Post-Soviet Tensions in the South Caucasus: Armenian-Azerbaijani Dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh

How to cite this journal: Author, Date of the post, WMO Conflict Insight, Title of the post, ISSN: 2628 6998, https://worldmediation.org/journal/

ABSTRACT

The latest flare-up of tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan in September 2022 has raised concerns about Nagorno-Karabakh, a region over which claim both countries hold a decades-long dispute. International worries about the escalation of the longest post-soviet South Caucasus conflict seem to be related to Russia’s apparent backtracking at war with Ukraine and the crucial role that Azerbaijan could acquire as an oil provider; particularly to European countries, in light of the possible oil crises that the war in Ukraine could be leading to. This paper aims to explain the background of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the main concerns it currently raises.

Editorial note: the historical account and the assessment of the parties’ conduct reflect the author’s own perspective. This journal’s editorial position is neutral as between the parties concerned. *

KEYWORDS

Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, post-Soviet conflicts, and the war in Ukraine.

INTRODUCTION

The establishment of borders, regardless of the ethnonational features of regions, has not only been applied during colonization but also in the territorial consolidation of USSR republics under Soviet rule. It is true that the USSR advocated for protecting the individual identity of the republics that confirmed it and that a division of USSR territories taking into consideration the ethical disposition in its regions was very difficult because of the nomadic nature of most ethnic communities living in them (particularly in the Caucasus); however, some sources confirm that the division of ethnic groups through the establishment of borders, separating them into different soviet republics, was one of the main USSR strategies to avoid strong ethnonationalist sentiments to arise, and secure a common self-recognition throughout the whole soviet union while still fomenting the consolidation of each republic’s identity (a somewhat ‘divide and conquer’ logistic to secure sovereignty over its territory).

Problems arose once the Soviet Unión started to decay; former soviet republics disputed regions on ethnonationalist v. territorial grounds, which many times led to the formation of de facto states (that is, a self-administered territory that works as a State but lacks sufficient international recognition to be considered one). The main long-lasting example of this post-soviet issue is the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.

MAIN CORPUS

Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous region historically inhabited by a majority of ethnic Armenians. It is located in the South Caucasus, a largely disputed geographical site until, during the 19th century, it fell under the rule of the Russian empire. After the 1917 October revolution and the outbreak of the Russian civil war, the Russian empire began to dismember, and several republics emerged from that process of dissolution, one of them being the Transcaucasian Federal Democratic Republic, consisting of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, and which included the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. This union did not last long, as around 1918, the three regions declared their independence, and tensions arose between Armenia and Azerbaijan when both states claimed sovereignty over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Given the danger that their tensions seemed to be posing in the area, the final status of the region was to be determined after WWI, but plans were overturned when Azerbaijan surrendered to Soviet forces and joined the USSR in 1920. A year after that, in 1921, Georgia and Armenia followed, becoming part of the Soviet Union too. As Armenia and Azerbaijan were under Soviet rule from that moment onwards, the responsibility to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute corresponded then to the Soviet mandate. Given the ethnic disposition of the region, composed of 95% of the Armenian population (most of them Orthodox Christians), it was expected that jurisdiction over the area would be granted to the Soviet Republic of Armenia; surprisingly, Nagorno-Karabakh was established as an autonomous province inside Azerbaijan, a Soviet republic which population was, in its majority, Azeri (and predominantly Muslim).

Many scholars point out that, as surprising as the decision to keep Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijani territory may be, the division of ethnic groups by using Soviet republics’ borders to split them was actually a common USSR strategy to avoid strong ethnonationalist groups to arise while enhancing the self-identity of each Soviet republic (a sort of ‘divide and conquer logistic). Even though the cession of territory to Azerbaijan did not precisely solve the problem, clashes were kept at bay, at least during the Soviet mandate; it was around the 1980s when the USSR started to decay, and turmoil over the region rose again, being so that in 1988 the legislative of Nagorno-Karabakh passed a resolution to join Armenia, outbreaking tensions that culminated when, in 1991, Azerbaijan abolished Nagorno-Karabakh’s autonomy. This led the region to declare its independence as the Republic of Artsakh, and war erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia for control over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Despite Azerbaijani apparent military superiority, by 1993, Armenia had succeeded not only in gaining control over Nagorno-Karabakh, but also over 20% of the surrounding Azerbaijani territory. Even though Russia handled to broker a ceasefire by 1994, Armenian support of the Republic of Artsakh (a de facto state, given its limited international recognition), and especially its control over the surrounding Azerbaijani territory, has made it impossible for tensions to ease in the 1994-2022 period, with the skirmishes and clashes outbreaking from time to time. Confrontations were particularly violent in 2016, 2020, and, more recently, in 2022, in violation of several ceasefire agreements negotiated primarily under the wing of the Minsk Group, a mediation effort established by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and co-chaired by France, Russia, and the US, and which main goal is to facilitate negotiation over a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Despite the primordial role of the Minsk Group in helping the parties to establish the principles that would guide the solution to the dispute, brokering ceasefires during the peaks of tension, and facilitating peace talks among sides on a possible settlement, the results of all these measures struggle to show, and the conflict continues as troublesome as ever, to the point that the deploy of Russian peacekeepers in the Nagorno-Karabakh region has been necessary to avoid the conflict to reach unprecedented scales of violence.

Main concerns and future scenarios

The complicated geopolitical features of the South Caucasus area have always led some sources to see the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute as the post-soviet frozen war most likely to become an all-out war; however, the current war in Ukraine has raised new concerns about the possible scenarios that this conflict may derive into. For some analysts, the backtracking of Russia in the Ukraine war and its struggle to defend its position against some Ukrainian counteroffensives weakens the power’s position as the source of peacekeeping personnel that is thought to be avoiding (to a certain extent, at least) the escalation of tensions in the area.

