“We are in an interregnum without a king”

The global financial crisis followed by the Eurozone crisis, the imperialist intervention in the Middle East followed by the refugee crisis, the Ukraine crisis, the energy crisis… This compound spiral of crises that has spanned almost 15 years seems to have opened the door to a new era in Europe. There is not a single corner where the “death of neoliberalism” has not been proclaimed. We are witnessing not only the collapse of the old economic order but also the collapse of the world of thought, sometimes quietly, sometimes with a great noise.

But the foundations of the order are solid for now. Those who want a new and different construction may not number in the billions, but they are accumulating. For a European thinking about this, about a new architecture, especially if that architecture is about security and geopolitics, the first thing that comes to mind is Russia. “Russia experts” are breathing new life into European thinking. They think that there should be Russians in the new mortar, more or less.

That’s why we spoke to Thomas Fasbender. Fasbender, the geopolitical chief of the Berliner Zeitung, who stood out as a kind of “outsider voice” in the German mainstream media, which had become “one voice” after the Ukraine war and the Gaza invasion, attracted attention with a biography he wrote about Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Fasbender, like Hauke Ritz, has a background in philosophy, perhaps one of the prerequisites for writing about politics in Germany. Like Ritz, but even earlier, he lived in Russia in the turbulent 90s, from 1992 to 2015. He says he was involved in “business”, meaning he came to journalism relatively late.

In his recently published book Der Eurasienkomplex: Warum und wie dem Westen die Zukunft entgleitet [The Eurasian Complex: Why and how the future slipped away from the West] he calls for unity against “Western arrogance”. Based on his own personal experience, he argues that basically people everywhere are pursuing “the same petty goals” as Western Europeans: Individualism, the pursuit of professional and personal success.

It is therefore calling for a kind of “eye level” from Western Europe towards other worlds, for example the Islamic world, for example China, for example India. The West no longer has the power to impose its will and desires on the world. What needs to be done is to abandon the “this-or-that bloc” mentality of the Cold War and place Europe (and Germany) as a bridge between East and West, North and South.

Given your background in philosophy, I think we can also talk about Kantian eternal peace. Which brings us to your book on Eurasia. Can you start by briefly explaining how the future is moving away from the West? I think you also call this the Eurasian complex. What do you think about this Eurasian complex? Because there is always a lot of talk about the decline of the West or the collapse of the West. Western values don’t work anymore, and so on. What do you mean by that?

The future of the West is slipping away. Basically, when we say that the future is slipping away from the West, we start with the basic economic and demographic data.

Let’s start with demographics. European people, if you include Canada, if you include the United States, people of European descent, 100, 150 years ago made up 30% of the world’s population. Today these countries make up less than 15% of the world population. The so-called West, if we include Europe, Australia and North America, accounted for more than 50% of the gross national product, world income, world total production. More or less until 2010. Since 2010, it has fallen below 50%.

If we look at the BRICS countries today, a few years ago, they reached a total production higher than the G7, which has been the club of western developed industrialized countries since the 1970s.

So we are seeing a numerical decline, a numerical shift from a very influential position that Europe and the countries that are Eurocentric or of European origin used to have until it reached its peak in the mid-20th century after the Allied victory in the Second World War.

So is this the Eurasian complex?

It’s not the Eurasian complex, it’s something else. This is just to indicate the starting point of our thinking, why the West is losing its dominance over the world, and we base it on its demography, its economy.

The Eurasian complex is an additional element, because the Eurasian complex means for Europe, for us Europeans, the challenge of accepting the growing power of countries, of Eurasian countries, of Eurasian regions outside Western Europe (even look at Russia today, for example).

We used to see Russia as an important part of Europe, because most of Russia belonged geographically to Europe, to Europeans. But recently, since the beginning of the war, the European idea of ourselves has increasingly excluded Russia. So Russia becomes part of the concept of Eurasia.

In the book we argue that there are different concepts of Eurasia. You can have the Eurasian landmass, which basically stretches from Portugal to Shanghai and covers the entire spread of Eurasian geography.

You can have a concept of Eurasia that spreads in Russia, for example, and covers the region of the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, Russia and part of the Caucasus. This is another concept of Eurasia.

