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Philip Gamaghelyan, "Conflict Resolution Beyond the International Relations Paradigm: Evolving Designs as a Transformative Practice in Nagorno-Karabakh and Syria" (Ibidem Press, 2017)
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Professor Gamma Guerian
Be there.
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For the moment, everyone will be talking.
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Professor Gamma Guerian
To the New Books Network.
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Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
Everyone. My name is Piotr Pilchek and this interview is being recorded for New Books Network, where we celebrate scholars who are not only leaders in the field, but also the pillars of academic community. Professor Gamma Guerian, thank you very much for joining us today.
- [01:51]
Professor Gamma Guerian
Oh, thank you very much for the invitation. And thank you for such a glowing introduction. I'm doing very well, thank you for asking. Thank you, you are.
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Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
Well, today we begin by discussing your remarkable publication titled Conflict Resolution beyond the International Relations Paradigm, Evolving Designs and Transformative Practice in Nagorno Karabakh and Syria. This book was published by Ibidem Verlag as well as Columbia University Press in 2017, and in this work, Professor Gamalganian insightfully predicted config in Nagorno Karabakh would continue to unfold, a foresight that makes this book particularly relevant today. But that's not the reason why I want to recommend it to every single IR practitioner and config management specialist. The reason behind it is the fact that this publication draws on the experiences of conflict negotiators across various regions, various fields, various conflict zones. Professor Gamal Gen in this book basically encapsulated his practical experience from dealing with conflicts in Nagorno Karabakh, Syria and the broader Middle east in the context of the very dynamic negotiations during the Oslo Accords.
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Interviewer/Host
Finally, I believe that this book has.
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Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
Incredible methodology and that's why I also recommend it to my students. How do you manage to capture so many profound insights and innovations in such a concise, timely work? Professor Gammagelian?
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Professor Gamma Guerian
Yeah, unfortunately, perhaps the book is still relevant and the writing. I grew up myself in Armenia, as you mentioned, and during the war, in the first Nagorno Karabakh war, which took place in 1990s. I was a teenager then. I supported the war, actually a lot of my friends did, I did for the war and later I just was a big wake up call. When I saw the destruction done by the war, but really importantly the destruction done by my side, that really changed my perspective and I since tried to really learn, try to understand more what wars are, how they function, why they are so hard to stop by a peace agreement, so hard to reach. So I started getting involved with the conflict. I grew up in Nagorno Karabakh 1, but also expanded looking into the neighboring countries and conflicts. Georgia, Turkey, Syria, Ukraine. Both to learn from colleagues who work there, but also to contribute the insights. So that's been really the so I tried not to expand too far out. I read of course about other conflicts and teach on them, but in terms of practical engagement, I tried to stay close to home, somewhat home immediately, but also the expanded region where I'm from.
- [04:39]
Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
In your book you talk a lot about binary framing of conflicts and you dedicate actually a few chapters to to explain why we shouldn't see conflicts in such binary framings, having just two sides. This point is really standing out, to be honest. And it's not only relevant in the context of our conversation about Nagorno Karabakh, Syria, the Middle east, but broadly we can basically take your tip and apply it to every single conflict. Because the times when there were just two sides is hardly here anymore, isn't it?
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Professor Gamma Guerian
Of course, until about 2013, 1113, when the Syrian civil war started. When I was learning about conflict resolution and how to work with conflicts, everything I learned was about bringing two sides together or could be three, but some defined small number of powerful sides together and negotiating or doing the dialogue right, some form of bringing two sides mostly, but sides together. When I was invited to work in Syria, the big shock for me was That I realized very few people were accepting any of the established sites. So there were sites, there was the Assad government and there were some form of opposition. But overall, most people I was working with, including very influential people, wouldn't associate with any side. And interestingly, this binary framing, bringing two sides together was forcing them to either take a side, fall behind, let's say Assad, or fall behind the Thai Islamist opposition, or effectively become voiceless. So that really opened my eyes to the possibility that most people are not associating with the political leaders or the SATs. And by really framing conflict as a binary or framing conflict as two key powerful actors coming together, we keep as peace field, as a peace building field, we are actually empowering them and strongly disempowering and disenfranchising everybody else who are effectively the peace actors. So it's a bit more than binary for me because it can be three, four defined sides. Even that is not enough. The problem is more definition of the side that we give legitimacy to somebody like Assad to effectively, sure, he should be a voice, he has a power, he has army behind him, but really making him one of two voices and then the other one being equally violent. It's a serious problem. Where again, in Syrian case I saw that probably 90% of the population and opinion leaders were not falling behind any of these two and really didn't have political voice, I expanded that further and looking into Karabakh, where it seemed to be clear, two sides, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, maybe their governments, realizing how many people were left behind. There were a lot of mixed marriage people who had to either leave the country or aside. There were Kurds, there were Russians, there were multiple people who didn't want to prioritize their ethnic identity. And all of these peace constituencies were effectively left out of the peace process because of binary framing, also making the conflict unsolvable because essentially you take the two extremes and make the conflict about them. So that forced me to really rethink what peace building is and moved my practice and scholarship pretty far away from what I had learned in my first 10 years or 15 years.