Many believe that Azerbaijan military operations have, in previous escalations of the dispute (in 2016 and, especially, in 2020), constituted a call for attention towards the international arena regarding the inefficiency of peace talks up to that moment, the frozenness of the conflict and, therefore, the fact that part of Azerbaijani land (apart from the Nagorno-Karabakh area) continued to be occupied by Armenian forces. Given its military superiority (when compared to Armenia), deploys of forces have sometimes been interpreted as a warning that, in case of inefficiency of mediation efforts, Azerbaijan would not hesitate in trying to obtain back the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its occupied land by military means. In this 2022 escalation of tensions, analysts don’t stray far from previous interpretations; many believe that Azerbaijan may be perceiving Russia’s apparent struggle on the Ukrainian front as an opportunity to take by military means what it seems unable to achieve through peace talks, given that it seems unlikely that Russia could make (or could afford to make) any military difference right now on the Armenian-Azerbaijani front.

Other concerns on the current status of the dispute are closely related not only to the arms capacity of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, which has continued to increase at unprecedented speed in recent decades (particularly concerning the acquisition of ballistic missiles and drones), but also with the alliance system that a massive escalation of the conflict could trigger, and the chances that that triggering ends up leading to an all-out war. It is true that countries near and in the Caucasus region are intertwined in seemingly complicated alliances; however, the states whose intervention would become the most worrying in the case of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict would be Turkey (Azerbaijan’s ally) and Russia (Armenia’s ally). Already in 2020, turmoil in Nagorno-Karabakh triggered tensions between Moscow and Ankara, but in this 2022 escalation, the position that Russia currently holds in the Ukraine war affects the possibility of an intervention by reducing it. As we have mentioned before, Russia seems to be unable to afford more conflicting fronts other than the Ukrainian one; in fact, an agreement on holding peaceful talks before intervening in the dispute has already been reached by Russian and Turkish mandates.

Moreover, the possibility of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute leading to a big-scale conflict in the Caucasus and the Middle East is an important concern for actors like the EU, which is starting to build agreements with Azerbaijan given that its oil resources make it a very promising gas exporter as an alternative to Russia. A big-scale outbreak of conflict in the region would make oil agreements with Azerbaijan impossible to take into action, especially since pipelines that would connect Azerbaijan with Europe would go not only through Georgia, a state that could be drawn into the dispute as well, but also through Turkey, whose potential implication with the conflicting parties has already been explained.

SUMMARY *

The article’s analysis rests on a single structural observation: this dispute has never been contained by the parties themselves but by the external actors around them, and those actors’ capacity and interest are now shifting. Russia is the guarantor of the arrangement and is occupied elsewhere; Turkey has become a more active participant on the other side; and the European Union has acquired an energy interest in Azerbaijan that it did not previously have. The author reads the escalation of September 2022 in that light, as a test of a framework whose enforcer is distracted, and concludes that the same shift which weakens the restraint may also supply new restraints of a commercial kind.

CONCLUSION

Although it is true that the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute was already an issue before the Soviet Union came into the equation, what could have been a somewhat peaceful agreement on the future of the region after WWI ended up transforming into growing tensions overcomplicated by the USSR border-building strategies. The current status of the conflict leaves worrying prospects; despite the efforts of other international actors to facilitate an approach between the conflicting parties, peace talks have appeared to leave no ground for an applicable solution up to now.

Even though the role of the Minsk Group has been of great value in the peacemaking process and in preventing tensions from escalating, the conflict will only find a lasting solution if both Armenia and Azerbaijan show an actual willingness to set aside violent means and the circumstances that surround this new 2022 escalation seem to be providing contradictory conditions for that to happen. On the one hand, Russia’s apparent struggle in the war in Ukraine seems to be both a complicating and facilitating actor at the same time, as on the one hand, it weakens Russia’s peacekeeping potential, while on the other, it is expected to prevent growing tensions between Moscow and Ankara (and, thus, an escalation of the dispute that would lead to an all-out war involving the whole Caucasus and Middle East regions), given the high risks that Russia would face in opening another conflicting front in the international arena. Also, the role that Azerbaijan could acquire as an oil exporter for Europe is not only a source of worry, especially in the EU arena, but it is also expected that prospects of an oil agreement with the EU will refrain Azerbaijan from taking extreme military actions. In short, it seems rather unlikely that an all-out war will outbreak in the region, but there are still efforts to make to try and approach both Azerbaijani and Armenian parties to avoid major devastation between them and in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION *

The failure of the Minsk process deserves closer examination than the article gives it, because it is among the most instructive failures in the recent history of mediation. The Group established the substance of a settlement early: return of the occupied districts, an interim status for Nagorno-Karabakh with guarantees, a corridor linking it to Armenia, the return of displaced persons, security guarantees, and an eventual determination of final status by a legally binding expression of will. Those Madrid Principles were on the table for more than a decade. What was never established was any means of moving the parties toward them, since a mediator without leverage can produce a text and cannot produce a decision.

Two design flaws compounded this. The first was that the co chairs were three states whose relations with each other deteriorated to the point where joint action became impossible, and a mediating body divided among itself cannot press parties who prefer delay. The second was that the format excluded the population whose status was the subject of the dispute, an exclusion each side justified on its own grounds and which meant no settlement could be tested against what those most affected would accept.

The article’s own analysis contains the more general lesson, and it is uncomfortable for anyone who works in this field. A process without leverage does not merely fail to resolve a conflict; it can make resolution less likely, because it allows the party benefiting from the existing situation to appear engaged while conceding nothing, and it persuades the dissatisfied party that only force will alter anything. Negotiations that continue for decades without movement are not neutral in their effect. Where a mediator cannot supply leverage, the honest course is to say so and to concentrate on what can be achieved, principally the prevention of escalation.

