World news this week: Nagorno Karabakh Limes

Detail of a map by Laura Canali. For the full version click here.

September 22, 2023

The geopolitical summary of the last 7 days: the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Ukraine war, Lula’s protagonism, the clashes with the jihadists in Mali…

Turkey won in Nagorno-Karabakh [di Daniele Santoro]

Türkiye and America inside, Russia and Iran outside. The outcome of the latest round of fighting in the Caucasus region – particularly in Nagorno-Karabakh – is merciless. Through military and sentimental support for Azerbaijan, Ankara has become the hegemon in the Caucasus. The forcible opening of the road to Turkish Asia and China strengthens the prospect of a reopening of the border with Armenia. Therefore, Yerevan should also be included in the “central corridor” of the Anatolian declination of the new Silk Roads, effectively healing the wound of 1915. All with the blessing of Washington, ready to welcome the former Russian satellite into its orbit, which the Americans maintain their second largest embassy in the world. Without moving a muscle. Evidence of the obvious Eurasian synergies between the superpower and its restless Turkish “ally”.

However, Russia emerges from the battle for the Caucasus with broken bones. Putin tried to save what could be saved by giving an informal – non-essential – green light for Baku’s offensive. The Russian president was certain that he had now lost Armenia and clumsily tried to jump on the Azerbaijani bandwagon. However, they have failed to prevent Azerbaijan’s withdrawal from Russia’s sphere of influence, as clearly demonstrated by President Ilham Aliyev’s unyielding support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Iran is leaving the Caucasus vortex in even worse shape than Russia. The inevitable opening of the Zangezur Corridor threatens to make the Persians’ worst nightmares come true, completing the Turan encirclement of Iran and physically separating the Islamic Republic from Armenia. Therefore, from the South Caucasus, a fundamental logistical hub to free Tehran from dependence on the Anatolian logistics platform and connect the Iranian plateau with Russia. Not to mention the potential impact of the Azerbaijani rise on the large Azerbaijani minority living in Iran (at least a quarter of the population).
The triumph in Baku also consolidates Israel’s Caucasian orientation, which has controlled and militarily supported Azerbaijan’s offensives from the outside at least as much as Turkey. The agreement was sealed by the “historic” meeting between Erdoğan and Netanyahu in New York, which perhaps not coincidentally took place at the same time as the decisive Azerbaijani military operation.

Essay by Laura Canali – 2014

UKRAINE, WAR AND DIPLOMACY [di Mirko Mussetti]

The armed forces of Ukraine carried out an attack with long-range British Sculp missiles (renamed Storm Shadow in the United Kingdom) on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, damaging a wing of the historic building. One soldier appears to have died in the explosion.

The attack is primarily symbolic and aimed at creating uncertainty in the Moscow high command, which cannot do much against Ukrainian operations in Crimea and on the soil of the internationally recognized Russian Federation. The everyday practicality and exemplary nature of these targeted offensives create a kind of acceptance for overcoming the “red lines” that the United States set many months ago (refrain from using long-range Western weapons to penetrate deep into Russia, including Crimea). .

Kiev is also demanding the overcoming of the “Surovikin Line” – the main Russian defense system consisting of dragon teeth, mines, trenches and blockhouses – near Verbove in Zaporižžja Oblast. But the Ukrainian authorities have little reason to celebrate: the limited breakthrough in one defensive section, achieved at very high cost in lives and equipment, does not automatically mean overcoming the other parallel defense lines further south. In general, the scarcity of captured ground did not produce the desired results in the almost four-month “counteroffensive”. The occupiers’ defenses appear to be holding across the entire very long line of contact and secret service chief Kyrylo Budanov’s hope of retaking Crimea by spring 2023 has not been fulfilled. This causes a certain hidden discouragement even among the Western law firms that most support the Ukrainian cause.

Tensions with Poland related to the unilateral blockade of Ukrainian food supplies and the suspension of new arms deliveries are worrying the country attacked by Russia. As did the lukewarm reception given to President Volodymyr Zelens’kyj (Zelensky) in New York. During his speech to the UN General Assembly, about half of the UN General Assembly left the room, although the great speaker from Kryvyi Rih was given the honor of delivering the first speech after the public session of the UN Security Council United. A sign of a meandering “Ukraine fatigue”, especially among those countries that do not want to be indirectly involved in the conflict by providing ammunition, which even in the countries of the Ramstein Group (over fifty war supply nations) is slowly running out of material in Kiev).

