NEWTIMES

The Second Karabakh War (September 27 – November 10, 2020) between Armenia and Azerbaijan lasted 44 days, but it caused overwhelming changes in the politics of the South Caucasus that will shape the future of the region in the months and years to come. Not only has the war ended the three decades old occupation of the twenty percent of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia but alsobroughtTurkey as a counterbalancing force into the region that was traditionally under Russia's political dominance.

Countless humanitarian tragedies have occurred between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the course of the two Karabakh wars since the fall of the Soviet Union. Thousands of people on both sides fell victim to a dispute provoked by Armenia's claim to the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan. The massacre of more than six hundred Azerbaijani civilians in Khojaly, a town with a population of seven thousand people, in bitterly cold morning of February 26, 1992, is the most tragic page of this conflict between the two nations.

"Everything is devastated – the infrastructure is destroyed, residential and administrative buildings are demolished", President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan declared in his address to the nation on 1 December, referring to Azerbaijani territories in Karabakh recently liberated from the Armenian occupation.

Between 27 September and 10 November Armenia and Azerbaijan fought the second major war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and surrounding districts of Azerbaijan which had been occupied by Armenia in the wake of the First Karabakh War in the early 1990s.

The relationship between Azerbaijan and Turkey has been on a developing course since the very beginning of the former's post-Soviet independence, and has now arguably reached its hitherto peak. The unequivocal support by Turkish leaders to Azerbaijan amidst the escalation of its conflict with Armenia, the subsequent joint exercises and drills between their armed forces, and frequent mutual visits of high-ranking officials regardless of the pandemic are some of the highlights in the bilateral relations of the two countries in recent months. While the ethnic kinship and cultural proximity constitute the cornerstone of these bonds, these are common interests and security threats that lead the two brotherly nations toward building a strategic alliance.

Armenia is "preparing for a new war. They are concentrating their forces near the line of contact… We follow their actions. Of course, we will defend ourselves", said Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev in an interview with local television channels on 19 September. A day after this statement, tensions rose markedly on the state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. As a result of this escalation, according to the report shared by the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan in the morning of 21 September, an Azerbaijani soldier was killed by the armed forces of Armenia in the Tovuz direction on the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border. A day before this incidence, the Azerbaijani army downed an Armenian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the country's Defense Ministry announced.

For classical realists, the interference of masses in shaping foreign policy brought about the disastrous events (e.g. two world wars) of the first half of the twentieth century, and therefore, they advise diplomats to lead public opinion rather than follow it. This premise, which is arguably more applicable in fledgling democracies with immature state institutions, is indeed a two-way street. In some cases, the leader brought to power by popular action or vote tends to make populist moves to satisfy popular demand and raise more electoral support. If replicated in the sphere of the management of foreign policies, this leads to nationalistic and populist maneuvers in foreign policy with a great risk of regional or sometimes even global ramifications.