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Interviewer/Host
Thank you, thank you much for these insights. And I guess that's a similar situation basically applies to Afghanistan, similar situation applies to Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia as well. So you forecasted a lot of events which will happen in the next basically 10, 15, 20 years when you wrote it in 2017. And it's book, which I strongly recommend to my students, which is the necessity for them to basically acquaint themselves with different type of methodology so in one of the chapters you decide to elaborate on different tracks of diplomacy. You introduce discussion on track one, track two, track two and half. But you mentioned that track three, track four, track five and so on and so forth. Those tracks of diplomacy are actually the ones which we might use in the future. Could you introduce our listeners to these concepts as well?
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Professor Gamma Guerian
Sure. The unfortunately this partially came true because I believe the time that we don't have any solutions, so we necessarily know how to solve it. So that applies to this binary question we discussed, but also applies partially to the trucks question. In fact, I don't believe I mentioned trucks 456, but more believe that the truck language is a problem on its own. I'm not against. I see a big necessity to working with governments, which we normally call track one. By all means, these are pretty central actors to war and peace. But by calling other work track two, track three, my argument is that we are subordinating them to this particular track or this particular government version, which before about conflict and state interest. Interest, of course, and much less about human interest, about the interest of people affected by conflict, which completely shifts the meaning of peace building. So I'm more suggesting not to think in the level of trucks, by all means, some after to continue working with governments, but the work that is non governmental, what we used to call track two, track three, I believe again the subordinated, meaning your hierarchy is problematic again on two levels. First of all, it subordinates the everyday peace and the life and needs of conflict affected people. But also it closes the possibility for structures and approaches that are not following the official line. So if in official place you might have two actors, that's fine, they can negotiate. If we bring this logic down, we say track two, we usually try to replicate, or track three, we try to replicate this official binary also in a societal level where you have far more diversity of voices, far more diversity of identities. So I simply think we should go away, forget about the tracks and work on official level and then separately work on non official level or levels where we can see many more possibilities, many more peace actors and many more framings that can help perhaps redraw, reframe the politics on their own.
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Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
I guess many of us today who come from liberal constructivist or Kantian background would argue that diplomacy is the only way forward. But the situation in Nagorno Karabakh sadly shows that particular actors, such as for instance, Azerbaijan ultimately chooses force over diplomacy. Azerbaijan effectively won the third Nagorno Karabakh war. So could you tell us more about what actually has happened between 2020 and 2023 in this conflict zone? And why is that so important from.