We look at Eurasia more from a geographical point of view, but mainly we understand it in the sense that Europeans have to deal with the rest of the Eurasian continent in a new way, not in the way they did in the past.

In the past, as colonial masters, we were ruthless. Basically, we produced the goods, we produced the ideas, ideologies. That was the only thing that came from Europe for 100, 200, 300 years.

And that has stopped. It stopped for the reasons I mentioned earlier, with the economy and demography. But it also stopped because after globalization, non-European, non-Western countries have a new self-confidence all over the world.

This self-confidence maybe only came with the last generation, it is actually based on the experiences of previous generations. But it is this power of asserting oneself that makes the real difference, that creates the real challenge, because now we see people simply standing up and saying: It’s all very well for you Europeans to tell us about liberalism, democracy, values and so on, but it doesn’t interest us anymore.

This is very difficult to digest even for the average member of the European elite, that we find ourselves in a completely new situation in relation to non-Western, non-European peoples, countries, traditions and histories in this huge continent.

So in what way does this concept of Eurasia overlap with the BRICS or the “Global South” or other “non-Western” terms?

Of course, at this point Eurasia becomes a kind of cliché word. It does not really cover everything and everyone.

In terms of geopolitical relevance, it is much more accurate to talk about the West and the “Global South”, for example. But then you also have to deal with the problem that China is not really a southern country and China is not really a developing country.

So all these concepts are simplifications to some extent, but they are necessary simplifications. You have to make them. The total world is so complex that it is completely impossible to grasp it unless you simplify it at least in terms.

So when we say Eurasia, of course there is an overlap with the Global South. There is an overlap with BRICS. There is the SCO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. What we see is that underneath these terms, underneath the names that we give, it represents this assertiveness that I just mentioned, transforming itself into new power arrangements.

Because BRICS was a club. They weren’t even a club, it was initially a name, a name given by an American analyst around 1999. And then it transformed. It took on a kind of life of its own and became a conceptual name and then a political reality, and now this economic reality is becoming a political reality, it is gaining traction. It is attracting.

It has already attracted Ethiopia, Iran has been admitted, Egypt and the Emirates, plus now your country, Turkey, has formally requested membership and probably in three weeks, in October in Kazan, Turkey will be admitted. The same goes for Azerbaijan.

And this of course creates a new dynamic, because think of the original BRICS. In 1999, there were no Islamic countries in the original BRICS. Now, the Islamic factor represents an entity in itself, an entity in itself, the Islamic world from Indonesia to Morocco. Now I can say that this Islamic world is also participating in this new distribution of cards.

If we compare geopolitics to a game, there is always a new hand. We always redistribute the cards and one of these cards is of course the Islamic world, whose value is increasing.

Another question is: Can Asia or Eurasia today maintain its strong position in competition with the US or the G7? The US had a very clear position of superiority and even the Soviet Union, for example, could not maintain its superiority. Could Eurasia maintain a position of superiority, not only economically, but also culturally, civilizationally and systemically? Could it at least provide a counterbalance to the Western countries?

We must be careful not to confuse two things here: these are just names. There is no such entity as Eurasia. There is no entity. There is no single entity called the Global South. There is no entity called the West.

We use these labels to describe influences, to describe certain pulls, to describe forces that oppress, compete, antagonize each other.

When we talk about Asia, there is always China, there is always the Sino-Indian conflict as a dividing factor. When we talk about the Islamic world, there will always be competition between Turkey, Iran and the Arab world.

Of course, in the reality of geopolitical gains, each side will take advantage of the rivalries on the other side and try to exploit them. Just like Russia wants to separate the Europeans from us, the Americans or the Israelis will use the rivalries within the Islamic world and try to divide it for their own interests. Everyone will try to pit India and China against each other so that they can keep both of them under control, so that they don’t allow each of them to become too powerful.

So it is very important to see this here. I think the name multipolar world is not a bad name because it simply starts from the fact that there is no single pole that can dominate the world. As you mentioned, of course the US comes from a very strong position. It is still in a very strong position and it will remain in a strong position, a very strong position for a long time to come.