That points toward what remains available regardless of the political question. Ceasefire monitoring with genuine access, of the kind repeatedly proposed and never established here, is the single measure that would most reduce casualties along the line of contact. Demining, the exchange of prisoners, clarification of the fate of the missing, and access to religious and cultural sites are matters on which agreement has proved possible even at moments of high tension. And the border delimitation and transport connections now under discussion are technical files with a political dividend, since they create the routine contact from which the habit of agreement grows.

Finally, a note on this article’s own subject that the passage of time has sharpened. Written in the autumn of 2022, it treats the presence of external guarantors as the restraint on escalation. What followed, first the closure of the corridor and then the departure of the entire Armenian population of the region in September 2023, demonstrated how little that restraint was worth once the guarantor’s attention moved elsewhere. The lesson is not that guarantees are useless but that guarantees resting on a single state’s convenience are worth precisely what that convenience is worth at the moment they are needed. Where a settlement depends on protection for a vulnerable population, the protection must be plural, monitored and legally anchored, or it is not protection at all.

* Added by the WMO Editorial Team

REFERENCES

AlJazeera English. (2022). Could there be a new conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan? Inside Story [Video].

Amid Ukraine War, Armenia and Azerbaijan Fighting Risks Broader Conflict. (2022). Retrieved from https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/09/amid-ukraine-war-armenia-and-azerbaijan-fighting-risks-broader-conflict

Ismailzade, F. (2011). The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Current Trends and Future Scenarios. Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI).

Ker-Lindsay, J. (2020). Armenia-Azerbaijan: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Explained [Video].

Ker-Lindsay, J. (2022). Armenia-Azerbaiyán: ¿Una paz final o más guerra? [Video].

Nagorno Karabaj declara la movilización parcial tras acusar a Azerbaiyán de un ataque con dos muertos. (2022). Retrieved from https://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2022/08/03/62eaa1dcfdddffc1358b4575.html

Nagorno Karabaj: cómo fronteras definidas en la era soviética siguen siendo causa de conflictos. BBC News Mundo. (2022). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-62820461

Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict. Global Conflict Tracker. (2022). Retrieved from https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/nagorno-karabakh-conflict

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, explained. (2022). Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/21502327/armenia-azerbaijan-nagorno-karabakh-war-explained

The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: A Visual Explainer. (2022). Retrieved from https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/nagorno-karabakh-conflict-visual-explainer

What is behind the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict flare-up? (2022). Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/13/what-is-behind-the-armenia-azerbaijan-conflict-flare-up

Why has fighting broken out between Armenia and Azerbaijan? (2022). Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/13/why-has-fighting-broken-out-armenia-and-azerbaijan-nagorno-karabakh

Supplementary references added by the WMO Editorial Team

OSCE Minsk Group, Basic Principles for the Peaceful Settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh Conflict (Madrid Principles), 2007, as revised.

United Nations Security Council Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 (1993).

Trilateral Statement of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and the President of the Russian Federation, 9 November 2020.

International Court of Justice, Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Armenia v. Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan v. Armenia), orders on provisional measures, 2021 and 2023.

International Crisis Group, Europe reports on the South Caucasus, Brussels.

de Waal, T. (2013). Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War (revised edition). New York University Press, New York.

Broers, L. (2019). Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.

The Taiwan Issue: An unbridgeable gap in Sino-US relations?

How to cite this journal: Author, Date of the post, WMO Conflict Insight, Title of the post, ISSN: 2628 6998, https://worldmediation.org/journal/

ABSTRACT

The latest visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan has flared old tensions not only held between China and Taiwan but also between China and the US. The problematic nature of Sino-US relations has a much deeper background than some think, and the possibilities of easing tensions appear complicated due to the profound nature of the rivalry and the interests that both parties hold over Taiwan. This article aims at explaining the main points that make Sino-US relations so tense, especially when it comes to the Taiwan field.

Editorial note: the account of the agreements and the attribution of responsibility for the deterioration of relations reflect the author’s own perspective. This journal’s editorial position is neutral as between the parties concerned. *

KEYWORDS

Taiwan, China, US, Sino-US relationship, diplomacy, international tensions.

INTRODUCTION

Sino-US diplomatic relationships have never been without turmoil; periods of tension and cooperation have been experienced in a myriad of fields, from international crises during the Cold War to trade and climate agreements. A frequent sticking point since 1949 has been the Taiwan issue.

MAIN CORPUS

The One-China policy and the Taiwan Relations Act

The Republic of China (ROC) was funded in 1912 after the Qing Dynasty was overthrown by Chinese revolutionaries. By that time, the island of Formosa (or the island of Taiwan, as we would call it now) was under Japanese administration after defeat in the First Sino-Japanese war (1895) had forced the Qing government to cede its sovereignty over the Formosa Island (which had been declared a Chinese province around 1885), to Japan. In 1927 civil war outbreak in China, a conflict that confronted the Nationalist forces of the ROC against the Communist forces of Mao Zedong, and which course also coincide with that of WWII. Once WWII was over, the San Francisco Treaty (1951) forced Japan (given its defeat), to renounce several of its overseas territories, one of them being Taiwan, which was agreed to be returned to its original owner, that being China.