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Professor Gamma Guerian
Your perspective, as I mentioned a bit earlier? Yeah, I think so. Big problem. We've seen that really we had only one formula, not in Karabakh, but in general, it was peace through democracy, which sounds great. The liberal piece, right? Both well known and well criticized. The challenge is that what do you do once the regions are not democratizing? And Azerbaijan specifically was moving quite far from democracy in this period. And not only that's a problem on its own, but that effectively cancels any possibility for solution if you have only one version about it. So that made conceptual sense. The war inevitable, although in practical sense, of course, there were many missteps and refusals to negotiate. Also barred the Armenian side. What happened was, yes, without solution on a diplomatic space, the Azerbaijan resorted to the first war in 90s, was won by Armenia. Azerbaijani internationally recognized territories were controlled by Armenia. Eventually Azerbaijan rebuilt its military and went for the second war that it won. He took territories that were occupied by Armenia outside of the disputed Nagorno Karabakh. But in 2023, not satisfied with that, it also took the disputed Nagorno Karabakh and effectively ethnically cleansed, forced the removal of all the Armenian population of the Nagorno Karabakh, whose rights were really at the center of the conflict from the beginning. So again, in practice, diplomacy failed conceptually. As an academic, I think diplomacy failed not only because of problematic steps by politicians, which there were many, but also because since 1990s, once we lost track on this one version of a solution, so peace through democracy, we really didn't have an alternative in place. There was no blueprint. There were some proposals on the table, but they were. None of them were comprehensive. All of them were very short thinking, addressing some problems while opening others. So I think one big issue in a peace field is that without that liberal peace idea, which I think is discredited, we don't necessarily have alternatives and peace processes become very transactional. We then can mix some diplomacy with some violence effectively, which is what we are seeing all over the place. In particular to your question in Agora.
- [14:32]
Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
Farabakh, speaking of transactionalism, do you think that Donald Trump's approach brought any real change to the peace process, or should we expect that conflict in the Gunun Karabakh might resurface in coming years?
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Professor Gamma Guerian
I don't believe the war will restart unless we have some major change. The war was unfortunately resolved through violence, but it has been resolved. The big challenge to the peace process. The big disagreement was the status of Nagorno Karabakh, which was internationally active as Azerbaijan but was controlled by Armenia, and the right of the Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh the rights of that population. So now Azerbaijan took full control of the territory, Armenian population is fully ethnically cleansed. Actually both sides fully influenced their respective populations. So there are no Azerbaijanis in Armenia, no Armenians in Azerbaijan. So there are no really reasons for any new war by any side. So I don't see it again quite unfortunately done through violence. I think the war unless new reasons for war appear, such as Russia and US are proxy war in the region, for example, which is possible, these two don't really have any reasons to now when it comes to Trump and transactionalism, interestingly the way it appears that Trump was a deal breaker, but curiously there is quite a bit of continuity between Biden and Trump policies. What we saw unfold was very much planned during the Biden administration and Trump administration effectively followed through. Of course putting Trump's name on it. This is effectively a US policy of trying to wrestle Russia out of Eastern Europe and other post Soviet states. The countries of a region don't necessarily want to replace maybe Russia by us, but they also want to weaken their dependence on Russia and gain a bit more real sovereignty. So in that sense, from the Azerbaijani Armenian point of view, Trump brought any kind of US involvement is balancing heavy Russian presence rather than replacing it from US position. They are trying to get some transactionally, some advantage in South Caucasus while Russia is busy in Ukraine. So different actors are gaining some advantage. It's certainly transactional, but also hopefully can contribute to, even if transactionally, to some stability and prevention of further cycles of violence.
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Interviewer/Host
Intelligence One question about civilian population because 100,000 people actually lost their homes. So what's happening with Armenians from AR and what's happening with Armenians who basically lost their property in in the territories which was controlled by Armenia? Is there any bilateral agreements on supporting them?
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Professor Gamma Guerian
No, and unfortunately this is not the first wave of refugees. This is the latest that is starting from 99. This ethnic cleansing has been really one of the big tools of war that both Armenia and Azerbaijan resorted to. In 90s hundreds of thousands of Armenians were technically cleansed from Azerbaijan, hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis were cleansed from Armenia. And then Azerbaijan took control of Nagorno, Karabakh and surrounding territories. In 1990s it again ethnically cleansed everybody, all the Azerbaijanis under territories it controls. So there was another few hundreds of thousands of people. And then Fast forward to 2023 when Azerbaijan regained control. It now Internet installed the Armenians. So we have multiple rounds of full ethnic cleansing and displacement by all the other by both sides. So this 100,000 are the latest wave of course very important because this is now there are the most recent refugees. Unfortunately in this transactional configuration processes, the people really disappear. So now Azerbaijan lets this group, they were pretty effectively accepted by Armenia. One good collaboration you could see between Armenia, Azerbaijan was that this movement of 100,000 people within two days was pretty well organized. Azerbaijan forced them to leave. Armenians quickly accepted and that's it. Since then essentially there was very small money perhaps paid for people to be able to or for a few months as some kind of refugee payment. Even that stopped. And essentially they seem to not exist politically, neither in Azerbaijan, but nor in Armenia. So they are simply ignored. The peace agreement that's on the table completely ignores any question of displacement, any question of rights of the displaced. Moreover, they also committed to withdraw any international cases, if there were cases in international courts, such as the European Court of Human Rights, to withdraw all these cases and effectively prevent, actively prevent any case being brought by their respective citizens against the other. So any mechanism effectively for rights of the displaced is closed by these two countries. Again, which it makes sense on the official level. They want to move on from the war. But it doesn't from the rest of us as academics, as civil society, as international community who do need to press forward the question of rights of those who suffer.