The United States is a young country of 250 years. When we look at the empires in history, they either collapsed very quickly or they were really long-lived, they proved to be long-lived entities.

In this game, the term multipolar allows us to understand a game where there is no single dominant factor, but there are very strong centers of power, centers of power that exert influence, project power, project competitiveness.

Here we have an Islamic world with three centers. The Arab world, the Turkish world and Iran. In Iran, you have Asia with China and India, you have the West with the US and Europe, and you also have Australia.

So what we see is that now the game is being played in a new way. It creates a new, let’s say, interdependent, ever-changing situation, like a puzzle.

That’s what makes this world, the new world, so different from what it was 30 years ago. After the end of the cold war, everything was simple. That’s why a lot of people liked it. Before the end of the cold war it was simple because you had two poles and it was much easier to understand a bipolar world than a multipolar world.

If you think about the possibility of a multipolar world becoming a multipolar world, then it becomes really very difficult.

But my personal view is that the clear and simple structures of 30 years ago are not going to be quickly replaced by something new. So if we say, great, the new world will be bipolar again, the US and China… No, neither the US nor China is strong enough like the Soviet Union and the US were 50, 70, 80 years ago.

So you are pointing to a kind of interregnum.

Geopolitical interregnum is probably the right word: Kingless interregnum. Because even if we assume that the US will remain the dominant power militarily and economically for decades to come, which I think we can assume, at least economically, there is strong competition from China, there is strong competition from India, and militarily the US, despite its 700 or 800 military bases, no longer has the power or the manpower, the willingness, but also the material power to really be everywhere.

Because because of globalization in the world, there are countries that 50 years ago, 70, 80 years ago were quite new when it comes to exerting power in real geopolitics. Africa was colonized and much of Africa and Asia was just dumb, happy to survive, but not claiming any political importance, any political ambition on their own.

This situation has now changed. Countries have started re-entering the international arena. China re-entered; China was the most powerful nation until the first half of the 19th century. India has re-entered in the same way, Iran has re-entered in the same way, Turkey has re-entered in the same way. So these countries have re-entered the international arena and they are reclaiming their historical rights. This adds an additional color to geopolitics. Until the 20th century, geopolitics was quite complex and simple. Now they have evolved into something completely different.

But in this case, could your description, multipolarity, mean more wars? Because you said it could be a kingless interregnum. So if we go into a kingless interregnum, isn’t it more likely that we will have more wars than in past decades?

We already have so many wars. I think you are right that we will have more wars. But the likelihood of a big all-out world war, the so-called Third World War, will probably decrease.

It will be less likely than if we have a world dominated by two or at most three very powerful powers.

This is how the world used to live. The world has always been used to living with a series of regional conflicts, some of them escalating into war, and this is probably a solution or a description of the future situation.

Let’s talk a little bit about your expertise on Russia. In one of your interviews on Vladimir Putin’s autobiography, you said that the state, the concept of the state is the main element that determines the worldview of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin. I would like to ask you, is it just pragmatism or Machiavellianism, or does Putin have deeper ideological beliefs? And I would also like to ask at this point: if Europe, and especially Germany, starts to learn from Putin and Russia about this concept of the state, is it possible to predict the consequences? Because the glorification of the state has not led to good results in Europe before.

Russia, unlike the European nation-states, even though it has been cut off from Central Asia, even though it has been cut off from the Caucasus, it is still, in their view, an empire, an imperial sovereign state, not a nation-state.

Russians make up about 80% of Russia’s population. This is, of course, a majority, a large majority, but nevertheless, Russia does not see itself as a nation-state of Russians because of their historical understanding, because of their own views.

Russia has historically had a fragile government, a fragile power, because it has huge territories, it is also sparsely populated, it has traditionally very high disparities, strong differences between rich and poor, and it is very difficult to protect the country, because Russian borders are very big and very few of them are natural borders like rivers or mountain ranges.

So there is always the possibility that the Russian state, as it sees itself, is a threatened entity. That is why Russia is moving very strongly to the west, but not only to the west, but also to the south.

