The Karabakh War: Azerbaijan's Geopolitical Superiority Over Armenians

Abstract

Both modern-day Armenia and Azerbaijan were part of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to 1991. During that time, Nagorno-Karabakh, which had a multiethnic population mostly consisting of ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijani Turks, was officially controlled by Azerbaijan. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan and Armenia became independent states. Since then, the struggle between Azerbaijan and Armenia has remained on the status of Karabakh. In the first Karabakh War, Armenia gained the upper hand with the help of Russia over unprepared and isolated Azerbaijan. While Karabakh is legally considered part of Azerbaijan, this region was controlled mainly by Armenian-backed separatist governments. Over the past several decades, Azerbaijan has prepared itself well to regain lost territory by developing its economy, training military personnel, acquiring cutting-edge equipment, and building diplomatic assets. In the recent Karabakh War, Azerbaijan gained geopolitical advantages, outperformed its rival Armenia in almost every arena, and successfully liberated most of its lost territory. The Azerbaijani government has been working on rebuilding and reconstructing liberated territories under the new local administration of Karabakh.