By this time, the Chinese civil war was still ongoing, and when Communist forces won over Nationalist forces in 1949, the former Nationalist government decided to exile the ROC to Taiwan, where it would continue to be administered by former Nationalist forces. Mainland China, the territory won over by the Communist forces of Mao Zedong, would become the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 onwards. This split has since then created a very difficult situation among both regions because both governments have claimed to be the legitimate government to represent all Chinese people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The PRC keeps arguing its sovereignty over the territory of the Island of Taiwan, claiming it to be a breakaway province that must be annexed to mainland China someday using any means necessary (without ruling out the use of force) and that the only legitimate government of all China (of both sides of the Taiwan Strait) is the government of the PRC (One-China principle). Meanwhile, the ROC (Taiwan from now on), continues to administer itself as an independent country, although it has never formally declared its independence, so its international statute becomes a tricky territorial issue rooted on civil war dynamics that seem to remain unresolved, causing unrest to arise in the area.

At the beginning of the issue, US support was directed only towards Taiwan, as tensions grew between the US and the PCR in light of several Cold War proxy wars (Korea and Vietnam wars). It would not be until 1969 that Sino-US relations would start to be reconstructed after the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations (Sino-Soviet split); in 1971, the improvement of Sino-US relations saw itself reflected in recognition of the PRC by the UN, which led the organization to allow it to replace Taiwan’s seat in the UNSC after declaring that the government of the PRC was the sole legitimate government of China and that, as such, it should be the one representing China in the UNSC. In 1972, the Nixon administration went one step further in Sino-US reconciliation by signing the Shanghai Communiqué, the first of three communiqués that would be crucial support for Sino-US relations.

A few years after that, following the signature of the 2nd communiqué in 1978 during the Carter administration, Sino-US relations were officially normalized in 1979 with the US diplomatic recognition of the PCR (referred to as ‘China’ from now on), and the acknowledgment of the One-China Policy. This diplomatic strategy governs all of China’s foreign relations and that forces all countries that want to maintain diplomatic relations with China to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognize the government of mainland China as the only legitimate one (not to be mistaken with the One-China principle). However, the US is not mainly known for playing by the rules, and after having assured to abide by the One-China policy and its prohibition of starting diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the US congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act (also during 1979), which allowed it to continue its ties with Taiwan without officially violating the One-China policy. With the establishment of both agreements, the US government would be able to maintain cultural, economic, and, most importantly, military laces with an old ally like Taiwan while still improving Washington-Beijing relations, given the strategic importance of both sites in the Asia Pacific area.

However, it seems unclear if the US strategy of playing both sides resulted in more benefits than drawbacks for the managing of both the Taiwan issue and Sino-US relations. The issuing of the Taiwan Relations Act raised suspicion in China that the US would not be acting in good faith regarding Sino-US relations since US ties with Taiwan established by the Taiwan Relations Act, although unofficial, violated prior points agreed with China over the 1st and 2nd communiqués. That is why, by 1982, the Ronald Reagan administration started negotiations with China on a 3rd communiqué that would help reconcile Sino-US relations. In light of negotiations of this third communiqué, the Taiwanese government proposed the US government Six Assurances that the US would have to guarantee in order to reaffirm its commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act. This way, by 1982, the Reagan administration ended up signing contradicting documents with both parties that reaffirm US commitment to both the One China policy and the Taiwan Relations Act, making the knot of tensions surrounding the triangle of relations much more complex to resolve. Reaffirming the Taiwan Relations Act means breaking much of the compromises in which Sino-US relations are rooted, including the sales of arms and direct military aid towards Taiwan in case of war between both parties, and an obligation not to recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, all points that, although not directly, go against points of the One China Policy and could deteriorate trust in Sino-US relations.

Sino-US rivalries and Taiwan’s role

The tensions between China and the US have also deployed in several fields other than the Taiwan issue, especially during the last decades. Although marked by instants of cooperation, Sino-US relations have lately been marked by economic and trade disputes, diplomatic quarrels (which have included the closing of diplomatic posts on several occasions), military tensions, and mutual accusations of the theft of intellectual property and cybersecurity issues.

Tensions lately flared again in early August 2022 after the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei, despite China warning the US against strengthening formal relations with Taiwan. The move has been perceived as a violation of Sino-US agreements rooted in the three communiqués and has once again deteriorated trust in Sino-US relations. It is not the first time that tensions have risen over ‘diplomatic’ practices carried out between the US and Taiwan. Although the US maintains an unofficial relation with Taiwan, those ties do not provide for formal diplomatic relations, which would violate Sino-US agreements; however, the US and Taiwan have several times held mutual visits of figures of political importance on one another territories, which has very clear shades of formal diplomatic relations. This latest incident comes as the culmination of a long period of friction between the US and China, and even though the Taiwan issue is well entangled in the huge web of policies that foster unrest between the US and China, it is also true that given the difficult relationship both countries hold in regards to other matters, decades-long US politics towards the Taiwan problem overcomplicate its connection with China and the possibility to solve other Sino-US differences, particularly in light of the existence of US non-official relations with Taiwan that go against official diplomatic agreements that the US holds with China.

Globalization is also a phenomenon to factor in, as it has caused the US and China to be dependent on each other, which makes Sino-US differences much more complicated and disrupting than US-Soviet ones were for global stability. China is much an economic and technological power than the USSR ever got to be; it is the second largest economy in the world and keeps growing at a pace that could endanger the US’ global first position as a techno-economic power. The quarrel between both sides to hold the first position in the global market is not only of an economic nature but also of a geopolitical and even ideological one. The multipolar character of the world is making those growing perspectives other than the US-led western one arise, and China is one of the big examples of this change. The US has always depicted itself as the biggest defender of democracy and has always claimed that democratic standards and economic liberalization are indispensable for a country to hold an important position in the international arena and the global market, and China’s position and features challenges greatly that point of view, because it has become a global power without completely meeting US-led western standards to become a global power, which endangers the US liberal discourse.