This high degree of distrust, at least potential distrust, is very strong because of the memory of the French occupation in 1812, the memory of the German occupation in 1941. On the one hand, these are artificially cultivated by the state, as part of the state’s cult of history and cult of historical victories. But they also reflect something real, which is a feeling, and this feeling is real, a real sense of insecurity.

This is what many people in the West find difficult to understand, because people in the West start from themselves: They don’t have aggressive feelings towards Russia, they don’t have expansionist feelings… So they say that there is no threat from them to Russia, even if it is NATO or the West. So any insecurity, any perception of threat on the Russian side is just a fantasy, it is not real.

But here we get into psychology. The important thing is to understand that any Russian leader, anybody sitting in the Kremlin, will insist on having a strong and vertically organized state structure, because this has always been the case. This is a tradition that is inherent in the Russian people and in Russian history.

And to expect something like European liberal democracy to work in Russia is a fantasy, it is completely illogical and unrealistic, because in different countries, in Germany, in England, in Russia and other countries, you can have different traditions of self-government. The tradition of self-government in Russia has always been top-down and at the same time vertical and combined with a strong element of power, an element of power only in the sense of being able to implement your own will.

For example, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, [then German Chancellor] Helmut Kohl thought that Gorbachev was willing to decentralize the Soviet Union and that this would be a good, wonderful democratic experience for the Russian people. Many political elites in the West, especially in Germany and the US, thought so. Do you think this is not true?

I think Mikhail Gorbachev himself believed that there could be something like a liberal and more or less democratically organized Russia. But in the end it didn’t happen. Of course, books have been written and will be written about why it couldn’t happen. But the fact is that the security apparatus, the apparatus of power, the state in its purest form, embodied by Vladimir Putin, has regained control.

So I wouldn’t say that everything that Gorbachev tried to achieve and that Yeltsin somehow continued in the 1990s didn’t work at all, because I lived in Russia in the 1990s and there was a lot going on. There was always a great deal of democracy and debate.

But it ended de facto, it ended with the old security power, the Siloviki as the Russians call them, the old KGB structures taking over.

We can regret that. We can speculate whether it was necessary or not. We can try to explain it, but the reality is that the Russian state is run by this mentality and these people, this part of Russian traditional history and this is what Europe has to live with.

So, what is Germany’s reaction or can we learn something from this in Germany? I don’t think Germany will or should learn anything from what is happening in Russia because the two countries are very different. It has a completely different history than Western Europe, Central Europe, the rest of Eurasia. It’s not just Russia, it’s history and history shapes our future.

This is what is sometimes difficult to understand or not fully understood by people: How much our collective history determines our collective future. Because we think we are autonomous and strategically free, “We are free people. We can change our systems.”

Theoretically we can, but it will never work. Russia is an example of why it doesn’t work. Even if you compare it with Germany in 1945, for example, some people tell us that democracy was brought by the allied powers, by the Americans. This is not true. It happened in 1945, but it was re-established from our own democratic traditions going back thousands of years, going back to the self-government of independent German towns.

So we are like the rest of Western Europe. We have 1,500 years of strong democratic tradition. Unless you have this tradition of democracy, you cannot invent democracy. You cannot really create democracy out of nothing in any state. Something has to happen first.

I think the challenge for Germany is first of all to realize that our way of thinking, the way we want to have, with words like liberal, democratic, etc., is something that we can only be happy with if we achieve it in our own country.

But we should never want or expect the rest of the world to follow us in the way we see ourselves. We see an ideal world. This is also true for Russia because when we talk about European values we must always keep in mind that Russia, even today’s Russia, is part of Europe.

When we talk about European values, sometimes I ask people, what are these European values? They say, rule of law, democracy, human rights… And I say, European values are God, family and homeland. These are European values. God, family and homeland are actually the values that governed Europe during the rise of Europe, during the rise of Europe to world power. So what we have in terms of democracy, human rights and the rule of law is a very late development in our European history.

Europeans see these concepts as fixed ideas, not historical ideas, but fixed concepts…

You are right. I don’t know about other European countries, but in Germany we are stuck in a set of ideologies, a set of values that we think are universal. But in fact they are not universal. They are just an expression of our own historical experience, our own historical formation.