As far as bilateral relations with the United States are concerned, the risk is not so much that war supplies will cease permanently, but rather that they will be gradually reduced in the near future. Biden’s own decision to authorize the deployment of “a small number” of medium-range Atacms missiles seems more like reassurance to the guest than a real intention to take on huge new burdens.

If the election campaign for the parliamentary elections in Poland on October 15, 2023 causes immediate damage to Ukraine (grain embargo, ban on new weapons), the long race for the presidential elections in the USA (fall 2024) could weaken American solidarity towards the country in which Russia invaded.

🎨 Unpublished Map of the Week: The New Migrants

BRAZILIAN PROTAGONIST [di Federico Larsen]

In recent weeks, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been at the forefront of initiatives aimed at restoring the country’s global influence after a period of isolation under the government of Jair Messias Bolsonaro. An important building block in this strategy was the meeting with US President Joe Biden on Wednesday, where an agreement was reached on a convergence of positions with a view to the – unlikely – reform of the United Nations Security Council, which could include Brazil, Germany and India , South Africa and Japan as new permanent members. Lula has already received the support of the People’s Republic of China at the BRICS summit in Johannesburg (August 22-24, 2023). With US approval, support from the Russian Federation, France and the United Kingdom still needs to be secured. Reform remains unlikely as the permanent members are unlikely to want to share their privileged position, which includes the right to veto.
Lula also tried to restore good relations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which had been damaged by Brasilia’s refusal to deliver Soviet weapons to Kiev at Washington’s request and, more generally, by Brazil’s failure to condemn the Russian invasion. This conflict became clear when the planned bilateral meeting at the G7 summit in Hiroshima suddenly collapsed and the two presidents blamed each other for the failure of the dialogue.
Before going to New York, Lula was the protagonist of the G77+China summit, an organization founded in 1964 within the United Nations that brings together the countries of the so-called global south. During this meeting, held last week in Havana, the former metalworkers union leader expressed the need for reform of the international financial system and global governance mechanisms, highlighting the loss of credibility of the institutions created after World War II. The Brazilian president stressed the need for greater unity and cooperation between the countries of the South.
In this regard, things set a good example in the summer: in Belém de Pará, Brazil brought together delegations from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela for a summit meeting on the Amazon. The meeting laid the foundation for a joint South American action to protect the rainforest and establish a unified position ahead of COP28 in Dubai. He also proposed holding COP30 in Belém, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon forest.
In less than two months, Lula has therefore increased Brazil’s international presence by integrating the country into international discussion groups and policy development, and engaging Brazilian diplomats and experts in areas such as finance, conflict resolution, sustainability and environmental issues.

The evil of evil [di Luciano Pollichieni]

War has resumed in Mali between northern armed groups and the government of Bamako. Far from being an insignificant phenomenon for regional balance, the clashes between the Permanent Strategic Framework (CSP, its French acronym) and the tandem of the Malian Army and the Wagner Group are accelerating certain dynamics in the country and the region, which, however, are not disappearing means something good.

First, the recovery from the clashes has brought the irredentist Tuareg groups and the Jnim (Sahel branch of al-Qaeda) jihadists closer together; some rebel leaders who had already defected to al-Qaeda’s side. The Jnim has been besieging the city of Timbuktu for a month and the weakening of the Malian army could lead to jihadists entering the city after they fled following the French intervention in 2013.

Secondly, the victories of the armed groups in the Gao and Timbuktu areas strengthen the northern front, which has now called on all armed groups in the country to take up arms against the government and its Russian ally. The risk of (re-)opening a second front of instability in Mali has never been more tangible.

Third, the resumption of hostilities increasingly pushes the Malian government into the arms of its Russian ally and at the same time marks the death of the 2016 Algiers Accords, desired and promoted by the so-called “international community” (France in the first place).

In this context, given the significant ineffectiveness of the Wagner method and the failure of diplomatic initiatives, weapons are and will determine the balance and interaction between the various actors in the region, leading to an exacerbation of the humanitarian crisis and an increase in migratory flows towards the Mediterranean. After the era of foreign interventions and coups, the era of anarchy begins in Mali. The Bamako government believes it can contain the resurgence of the insurgency thanks to the alliance with its coup plotters from Niger and Burkina Faso, confirmed by the signing of the Liptako-Gourma Charter last week. But with sanctions in Niger and seething barracks in Burkina Faso, it is hard to imagine that support from these allies can undermine the inertia of the conflict.

📘🌍 AFRICA AGAINST THE WEST

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