in and around Nagorno-Karabakh create a context favorable to Russia. First, it allows blame for defeats to be projected onto Armenia’s leadership. Russian media have broadcast statements from Russian political and security experts asserting that Pashinyan is responsible for both the war losses and Russia’s restrained reaction in the conflict on account of his unfriendly attitude toward Moscow and his favoritism towards the West. They also promoted claims concerning mounting domestic opposition. These signals suggest that Russia’s first goal is to bring to power a more loyal Armenian prime minister.

      A second goal is to create insecurity among the population, propagating the idea that Armenia cannot survive as a state without Russia. To produce the necessary feeling of threat, Russia allowed Azerbaijan to recover all its territories around Nagorno-Karabakh, making defending the enclave extremely difficult in the future. Azerbaijan’s victory also underlines the military vulnerability of Armenia itself. Russia will exploit this sense of vulnerability to persuade Armenia’s population and leadership to agree to closer integration with Russia, likely similar to the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

      On the other hand, Russia delivered an immense favor to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev by choosing not to employ its electronic warfare capabilities against Azeri drones. This was key to Baku’s military success and clearly communicates to the Azeri audience that preserving their war gains is conditional on good relations with Moscow. This will not create the level of vulnerability found in Armenia, but it will start building a dependency.

      Ankara’s open involvement in the war offers Russia opportunities to curtail Turkey’s growing regional ambitions or raise their costs. Armenia and the West view Turkey as a party to the conflict and will resist Turkish participation in internationally accepted peace negotiations and peacekeeping mechanisms. This could create an opportunity for Russia to later push for a UN Security Council authorization for its Collective Security Treaty Organization “peacekeeping forces.” That would be a historic first for Russia and another strategic gain.

      Not an Accidental Escalation

      It is legitimate to ask whether Russia acted opportunistically in response to the war or actively contributed to the escalation of the simmering conflict. It is highly unlikely that Russia was unaware of Azerbaijan’s intentions. Russia has extensive intelligence-gathering capacities in the South Caucasus. Its ability to monitor military and civilian communications, movements of troops and materiel, as well as preparations for offensive operations in the region is pretty much unquestioned.

      Moreover, the Azeri offensive started on 27 September, one day after Russia’s Kavkaz-2020 strategic exercise ended. The Armenian military participated in various phases of the exercise both in Russia and in Armenia. This suggests great confidence on the Azeri side, in starting the offensive when considerable Russian forces were still deployed in the region. It is highly unlikely that Baku failed to consult Moscow beforehand, given the scale, intensity and far-reaching objectives of its military operation.

      Any attempt to change the status quo in the post-Soviet space undermines Russia’s credibility and reputation. Moscow has been quick to punish threats to the status quo, witness Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. It also threatened Moldova after 2014 by increasing its military exercises in Transnistria from a few dozen to a few hundred per year. Russia reacted unexpectedly calmly to Baku’s invasion. Most surprisingly, it repeatedly rejected Yerevan’s request for military assistance on procedural grounds.

      Moscow’s ability to stop the Azeri offensive immediately after the fall of Shushi, the second-largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh, revealed the extent of its control. Russia would only have allowed the change of the status quo if its expected gains exceeded the related risks and costs. This is what appears to have happened, with the Kremlin using Baku to pull its chestnuts out of the fire.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions related to foreign and security policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More