And there is no guarantee that in, say, 200 or 300 years time, people will value human rights the way we value them today. Even in other parts of the world, there is no guarantee that people will value human rights the way we value human rights. When you talk to very educated Muslim people, for example. There were a series of conferences on Islamic human rights and these are highly educated and highly intellectual people who will argue that the so-called universal rights of Europeans do not necessarily apply to different cultures and religious traditions; we simply have to accept that as a fact.

The mistake we make is that we say, yes, this is all there, this is what people think, but we are still right. And this is where our own misery begins. Because even if we are right, as the West we are no longer in a position to impose our opinion and impose our will on the rest of the world.

This is the dilemma in which we find ourselves at this very point, in the third century, in the third decade of the 21st century.

And this brings me to a question about German-Russian relations. Let’s talk about that. Can Germany, at odds with Russia, build healthy relations with Eurasia, Asia or the “Global” South? Relations with Russia are unlikely to improve in the short or medium term. And the question arises. What does Germany have to lose by picking a fight with Russia in this context?

Germany is at a crossroads, as I said, we have certain ideas about which values should be universally applicable to everyone. We have certain ideas about the rule of law in international relations. We have certain ideas about international law, the dogmas of international law, territorial integrity, the right of nations to self-determination, and we are very firm in our belief, in our understanding that this should apply to everybody.

Now, Russia feels that it is being attacked, so to speak, on its southwestern front. This approach of the West, from the Russian point of view, trying to cut Ukraine off from the so-called East Slavic world, from the so-called Russian world, whether we accept it or not, is a reality.

Russia violated international law with its invasion on February 24, 2022. There is no doubt about that. It violated its own obligations towards Ukraine, towards the international order. So in many ways it has violated the order that governs Europe and from a German point of view should govern Europe.

So how do we deal with this? We are still trying to secure the victory of the Ukrainians. By securing victory we mean restoring the status quo, the European order as we understand it.

If that doesn’t work, if we are not in a position to secure the victory of the Ukrainians, to restore order, if the conflict ends with, let’s say, a territorial concession that goes completely against all our beliefs in international law… That’s the dilemma I’m talking about. Then we will find ourselves in a situation where we will have to rethink our whole relationship with the world, with the outside world.

How do we deal with Russia if we still hold on to our beliefs in the international order? We cannot talk to the perpetrator. Russia will become a taboo country for us. But not only Russia, China, for example, because of human rights violations; you will find it in Iran, you will find it in many countries; you will find it in Saudi Arabia, even our ally, violates human rights.

So if you really take the intellectual basis of our current policy to the end, we will end up isolated, we will isolate ourselves. We will definitely isolate ourselves. Of course we are not going to isolate ourselves absolutely, because even in Germany there are not only ideologues, there are very rational people. We rely on exports, our economy is more than 50% or around 50% based on exports. So we have to deal with the outside world.

But here you are pointing to something very important, a dilemma, the crossroads I was talking about. We will probably not have the power to impose our ideas of order on the whole world. We will probably not even be in a position to restore the European order in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine, and we will have to accept that. This means that we will have to rethink and rebuild our relations with the outside world on a new set of ideas that will be governed in more realistic terms, moving away, for example, from the idea of universal values.

Apart from the Ukraine and Eastern Europe problem, the situation in the Middle East is also heating up these days. The Israeli invasion of Gaza and now the invasion of southern Lebanon. Even in countries like the UK or the US, there are different voices, different opinions about their country’s support for Israel. But when we look at the German government, when we look at the German state structure, there is even a term for Germany’s support for the state of Israel: Staatsräson [state wisdom]. What do you think Germany is trying to achieve by supporting Israel against the Palestinian people and the Lebanese people, what is the geopolitical reason for this support?

Don’t think that Germany expects to get something. This is not about getting something in exchange for something else. Germany’s commitment to Israel as a state is based entirely on the Holocaust. Not just fundamentally, it is entirely based on the Holocaust, on the fact that we are responsible for it, that Germany is responsible for the extermination of a people as a whole in the only industrially organized way ever in the history of the world.