- [21:38]
Interviewer/Host
How about the access to the cultural and religious sites in Stepanokerk or any other area which was previously inhabited by Armenians? Do these people have at least a hope that one day they will be allowed back into, I don't know, to practice religion or to see the graves of their relatives?
- [22:02]
Professor Gamma Guerian
Another part of this war. It's been a complete cultural erasure. So when Armenians were taking control of Azerbaijani heritage, they would quickly rename it into Persian or other Muslim and effectively denying the presence of Azerbaijani heritage. Let's say in Armenia, which had big Azerbaijani population on its own. Similarly in Azerbaijan you have a strong, clear cultural erasure of everything Armenian. All the cultural monuments have been either destroyed or renamed into Albanian, as in not Albania, present day, but ancient Albania. That was a country stage in these territories long time ago. So there you have this. You are dealing with full cultural erasure of each other because it's reciprocal. Each side feels justified to continue saying, oh, see, the others are doing it as well. So that's one problem. Second is that we have closed borders, complete ethnic leasing, as I said, and no expectation that there will be any really movement anytime soon. There might be movement of goods. All the focus is on connectivity and on trade routes. So trains might run usually is discussed as third party nationals, as in not army, as non Azerbaijanins will be able to cross perhaps some controlled visits to each other's capitals. But overall, no, the solution is almost done in a very, I don't know, late 19 or early 20th century population exchange style. We fully ethnically cleanse each other. We put a wall between each other and that's peace. So no, there is no provision and there is no interest from any of the governments currently to look into the interest of the populations or allow any crossing which is seen as problem and potential for violence simply is mostly as a problem rather than neither a solution or a right.
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Interviewer/Host
You see, when the ethnic cleansing happened in the Balkans, the international community reacted. There was one voice opposing the ethnic cleansing. When it comes to Azerbaijan and the policy after 2020, we are quite silent about it and media doesn't touch this issue. Has it to do with the gas, the LPG and the fact that Azerbaijan is the major exporter of the resources which we no longer buy from Russia?
- [24:28]
Professor Gamma Guerian
There is an element of it. I don't think any conflict or any dynamic can be explained by One factor only. So certainly Azerbaijanism is not too major. It's not very major, but it's still an important exporter of gas to Europe. I still don't think that's the main or only reason. I think Times changed in 1990s. Displacement was not seen as legitimate. The liberal democracy was an ascent. Right. So solution was to be done through human rights, minority rights, effectively democratization and mass displacement, including in this region, was condemned. Times changed. So again, this liberal peace is not necessarily seen as the path forward. The peace building became heavily transactional, as we mentioned. And if anything, even before the displacement happened, I believe most international actors had accepted that this is effectively the solution. So not only they didn't condemn, I believe behind the scenes they perhaps even encouraged this as a don't kill people, make the ethnic cleansing as nonviolent as possible, if that's possible to call it. But essentially you do need ethnic cleansing and complete isolation of Armenians and from each other as a solution. I believe most very big actors had de facto accepted this and that's why they closed their eyes. So it's not only the gas, but that was also seen as in now people know our problem essentially and you can remove people without massacring them. It's even an additional plus point to you, which is what exactly happened?
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Interviewer/Host
Right.
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Professor Gamma Guerian
So there were people were displaced with relatively minimal violence in 2023. So I think again, we have moved to a problematic place where we don't have really norms, we don't have kind of post normative. The liberal peace isn't anymore the practice and you don't have an alternative in place. So it effectively is very transactional.