This can also be related to the importance that Taiwan has for both China and the US. Taiwan is obviously a crucial location in the Pacific, the space that separated the US from China, especially if military interests are to be considered. China, has also a crucial position in regard to the South China Sea and a very deep historical importance rooted in century-long cultural ties and an unresolved territorial issue that originated during the Chinese civil war. But apart from all that, Taiwan is also crucial in light of the geopolitical and ideological rivalry that China and the US hold. It seems like defending Taiwan has been perceived as the perfect opportunity by the US to reaffirm its self-proclaimed hegemony as the world’s defender of democracy, while China seems to see the reunification of Taiwan (a very developed economic power as well) as a way to reaffirm the emerging of new growth perspectives that are separate from the Western ideals.

Having said all that, it seems like rivalries over Taiwan are not only mirroring geopolitical quarrels held between both China and the US and rooted in something else than the Taiwan issue but also overcomplicating Sino-US understandings. The subject acquires greater importance when considering, as I mentioned before, the growing interdependence that globalization is subjecting China and the US to, especially in the economic arena, which explains itself by the difficulties that markets (their domestic ones and the global one), experience each time China and the US enrolled in a trade war. Such a strong economic interdependence tends to need the support of stable diplomatic ties in order to avoid economic difficulties both domestically and globally; because this type of connection between China and the US makes the stability of their domestic markets to depend on one another but being as they are first and second economies of the globe, the global market also depends to some extent of the stability of their relations. This way, China-US quarrels over the Taiwan issue have an impact on Sino-US diplomatic relations, which makes it difficult for trust to be built among both powers and affects their interdependence in a myriad of fields.

Moreover, mediation over Sino-US relations seems extremely difficult in this case, not only because of the deep entanglement in their rivalries and quarrels but also because of the lack of importance given to cultural differences in negotiation processes, particularly from the US-led western side, which tends to perceive itself as the holder of the best ways to perceive conflict and its resolution. Faure (1999) explains the impact that culture has on negotiation processes (considering that diplomacy and mediation are sometimes also negotiation processes), centering on the Chinese perception of negotiation. One of the most interesting points of his work is that of the importance that trust acquires in Chinese culture, which would reflect the importance of trusting another negotiating party; that is why losing trust ties would make it more difficult to reach real and lasting agreements when Chinese negotiators are involved. If we apply all these facts to the current situation between the US and China, it seems like the absence of trust in Sino-US diplomatic relations would make it very hard for tensions to be eased, and that trust seems to be damaged greatly by the US involvement in the Taiwan issue, especially since the US keeps building agreements with China and Taiwan that contradict each other and that violate policies necessary to keep diplomatic relations with Beijing.

SUMMARY *

The article identifies a structural feature of the arrangement rather than a single incident. Washington acknowledged one position in 1979 and legislated another in the same year, and has reaffirmed both ever since, which the author reads as an inconsistency that erodes trust and, given the economic interdependence of the two powers, carries consequences beyond their bilateral relationship. The closing argument draws on the negotiation literature to suggest that trust functions differently in Chinese practice than Western negotiators assume, and that this makes the accumulated ambiguity more costly than it appears from Washington.

CONCLUSION

As we have seen, the Taiwan issue is a tricky question that seems overcomplicated by US involvement, especially since that involvement creates a breach of formal Sino-US agreements that could endanger Sino-US relations and, to some extent, global stability. The great interdependence between China and the US is mirrored in the impact that the deterioration of their diplomatic relations is having on the global order.

Sino-US understanding will be difficult to achieve as long as the US keeps fueling the deterioration of trust with conflicting policies over Taiwan. Later tensions over the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei have led to the reaffirmation once again of the US’ Six Assurances to Taiwan, which have further increased tensions. Both the One China Policy and the Taiwan Relations Act included prohibition the US from getting actively involved in the issue between China and Taiwan because it is perceived to be an issue that only Chinese people can solve peacefully among themselves. However, geopolitical quarrels that seem to endanger the US’ position in the globe appear to be reason enough for it to start inconsistent policies that deteriorate its relationship with China and that endanger global stability. The importance that culture acquires in international negotiations should also be considered in these cases because understanding cultural differences may be the key to an easier understanding.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION *

The inconsistency the article identifies is real, and it is worth considering whether it is a defect or a design. Deliberate ambiguity is a recognised negotiating device, used where parties cannot agree on a principle but can agree to leave it unstated, and the arrangement across the Strait is among its most studied instances. Washington acknowledges rather than endorses Beijing’s position, maintains unofficial relations, supplies defensive equipment, and declines to say what it would do in a crisis. That formula has coincided with more than four decades without war, and it works by leaving each party unsure enough of the consequences to avoid testing them. Whether it should be replaced by clarity is the central policy debate in this field, and the case against clarity is that whichever position is stated plainly removes the restraint on one side or the other.

Where ambiguity becomes dangerous is precisely where it is eroding, and this is the more useful frame for the incident the article describes. When each party reads the other’s actions as the abandonment of a settled understanding, the arrangement stops restraining and starts provoking. What preserves it is not silence but predictability: sustained private channels through which intentions are explained before actions are taken, agreed protocols for military encounters at sea and in the air, functioning crisis communication, and the practice of accompanying any step that appears to change the status quo with an explicit statement that it does not. Much of this machinery exists and has repeatedly been suspended at the moments it was most needed, which is the opposite of how such mechanisms should work.

Two elements deserve to be added to the article’s account. Taiwan appears throughout as the object of a rivalry between two powers, and this is where a mediation journal should note the omission: twenty three million people live there, they choose their government in competitive elections, and their preferences, which polling has consistently shown to favour the maintenance of the present situation over either unification or formal independence, are the most relevant fact about the dispute and the least represented in it. Any framework that treats the question as one between Washington and Beijing repeats the structure that produced it. And the interdependence the author describes cuts both ways: it raises the cost of confrontation for both parties, which is a restraint, and it is being deliberately reduced by both through supply chain policy, which removes that restraint over time.