It is a violation of culture, it is a violation of civilization, it is a violation of all values and rules of all countries and all religions, all cultures, and in that sense it is truly unique. It is genocide in its own singular order, and this of course binds Germany and will bind Germany for generations to come. The great dilemma in which we find ourselves.

So, yes, the great dilemma in which we find ourselves has to do with the question of the extent to which this happened. To what extent does this guilt, this responsibility, compel us to position ourselves in any conflict in which Israel is involved today and in the future? The word Staatsräson was coined by Angela Merkel, who was our chancellor until 2021, I think it was around 2010. This term was coined in a very prosperous, calm, peaceful, relatively calm period of German history. It probably has too much in it, in the sense of linking us as a state to Israel, in the sense of going too far in this regard. I understand very well what Merkel wants to say, I completely agree with her about this special responsibility, this special commitment that we have. The question is: does it limit us to take certain positions? Do we limit ourselves to only taking certain positions, or do we commit ourselves to taking certain actions?

For example, does Staatsräson mean that we should send the Bundeswehr to the Middle East if Israel’s existence is threatened? Israel’s existence can be threatened at any time.

As we are seeing now, we are dealing with a very victorious, confident Israel, which has largely destroyed Hamas, which has destroyed a large part of Hezbollah and its leadership. This will probably show Iran the limits of its power. So you have an Israel that has militarily reestablished, revitalized its power in the region.

The question, and this is a question that Germany cannot answer, is how Israel sees its future surrounded by hostile populations. Was there any other country in the world that for a long time, for decades, for centuries, based its relations with all its neighbors on military superiority? It is a big question mark.

So I think we have to come back to this question when we talk about the fundamental issues that we Germans have to deal with. To what extent do we have to support an Israeli state that focuses itself exclusively or almost exclusively on the use of military force?

I don’t believe that Israel will behave in this way under any government. The current government under Binyamin Netanyahu is responsible for leading Israeli society in this direction. But we have to deal with this democratically elected government, so according to our rules and norms this government is the legitimate government. This legitimate government is behaving in a way that we as Germans feel morally distant from.

Some Germans may say that what was done to the Israeli people, to the Jews on October 7, 2023, justifies or legitimizes any reaction. But the vast majority of the German people will ask the same question: OK, Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people and took hostages on October 7. But does that justify the deaths of 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 people? Where will this end? What is the equivalent of 1,200 Israeli citizens?

I always try to think things through to the end and get to the bottom of things. And the bottom line here is that Germany cannot be obliged to support an uncompromising eye for an eye, ear for an ear policy on Israel’s side. This is a question that our politicians have to answer.

But as you can see, when you talk to Germans, it doesn’t matter if they are from below or from above, everybody feels this dilemma and there are very few people who have a clear position.

I would say, “I tell you: Israel is a disturbing factor. I don’t think there are many Germans who would say, “I’m telling you: Israel is a disturbing factor. It should be eliminated.” No, there may be Arabs in Germany who say that, not Germans, but there are very few Germans who say that everything Israel does is legitimate and justified because of our own German background.

But there is a greater hypocrisy on the part of the German government. Germany can morally separate itself from Russia and Vladimir Putin, but it cannot do the same with the Netanyahu government and what Israel is doing now in Gaza and Lebanon.

I wouldn’t use the word hypocrisy, there are hypocrites, no doubt. But I don’t think they sit in the German government. I accuse our Chancellor Olaf Scholz of being a hypocrite, neither on Israel nor on Ukraine. There are hypocrites in the media, absolutely. There are double standards in the media. Many politicians have double standards.

I think our current government is trying to stay on an equal footing with regard to these two major conflicts. I would say that. And of course, again, we have two commitments. When we look at Ukraine, we have a commitment to the European peace order, to restore the principles of the European peace order. And when we look at the Middle East, there is a commitment to the existence of Israel as a state, and these are constraints that create a framework within which we have to operate.

I wouldn’t say that the German government has actually done a bad job in this regard. Yes, in every conflict there are doves and there are hawks, and sometimes we have hawks in politics and in the media who go too far in saying that everything Israel does is justified, or that Ukraine must win in all circumstances.

