Tom de Waal: South Caucasus not a “conflict region”

PanARMENIAN.Net - The fifteen successor states that were born from the wreck of the Soviet Union are now twenty years old, Tom de Waal, a senior associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment, says in the article titled “South Caucasus: (Almost) Grown Up At 20.”

For the three South Caucasian countries, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, the milestone of two decades is a moment to reflect that, unlike their unhappy experiment with statehood in the years 1918-21, this time independence is irreversible. Yet, it is still much easier to say what these states are not, than what they are. First, they are not “newly independent,” as they were frequently described in the 1990s. Twenty years is an age to look forward and not back. Nor is the term “post-Soviet” as useful as it was. The Soviet Union has shaped their politics and culture, but the South Caucasus is now busy re-discovering its geography at the intersection of Russia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Iran and Turkey are nearer than Moscow, he says.

According to the expert, it is also misleading to still describe these countries as being “in transition,” and, equally, the term “conflict region” is not the best description.

Of course, the three bitter and still unresolved conflicts fought here in the 1990s over Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno Karabakh - and reprised in South Ossetia in 2008 - cast a long shadow. But it would be a mistake to say that conflict defines how people in the region see themselves. State-building has continued despite them and opinion polls suggest most people are more preoccupied with economic issues than the conflicts. These three countries are now functioning states - something that was definitely not a given in the conflict-scarred, lawless, dark days of the early 1990s. The governments provide services, institutions work, workers are paid for the job they do, he says.

However, he adds: If you look at the GDP per capita of the three countries, Armenia and Georgia are still stuck in a desperately low-income bracket (around $5,000 per capita, making them around three times poorer than Turkey), while Azerbaijan’s stronger performance masks big oil and gas revenues that are concentrated among a relatively small urban segment of the population.

Creating an environment where this kind of transfer of power is possible - and peaceful - should be at the top of the agenda for all those who wish the South Caucasus success over the next two decades, the expert says in conclusion.