Finally, the article’s use of the negotiation literature is apt and can be pressed further. If trust in the sense Faure describes is built through relationship over time and damaged by conduct that appears to disregard an established understanding, then the practical implication concerns process rather than substance. Continuity of interlocutors, advance explanation, and the avoidance of surprise matter more in such a relationship than the formal content of any particular agreement, and their neglect explains more of the deterioration described here than the texts of the communiqués do. That is a finding about how great powers should conduct themselves toward one another, and it is the kind of observation this field is well placed to make.

* Added by the WMO Editorial Team

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Gaza on the Brink of Collapse under the invisible Hand of the U.S.- Israel Tandem

How to cite this journal: Author, Date of the post, WMO Conflict Insight, Title of the post, ISSN: 2628 6998, https://worldmediation.org/journal/

ABSTRACT

In the last few weeks, the long-standing conflict between Israel and Palestine has been marked by increased tensions once again. After decades of blockade leading to economic collapse and lack of humanitarian resources, the situation in the Gaza Strip begins to appear unbearable, the region usually being referred to as ‘the world’s largest open-air prison’. The military aggressions that Israel has been developing in the region, which are being justified as a need for self-defense, keep worsening the crisis in the Gaza Strip and have at its core the close relationship with the US that the Jewish State enjoys. This article aims at giving a close insight into the current conflict between the Gaza Strip and Israel; we will start by addressing the background of the conflict, then we will center on the situation of the Gaza strip in the last few decades, and we will finally address the close relationship between Israel and the US.

Editorial note: the analysis, the characterisation of the parties and the attribution of legal responsibility in this article reflect the author’s own perspective. This journal’s editorial position is neutral as between Israelis and Palestinians and their respective narratives. *

KEYWORDS

Gaza Strip, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, US, International Law, Preemptive Self-Defense, Blockade.

INTRODUCTION

Many say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is based on long-standing religious quarrels that originated many centuries ago in the land of Palestine. Although religion is certainly involved, the truth is that this is not a religious conflict but rather a political one in which two peoples (with their own national identities) fight for the same land, and that originated only a century ago, by the beginning of the 1900s.

MAIN CORPUS

Historical background: Gaza throughout the conflict

Before the 1900s, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. By that time, different communities of Christians, Muslims, and Jews were settled in the area, with no major confrontations taking place. During the Ottoman mandate, a feeling of national identity began to emerge among the people of that region, who began to identify themselves as Palestinians. At the same time in Europe, the Zionist movement, identifying Judaism as a national identity that deserved its own state, was also gaining weight and saw the region of Palestine as the most appropriate one for the creation of a Jewish country.

When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the aftermath of WWI, the Middle East was divided between France and Britain, and the British Mandate of Palestine was established. Due to the upswing of Zionism since the beginning of the XX century, and especially after the Holocaust, the region of Palestine began to experiment with the arrival of large numbers of Jewish immigrants, who asked for the creation of a Jewish state in the area, and so the tension between Jews and Arabs began to rise. The escalation of violence became unbearable for the British; so, in 1947, with the aim of solving the tensions, the UN approved a partition plan (RES 181(II)) that proposed the division of British Palestine into two states, an Arab one (Palestine) and a Jewish one (Israel), keeping Jerusalem as a special international zone that didn’t belong to any of both states. The Jews agreed with the partition plan, and even though the Arabs didn’t (because the territory established for them was quite fractioned, as one of the main reasons), the Jewish leadership in Palestine declared the independence of Israel in May 1948, finishing the British mandate, although the borders of the new Jewish State were never fully specified. The next day, five surrounding Arab states declared war on Israel; that was the beginning of what became to be known as the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Between 1948 and 1949, the first Arab-Israeli war took place. In 1949 a ceasefire was declared, and the armistice lines that were established created the delimitations of the areas now referred to as the West Bank (which by 1949 became administered by Jordan) and the Gaza Strip (administered by Egypt); the rest of the Palestinian territory, including Western Jerusalem, was now under Israeli control. Egypt continued administering the Gaza strip for almost two decades, marked by increasing tensions in the area, especially among Israel and the surrounding Arab states (Syria, Egypt, Jordan). By 1967, after the Six-Day war, Egypt lost the Gaza Strip, and Jordan lost the West Bank, which started to be controlled by Israel, among other territories.

The rivalries between Israel and its neighboring states would give place to numerous confrontations until 1979 when Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords, which normalized relations between both states. From this moment on, the rest of the Arab states would gradually end hostilities with Israel, too; but as confrontations between Israel and Palestine hadn’t ended, we speak about the renaming of the conflict the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The new frame of the confrontation refers to the tensions between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (created around the 1960s), which included the arrival of Jewish Settlers in Palestinian, leading to direct confrontations and times of heightened Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation, known as intifadas. The first intifada was settled with the Oslo (I and II, 1993 and 1995, respectively) Accords, which recognized the Palestinian Authority and gave some self-governing rights to the Palestinian people. These Accords, however, are not very useful in stopping hostilities, and between 2000-2005 another intifada takes place due to growing tensions. It was not until this second intifada ended in 2005 that Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip.

Gaza: the world’s largest open-air prison

Although the instances of tension brought by the direct confrontations and the settler’s occupation of Palestinian land had already given place to the outbreak of Israeli violence against Palestinians in an attempt to keep the occupied land (especially that of the West Bank), the situation in Gaza reached an unprecedented scale of confrontation after the victory of Hamas, one of the two main Palestinian political groups, in the 2005-2006 election. After being elected, Hamas detached from the Palestinian Authority in a short civil war, and the Gaza Strip became separate from the West Bank (where the other majority party, Fatah, remained the most popular).