These are really double standards that emerge very quickly. For example, I was just wondering these days, because the Russian invasion of Ukraine has always been described by the Russians as a special military operation. The Israeli invasion of South Lebanon was also described, not in those words, but as a limited operation. As far as Russia is concerned, the German media always portrays it as a lie, clearly untrue, because it is a full-scale invasion. Here it is called a full-scale occupation. Nobody is talking about a full-scale invasion of South Lebanon by Israeli forces of the IDF. Maybe there is no full-scale occupation in south Lebanon yet, but even if there is, I don’t think the German media would talk about full-scale occupations.

One last question. Let’s go back to the problem of Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Caucasus. I think you have visited both countries recently. I was in Azerbaijan but I did not go to Armenia, I had a meeting with the Armenian Ambassador.

If we include Iran and Turkey, is the situation in the South Caucasus closer to peace or war?

In the South Caucasus, it should be clearly stated that we are talking about the end of 2024, for the first time since the end of the Soviet Union there is a real chance for peace.

It is necessary to say it again and again, because many people don’t like to hear it, that a year ago, in September 2023, Azerbaijan militarily restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty over all its territory, as internationally recognized at the end of 1991.

So what Azerbaijan achieved in the one-day war in 2023, which was preceded by a war in the fall of 2020, is exactly the same as the weapons and billions of dollars that we sent to Ukraine to ensure the restoration of the full sovereignty of the Ukrainian state on the territory of Ukraine from the last day of 1991.

The problem here, of course, is that this part of Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed part, or the part of Azerbaijan that is being fought over, is inhabited by about 120,000 Armenians. On the other hand, we all know that there are another 100,000 people in Donbass, which is also being fought. There are millions of people living there, identifying themselves as Russians, sympathizing with them.

Therefore, we are facing a more or less similar situation where the borders of the Soviet Union, the internal borders of the Soviet Union, which became the external borders of sovereign states in 1991, in no way reflect or reflect the population, ethnic origins.

So yes, Nagorno-Karabakh became part of Azerbaijan after 1991. This is how history worked, first of all, after 1991 there was a big Armenian-Azeri war. Armenia won the war, or let’s say the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh won the war. They occupied a big part of Azerbaijani territory. People were forced to leave Azerbaijani lands. Azerbaijan regained this country after 30 years.

There is an endless spiral of conflict here. There are atrocities on both sides. There are refugees on both sides. This is a terrible conflict that could theoretically go on forever. The only great chance we have now is that we have a situation where peace is possible internationally, with the restoration of internationally recognized borders between both countries, because the status quo again corresponds to internationally recognized territories. This is the most important difference that has emerged for the first time since the end of the Soviet Union. So peace is possible again.

There are big challenges for both sides. Can Armenia live with this defeat? Yes, it was a defeat for the Armenian sides. The exodus of Karabakh Armenians after the one-day war last September was a defeat, a terrible cultural defeat. Basically, Armenia as a people gave up, not a state territory, but a cultural territory that it has had for millennia. So the question again is: can Armenia live with this defeat and transform itself into a more promising future?

And, equally importantly, can Azerbaijan be humble in victory? In both cases, the victorious side needs to show humility. The defeated side also depends on the magnanimity of both sides. If both sides, if both leaders, Mr. Pashinyan on one side and Mr. Aliyev on the other side, if both leaders are historically good, if they realize their potential, they can become historical figures. There is a chance for peace. If they go back to the spiral, the spiral of endless war, they will squander this chance.

On the other hand, we have more regional and bigger actors like Turkey and Iran. You know, Iran does not want the Zangezur corridor against its will. And Turkey is supporting Azerbaijan both militarily and economically. So, if there is a new war in the future, it is likely to be bigger than the previous previous war.

A new war should be avoided. There is no question about it because there will be no chance to reach peace again. And it is very difficult to imagine that a single actor will develop as a dominant winner in this region. Who could this be? This is a very old issue.

