South Caucasus

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South Caucasus

Tensions remain high in the Caucasus, particularly in Nagorno-Karabakh, where armed clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces occur periodically. Despite ceasefires, the conflict remains unresolved, with both sides continuing to accuse each other of violating agreements. Ethnic problems and territorial claims are at the forefront of the conflict. However, the average observer often does not notice that economic factors also play a significant role in the conflict for Upland Karabakh. Some key aspects:

Region-rich natural resources, including useful fossils and aquatic resources. Control over these resources and has infrastructure strategic meaning for both sides.
Upland Karabakh and surrounding areas territories are important for the creation of transport corridors that can connect Azerbaijan with Nakhichevan and Turkey. This may significantly improve economic integration and trade in the region.
Azerbaijan strives to develop infrastructure and economy on returned territories that may contribute to growth and stability in the long-term perspective.

Turkey, Russia, and Iran are important external players in this conflict, although France and the United States also have a significant interest.

Conclusion. In Armenia, a lot of people perceived the results of the conflict as a tragedy and defeat. Armenia lost the support of its main ally – Russia, which weakened its position in the international arena and has affected Iran, which is seeking rapprochement with Azerbaijan. Armenia is forced to seek new allies. The conflict is based not only on territorial claims but also on economic interests.

Georgia, similar to Syria, has an important geopolitical location for the entire vast region where the interests of China, Iran, Turkey, Russia, and other countries converge, and is also facing the danger of being drawn into a full-scale military conflict (the fourth in the last 35 years), this time threatening the complete collapse of the country. In Georgia, large-scale protests are taking place at the end of 2024, aimed at overthrowing the current government. The conflict involves, on the one hand, four opposition parties that entered the country's Parliament in 2024, and, on the other hand, the Georgian Dream party, which has got the majority of seats in Parliament. The leaders of the opposition parties, with the support of the former President of the country S. Zurabishvili, were able to attract part of the population to their side, including part of the intelligentsia and students. The United States and most of the European Union countries are openly participating in supporting the opposition. As mentioned above, about the substitution of real goals with far-fetched pretexts, support for the opposition forces is carried out under the slogans of unproven violations of the parliamentary elections on October 26, 2024, ridiculous accusations of adopting laws on Transparency of foreign influence, and limiting LGBT propaganda and, taking this into account, of Georgia's rollback from the democratic path of development. The majority of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) [6], their employees, and family members, as well as some private universities in Georgia, and businesses were on the side of the opposition movement. Several diplomats, including the Georgian ambassadors to the Czech Republic, the United States, Lithuania, and Bulgaria, resigned in protest against the government's decision to temporally freeze the European integration process. Several high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs resigned, including the head of the operational planning department of the special assignments department.

The latest protests have focused on the demand for repeat parliamentary elections, as the opposition does not recognize the October 2024 elections as legitimate. The opposition parties overall won the following: Georgian Dream: 53.93% of the vote (89 seats), Coalition for Changes: 10.92% of the vote (18 seats), Unity - National Movement: 10.12% of the vote (17 seats), Strong Georgia: 8.78% of the vote (14 seats), Gakharia - For Georgia: 7.76% of the vote (12 seats). The remaining parties won less than 5% of the vote and did not make it into parliament.

The elections were observed by 529 representatives from 42 countries. The OSCE/ODIHR published a report on the parliamentary elections, which, despite its vague content, contains information that no serious violations were recorded and does not conclude that repeat elections are desirable or necessary. However, the former President of Georgia, S. Zurabishvili, ignoring the OSCE/ODIHR conclusions unfavorable to the opposition, states that the conclusion of international observers contains information about violations during the elections. In conclusion, she calls for the continuation of the confrontation under any circumstances and this confrontation must end with the removal of the current government, the annulment of the results of the elections, and the holding of repeat elections as many times as until a coalition of opposition parties is elected to the parliamentary majority.

The same is instilled in the youth and those layers of civil society who are not inclined, lazy, or unwilling to independently analyze the available facts and draw their own conclusions, not imposed by someone. It is quite obvious that such an unconstructive position will ultimately lead to a sharp confrontation, which may spill over into civil society, which, with the support of external interested forces, will result in an armed conflict and, if sensible leaders are not found, a civil war with all the ensuing consequences in the form of victims, destruction, economic collapse, loss of statehood and the coming to power of representatives of organizations and associations interested in the collapse of the country (including foreign ones). Naive readers may frivolously object that such a scenario is impossible, but if we recall the recent past when Georgians in Abkhazia were slaughtered like chickens in the backyard, football was played with their heads and tens of thousands fled through mountain passes on foot and not all of them made it alive - no one believed in this in advance either.

Conclusion.

The scope of this article does not provide for consideration of numerous examples when external forces, in order to seize the resources of countries in many regions of the world, using methods of hybrid warfare, or even direct armed intervention, tried to destroy legitimate political regimes and ruined these countries. Information on this topic can be easily found on the Internet. This article shows, using several examples (an interested reader can check the facts provided in open sources on the Internet), that humanity has entered a period of rapid and large-scale geopolitical changes, which are mainly caused by economic reasons. Due to the rapid technological development of humanity, competition for the possession of depleting natural resources and markets, these reasons tend to escalate and push participants into a "hot phase". In such conditions, small countries that can be easily and casually crushed in the interests of the "heavyweights" must show greater political flexibility in foreign relations and at the same time closely monitor and actively prevent hostile actions of external players aimed at internal destabilization in such countries. The population of these countries must have constant, objective and reliable information support about the events taking place. Prevention of phenomena threatening the stability of the state is very difficult and depends on a huge number of difficult-to-predict and control factors. Some of them, although they are obvious and easy to use, for example, force methods, are not effective in the long term. Others, such as raising the level of consciousness of the population, require special technologies, and professionally trained specialists in this field (for example, lecturers at universities or representatives of the mass media) and are stretched out in time - they must be carried out constantly. There is a category of factors that are generally difficult to control. For example, as of October 2023, Georgia accepted 27 thousand refugees from Ukraine (in reality, there are many more) who received humanitarian status precisely due to the support of the current government. Many of these people are now in the ranks of the opposition, taking part in actions directed against the current government. Another example is the participation of some European parliamentarians who are on an official visit to Georgia and taking part in street protests in the ranks of the opposition. Such factors, of course, are difficult to foresee and quite difficult to counteract. Some factors fall within the competence of the internal security agencies, which are guided by laws and instructions. They are focused on those whom Mahatma Gandhi often spoke about, referring to the importance of independence and self-sufficiency for India: "The most dangerous enemy is not the colonizer and occupier, but your compatriot, "fed” by the occupier."

[1] https://ru.fusedlearning.com/8-main-reasons-war

[2] https :// news . harvard . edu / gazette / story /2024/02/ looking - at - causes - measuring - effects - of - israel - hamas - war /