Around 2007, Israel and Egypt established an unprecedented blockade on the borders of the Gaza Strip, claiming that Hamas wouldn’t be willing to enter diplomatic relations that would put an end to the conflict and using as a pretext the harshness of the confrontation between the Palestinian Authority (composed mainly by Fatah) and Hamas. 15 years later, Israel still maintains the blockade on Gaza by land, sea, and air, turning the area into, as some say, the world’s largest open-air prison. The pressure exerted on the Gaza Strip has ended up collapsing the economy and the minimum services in the area and has triggered unemployment and poverty rates, a situation that seems impossible to overcome despite the aid funds issued by the United Nations.

This situation has favored increasing tensions between Hamas and the Israeli government; the Palestinian response to Israel’s blockade strategy took the form of firing rockets, which led to a major military offense by Israel. Since then, the tension between both sides has resulted in numerous clashes, smoothed by moments of détente that the occasional ceasefires generated. The Palestinian aggressions in the face of the Israeli blockade seemed to give the Jewish state the perfect pretext to initiate a series of military operations based on preventive defense, which only increased the tension between the two regions further. Internationally recognized moments were, for example, Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), an Israeli military offensive based on bombing Gaza after the end of a ceasefire in which hostilities never stopped; or Operation Protective Edge (2014), an offensive carried out by Israel against Hamas after the group normalized relations with its rival, Fatah, and formed a unity government in Palestine.

The 2018-2021 timespan was also marked by a more tense atmosphere than usual, with very violent clashes in the Gaza border area and airstrikes by both sides. The increase of violence in this period was founded on tensions over control of Palestinian land (which has been receiving Israeli settlers for decades, often forcing Palestinians to leave their homes), as well as, again, preemptive defense claims by Israel, which says it fears attacks by Palestinian militant groups.

In the last few weeks (July-August 2022), tension has increased again in the Gaza Strip area. Israel has launched what has been called a ‘preemptive military operation’; the difference with the other confrontations is that this time Israel’s attack is not aimed at Hamas but at a militant group, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which according to Israeli authorities, was planning to launch an attack against them. Again, Israel’s military mobilization is based on preemptive defense actions against Palestinian militant groups, carried out ‘in case of attacks take place and not ‘when attacks take place, which gives Israel the pretexts to exert pressure on the area whenever it likes. Before the attack, Israel reportedly cut off the gas supply to the Gaza Strip, leaving the area practically without electricity. According to Israeli authorities, several members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have been arrested, although the reality is that dozens of civilians seem to have been killed.

The force behind Israel’s military success

Many point to the current situation in Gaza as a product of the inefficiency of Palestinian leaders, corruption, and extremism of its main political groups. However, the reality is that the Palestinian Authority’s missteps and dysfunctionalities aside, Israel’s decades-long aggressive actions have killed not only almost all chances of taking into action the two-state solution but also the prospects for the existence of a unitary Palestinian state, especially considering the fractioned character of the current Palestinian territory. Moreover, Israel keeps the Gaza Strip region suffocated and starved of economic and humanitarian resources under the pretext of needing to defend itself against Palestinian attacks, sometimes even preemptively.

If there is one thing that is undeniable in all this, it is that Israel has a military and defensive force that has nothing to envy to that of Gaza. In fact, Israel’s military strength has developed at a dizzying speed, especially since 1967, a development that owes much to the close relationship that unites the Jewish state with a world power also highly developed in military and defense matters: the United States. Although the United States defines itself as a neutral state in the conflict, advocating an end to hostilities and the defense of democracy, the reality is that on numerous occasions, it has justified Israel’s actions under the pretext that ‘Israel has a legitimate right to defend itself, a discourse that ignores the advantages in resources that the Jewish state enjoys (thanks in part to the aid provided by the US), as well as the destructive impact that Israel’s aggressions have on the population of the Gaza Strip and their prospects of living.

US support to Israel, both military and diplomatic, has a crucial impact on the development of Israel’s actions and, therefore, on the current situation in the Gaza Strip. US military aid to Israel amounts to more than $3bn a year; more than $140bn in economic aid, mostly of a military nature since the creation of the Jewish state. Economic aid is not the only evidence of the close military relationship between the US and Israel; arms sales, cooperation in developing drones tested in the Gaza Strip, or joint military exercises are some other examples.

In addition to the close US military investment in Israel, the US has also used its veto power in the UN Security Council to reject resolutions that would have served to investigate Israel’s responsibility for war crimes and human rights violations carried out in Gaza. The existence of pro-Israel lobbies in the US has also played an important role in facilitating support for Israel (notably AIPAC, a powerful pro-Israel association in the US) due to the nature of the US political system.

Many wonders why the United States, despite its pleas for the cease of hostilities, maintains its almost unconditional support for Israel and, therefore, for policies that often violate international standards of ethical behavior. The answer seems to lie in Israel’s strategic position in the Middle East; during the Cold War, the United States was already interested in the country’s location in an area with many important resources to consolidate world hegemony. However, US aid to Israel did not become significant until 1967, when Israel demonstrated its military capability in the Six-Day War and thus its potential to maintain stability in the Middle East in the interests of the United States.

Therefore, Israel has never been a country in need of help from a major world power, as it has always been a considerable military and technological power; rather, it is Israel’s strength in an area of political and economic interest for the United States that seems to enhance the aid of said world power. This way, Israel’s military superiority is assured in the area, and the political interests of the US in the area are safeguarded. Moreover, the political strength of Hamas in the Gaza Strip does not please the interests of the United States in the area, which only seems to fulfill its role as a defender of democracy when it develops according to its political and economic convenience. This is not the first time that the American superpower has displayed this type of behavior; if anything has already become clear, it is that the limits imposed by morality standards and international law have no value when the interests of the United States are at stake.

