Daniel Little
(RIEAS Senior Advisor)
Copyright: www.rieas.gr
As we approach mid-2012, Azerbaijan’s purchase of $1.6 billion in military hardware from Israel appears more rooted in speculation about thwarting Iran’s nuclear aspirations than the decision process that went into buying them. Anytime a government spends a quarter of its annual revenue on weapons, there is more at stake than a singular, emerging security issue in an otherwise tough neighborhood. 1 Despite the best efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group and the Madrid Principles, little has changed for Nagorno-Karabakh since the 1994 ceasefire.2 With accusations of ceasefire violations going back and forth between the Armenian and Azeri parties3 more can be done by the international community given this recent escalation of tensions. By more, I mean the right kind of assistance. To the parties involved Nagorno-Karabakh is many things but what it is not is ‘frozen.’4 Rather than accept the status quo of stalemate, this requires a re-examination of the traditional barriers to resolution as well as examining the normative structure of Conflict Resolution as it relates to Nagorno-Karabakh..... Read more