This is a region where there has never been one dominant power, or very rarely. Now when we look at the opportunity for peace, I think it is in everybody’s interest. Elements on the Armenian side and elements on the Azeri side may not be able to live with this status quo for emotional reasons. For the Turks, it is a very attractive prospect to have the Armenian border open for the economy, just for trade. The possibility that they can build this Azeri exclave through Nakhchivan, through Nakhchivan and then south through the Zangezur corridor, or some other way through Azerbaijan to Baku and then to China, the middle corridor, is a tremendous opportunity for trade, because today it all has to go north through Georgia to Azerbaijan.

It is the same for the Iranians. Because if Azerbaijan and Armenia live in peace, it will be much easier to realize the idea of a north-south corridor from Russia through Iran to India, through Azerbaijan to Iran.

And the Zangezur corridor that you also mentioned. The problem with the Zangezur corridor is not the Iranians. The Iranians are building a link between Nakhshavan and mainland Azerbaijan on their territory south of the Armenia-Iran border. Therefore, they have no problem with the Zangezur corridor. The problem with the Zangezur corridor is that the Azerbaijanis want to have an uncontrolled and duty-free connection between the mainland and their exclave for their goods and their people. For understandable reasons, Armenia is not in a position to commit to this because it would mean voluntarily giving up its sovereign rights. So this is a point where both countries are still a stepping stone for a possible prolongation of the conflict.

But I don’t think that Turkey or Iran has any negative impact on peace. It depends on Armenia and Azerbaijan. I am sure that both sides understand this, because most of the negotiations are now done bilaterally, without Turkey, Iran, the EU or the US.

You can think geopolitically here, you can expect that there might be some opposition from the US, because the US does not want to give China the opportunity to develop the Belt and Road Initiative, the so-called New Silk Road. Because a peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan would mean an opportunity to build the middle corridor in completely new dimensions. The south, east and west of the Caucasus will be connected through the Caucasus to Central Asia via the Caspian Sea. I don’t know if there are forces, geostrategic thinkers or conspirators in the US who would welcome this about Turkey and its geopolitical role in the multipolar world.

I think you have some thoughts about what Turkey can do in this emerging new league of nations and what Turkey can do in this emerging multipolar world. What do you think about that?

I think Turkey is definitely realizing its potential and its goals right now. As far as I understand, Turkey has said goodbye to the idea of being tied to Western Europe. I would say that EU membership is a fanciful idea. There will be some kind of relationship with the EU and of course Turkey has a strong interest to integrate economically with the Europeans. There is no doubt about that, but without giving up any foreign policy autonomy, foreign policy rights…

Looking at the current perspective of BRICS membership for Turkey, it is clear that Turkey will lead a 360-degree foreign policy. The challenge, which will not make Turkey’s job easier in the meantime, is that on the one hand, Turkey is returning to its traditional high dominance in the geopolitical theater. On the other hand, it is returning to the old rivalries that have made life unbearable for Turkey time and time again. Because the biggest challenge for Turkey is to maximize the number of enemies. The Christian Balkans are a kind of potential enemy. The two countries that have fought the most wars in Europe in the last 400 years are Russia and Turkey, I think eleven or more. Turkish-Iranian rivalry, Turkish-Arab rivalry, Turkish-Egyptian rivalry…

Therefore, for Turkey, the ambition to set a rule in this geopolitical theater and to assert and reassert its sovereignty is logical, necessary and understandable. Otherwise there will be a vacuum in Anatolia around the straits. But this opportunity also brings with it many potential problems and challenges for the Turkish leadership.

I think the biggest threat at the moment, though, is to rediscover old rivalries, for example with Greece. Turkey does not need such a rivalry. That would be foolish.

Another threat is of course Islamism, fundamentalism. This is a threat to the whole Islamic world. Because every step towards fundamentalism leads to deeper rivalries within the Islamic world and deeper enmity with non-Islamic powers.

And perhaps the biggest challenge is for Turkey to navigate its position in relation to the growing West-East, West-Russia hostilities, the growing divide between Western Europe and the NATO world and Russia and China as representatives of the so-called autocrats.

So the more these blocs become hostile blocs, really hostile blocs, the more difficult it will be for Turkey to remain here as a NATO member and there as a BRICS member. And this will always bring with it the danger of unduly straining Turkey’s position.