SUMMARY *

The article advances a causal chain: a blockade sustained for fifteen years has produced economic collapse in Gaza; the resulting confrontations have been met by Israeli operations justified as anticipatory self defence; and this pattern is sustainable for Israel because of the military, financial and diplomatic support of the United States. From this the author draws a conclusion about mediation, namely that external efforts to bring the parties to negotiation cannot succeed while the principal mediator is also the principal supporter of one party. The assessments of motive, and the attribution of legal responsibility, are the author’s own; the conduct of Palestinian armed groups receives correspondingly less examination, and readers should weigh the account accordingly.

CONCLUSION

The current situation leaves the Gaza strip on the brink of the abyss; it derives from decades of uninterrupted confrontation and the pressure exerted by Israel in the name of self-defense (even though Gaza does not match Israel’s arms potential) on a region that lacks humanitarian and economic resources. The civilian population is helpless, living under unsustainable conditions in the face of tension that could escalate to greater levels of confrontation; the economic and social hardship imposed by the blockade is compounded by an unprecedented wave of violence since May 2021. Moreover, Israel’s policy towards the Gaza Strip appears to be based on preventive military operations, which are prohibited according to the UN Charter (Article 2.4), which only allows the use of force in case of collective security measures taken by the Security Council (Articles 42-43), and in case of self-defense (Article 51). Pre-emptive self-defense (i.e., when the attack becomes imminent, that is, when it’s already happening) is prohibited, so Israel’s actions are not only illegal from the point of view of international law, but some of them could also constitute war crimes and human rights violations.

The support that Israel receives from the United States makes the latter also responsible for the harsh living conditions to which the Israeli attacks subject the Palestinian population. The historical background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the period referred to as the Arab-Israeli conflict, shows us that this is no easy-to-solve conflict and that it is rooted in the very profound rivalry between peoples with their own national sentiment that claims the same land as theirs. Some decades ago, the solution proposed by the partition plan of the UN still seemed feasible: the creation of two states for each of the national groups. However, after the development of a conflict that has now lasted more than 70 years (and still counting), the actions developed by Israel have wiped-out part of the prospects for that solution to be effective because its acts of occupation have fragmented the Palestinian territories so much that it would be difficult to create a unitary Palestinian state. And behind all of that, the US keeps supporting Israeli policies on the Palestinian matter while ‘advocating’ for the reaching of an amicable solution at the same time.

The truth is that even if there were still any prospect of both parties finding an amicable solution to the conflict; even if there were still any prospect of applying the two-state solution; even if all that were possible, it wouldn’t happen as long as the US keeps financing the military operations of Israel. The media keeps mentioning the US efforts to approach both Israel and Palestine to negotiations when the truth is that those efforts will continue to be meaningless unless the US recognizes the cynical aspect of its policy towards the conflict and conflicting parties.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION *

The article’s central observation about mediation is sound and is worth separating from the account surrounding it. A party that supplies one side militarily and shields it diplomatically cannot credibly convene a process, and this is not a moral objection but a structural one: mediation requires that both parties believe the convener can deliver the other, and neither believes it here. That does not make such a state useless to a settlement; it makes it a guarantor rather than a mediator. Every durable agreement in this region has depended on American guarantees, and the appropriate arrangement is one in which a party with leverage over one side underwrites what a neutral convener negotiates. Formats combining a broader group of states, including those with access to Palestinian actors that Western governments lack, have been proposed repeatedly and never seriously attempted.

Two corrections belong here, and making them strengthens rather than weakens the argument. On the law, Article 2(4) prohibits the use of force generally; it does not address anticipatory action specifically, and the definition offered in the article inverts the standard usage, since an attack that is already occurring is not anticipated. The genuine legal debate concerns whether Article 51 permits action against an imminent attack, and the dominant view, following the Caroline formulation, is that it does where the necessity is instant and overwhelming, while preventive action against a merely possible future threat is not permitted. That debate matters less than the separate body of law the article does not invoke: whatever the justification for using force, its conduct is governed by distinction and proportionality, and it is under those rules that the questions about civilian casualties are properly examined. Those rules also bind Palestinian armed groups, and the indiscriminate firing of rockets toward populated areas is a violation independent of anything the other side has done.

The blockade requires the same double lens. A blockade may be lawful in principle and unlawful in its effects, and the sustained assessments of United Nations bodies and humanitarian organisations have found the restrictions on Gaza to amount to collective punishment in their impact on a civilian population. Recognising that does not require dismissing the security concern that produced them, and the practical question is the one negotiators have circled for fifteen years: what monitoring and inspection arrangement would allow goods and people to move while addressing the transfer of weapons. That question has technical answers, and previous proposals involving third party inspection at the crossings and at a reopened port have failed on political will rather than on feasibility.

Two further points bear on any process. The division between Gaza and the West Bank is not incidental but disabling, since no agreement can be made with a Palestinian leadership that does not speak for both territories, and intra Palestinian reconciliation is therefore a precondition rather than a detail. And the article’s concluding pessimism about the two state solution is widely shared and should be stated with its consequence: if territorial fragmentation has foreclosed that outcome, the alternatives are a single state with equal rights for everyone within it, or a single state without them, and the parties and their sponsors are choosing among these three whether or not they say so.

Finally, a word on what remains possible now. While the political questions are unresolved, the humanitarian ones are not suspended: electricity and water supply, medical referrals, the movement of patients and students, fishing limits, and the fate of those held on both sides are all matters on which agreements have been reached before, quietly and through intermediaries. Such arrangements save lives and preserve the possibility of more. Their modesty is not a failure of ambition; in conflicts of this kind, they are usually what is actually available.

* Added by the WMO Editorial Team

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