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Interviewer/Host
I love the fact that your book.
- [26:30]
Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
Is very philosophical as well, and you.
- [26:32]
Interviewer/Host
Try to approach certain issues from the perspective of someone who expects wars but is still optimistic about certain outcomes.
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Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
In 2017, you described the relationship between the Azerbaijani and Armenian governments as very realist and predictable. You explained the vested interest in keeping the conflicts ongoing on both sides because neither side was particularly interested in peace. They just, they benefited out of having the constant war between themselves. And yet they signed the peace deal under Donald Trump, which might suggest that maybe there's some change. What's the broader philosophical approach here? How does Fukuyama's argument about the end of history hold up in this context? From the perspective of Caucasus, does it still really carry any weight anymore?
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Professor Gamma Guerian
Oh, a few questions here. I think. Let me try to start from the end and Fukuyama, end of history I believe I don't need to be the one Saying it as complete, it didn't work. The end of history was supposed to be the liberal democratization of the world and democratic peace moving forward. The question is, was it failure of implementation or failure of theory? That's a long argument. I'd say it's failure of theory. I don't believe that liberal democracy was a possibility or peace in the first place. But importantly for this conversation that failed. Central liberal peace was never really progressed in Armenia, Azerbaijan or Georgia or Afghanistan or any of the neighboring countries. There seems as a possibility for realistic divide. So essentially that's end of history, peace through democracy. Fukuyama's approach simply relevant anymore for this region. So question is, what's the alternative? What do we do without the world democratization as the solution? Why I don't believe that. Why I'm relatively optimistic at this point about the prospects of peace in Armenia, Azerbaijan case is that I don't think Donald Trump was the game changer. The game changer was the exactly collapse of the western ideals. And the two sides for the first time in 2023, after all the violence, deciding to sideline all the international actors and engage in bilateral negotiations, never that was the case. Starting from 1990s, they always relied on a third party, Russia, us jointly, a friend, somebody to come in and negotiate for them effectively. They were negotiating more bilaterally with Russia than with each other. At this point they gave up on that. They actually sidelined intentional actors and went to direct negotiations. So all the peace deal, whatever is on the table is negotiated word by word bilaterally. That's why I'm pretty secure that this can last because they agree jointly. They see. I also disagree that they are not interested in peace anymore. I think at this stage they are in a very transactional, very problematic that tickly trains to everybody. But right now we don't want anything from each other anymore. Right now neither wants peace of Armenia nor vice versa. And with that they are ready to move forward towards opening borders, potentially opening trade routes. And that's where Trump simply comes in as putting his name on it and acting as guarantor because of his interest in peace price, perhaps, but also because of the interest of pushing Russia out of the region. So this interest simply coincided. But the interest primarily is bilateral and again very transactional. And I do see both the government of Armenia and the government of Azerbaijan in principle willing to turn the page, open borders, open trade routes and move forward effectively for getting all the violence done and forgetting the rights and needs of the politicians that suffered throughout these decades. So some plus as in no more violence and big minus as in people are not necessarily part of the conversation.
- [30:40]
Interviewer/Host
Thank you much for that. Thank you much for this incredible insightful answer. I have one which is departing from the realm of philosophy and going into the realm of geopolitics. We know that the second and the third Nagorno Karabakh war was won by Azerbaijan because Russia is currently preoccupied in Ukraine.
- [31:03]
Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
Should that change in the future, do.
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Interviewer/Host
You think that Vladimir Putin or his successor would allow Azerbaijan, which is basically very strong ally of Turkey, would Russia be comfortable with strong Azerbaijan in this crucial area? From the perspective of geopolitics, again, if.
- [31:23]
Professor Gamma Guerian
We turn to very geopolitically, Azerbaijan played its hands really well. It's not only Russia is preoccupied. In 2020, during Second Karabakh War, Russia wasn't preoccupied, it was fully focused on this. And still it stayed out of the conflict and let Azerbaijan essentially retake Karabakh and strengthen its hand. Azerbaijan made itself quite currently at least indispensable. Turkey is a strong ally, but as a Gaza exporter, of course to Europe, it seems important to Europe, right? As a trade route between east and west, it's important to as middle corridor. Any version of that seems to go to Azerbaijan. There is no other route to go to. It also made itself quite indispensable to Russia. So it's actually helped its sidestep some of the sanctions, for example. Right. So it's been like, yes, it supports Ukrainian territorial integrity and yet has strong trade relationship with Russia, also as a pass through, but also directly. So Azerbaijan is one of this, what we call now middle powers. Right. So managed to really play its hands to the maximum and make including Russia, many bigger actors effectively dependent on that rather than the other way around. So I don't know if that is changing anytime soon. It has Russia leverage to reassert its influence over the Caucasus. It's a big question, perhaps, but it needs to rethink its politics because it has been doing it really through keeping playing on the conflicts. Divide and rule was really the approach. So the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan was really Russia's leverage, playing them against each other, playing the peacekeeper. Now, if that conflict is closed, essentially it removes a very big part of Russian influence over the region. Can it reassert? Does it have other means to reassert? Can it even directly invade? Perhaps, but these are very, very new and big changes that should happen. So yeah, I think right now Russia's hand we can, not only in the short, but in the long term, in part because the conflict was solved, even if violently.
- [33:37]
Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
Okay, so what is the China's approach in this conflict? Given that Beijing has strong interest in the One Belt, One Road Initiative and the strategic importance of this region, which we need to consider, how would you characterize China's modus operandi in this particular scenario?
- [33:57]
Professor Gamma Guerian
Yeah, China has been doing all along in a sense what let's say US started doing, the transactional approach to relations. In that sense, it's a few steps ahead, perhaps in a bigger picture of where US is, if that is the new game. So China's involvement has been very pragmatic. That's a pretty good. India as well, by the way, has a pretty good relationship with most. It's been focused on building infrastructure projects and roads, mostly without of course, any interest in normative questions of human rights and so on, which has been gladly accepted by local developers, local governments. There's a big interest, of course, in alternative routes, since the current ones are for different reasons, problematic. And that middle corridor really linking Europe with Central Asia and possibly further China, it's a big part of a conversation. And you see stronger engagement of South Caucasus as a result with China, India and Central Asia, not necessarily at the expense of Europe, but as a middle ground between the two, effectively. So China has been step by step really increasing its presence and influence. Again, not in a necessarily geopolitical way, at least yet, but in a very trade oriented version of that.
- [35:23]
Interviewer/Host
Thank you much for your insights.
- [35:25]
Interviewer Piotr Pilchek
My final question, Professor Kermagen, concerns your future plans. Could you share with us what projects or research you currently have in the pipeline?
- [35:36]
Professor Gamma Guerian
Right, sure. A big question I'm preoccupied with is what's next for peace building? Because we had that end of history version of it, which was all will become liberal democracies and we will have peace happily ever after. That version failed, not only for this region, but for the world in general. We moved to a very transactional space as we discussed, where even if we are seeing steps away from the war, they are extremely transactional and they are simply ignoring the needs and rights of the populations who suffered from a conflict. Has raises questions of both sustainability, but also of what is peace? Is this really peace? So as the next part of my career, I'm trying to collaborate with the wider peace building community. So those academics who are also practitioners to exactly answer the question, what is peace? What are we working for as a peace community? Because I believe that normative crisis effectively translates into an identity crisis for the field. Are we supportive of the transactional piece or is it all so is it really all we do only help transactional negotiations or in some form we are willing to or able to bring back the questions of the rights of conflict affected populations and work for peace for everybody. That includes everyday peace, everyday benefits of peace for the populations. So that's my next project I'm working on now on edited volume perhaps a series of handbooks on what's the future of peace building, what are the future frontiers, what we can retain the best practices from the current stage, all we know, but also move forward looking to the challenges of artificial intelligence, climate change, migration that are upcoming and how we can be proactive actors as peace builders as opposed to reactive, which we tend to be.
- [37:38]
Interviewer/Host
Thank you so much for your time and all the best from Instantaneously Think Tank and all the best from Mewbox Network. It was a pleasure.
- [37:48]
Professor Gamma Guerian
Thank you.
- [38:00]
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