"For us Nagorno-Karabakh is the number-one problem. It is obvious, that our economic might and our political weight will someday allow us to liberate our lands." – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, interviewed January 30, 2007 for Le Figaro

"While we live in this world, Nagorno-Karabakh shall never become a part of Azerbaijan." - Gamlet Grigoryan, the Rector of the Karabakh University, in an interview appearing February 10, 2006 in La Liberation

Azerbaijan is currently experiencing an enviable economic rise due to the presence of natural resources, most importantly hydrocarbons, and because of its favorable location as an alternative to the Russian route for transporting Caspian oil. Though it cannot claim the same kind of burgeoning, oil-driven development, neighboring Armenia has also seen solid economic growth over the last few years. Both countries also maintain great geo-strategic importance as a “land bridge” between Europe and the Middle East, and consequently advocates in the United States and other Western countries stress the importance of promoting development in the region. However, growth and stability in Azerbaijan and Armenia have been hampered by a longstanding dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, one of the Caucasus’s most intractable political stalemates.

The way Azeris speak about Nagorno-Karabakh is reminiscent of how Serbs talk of Kosovo. In the 20th century, the indigenous population became a minority as Armenians migrated into the province. After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union led to a resurgence of nationalism in the region, violent campaigns evolved into ethnic cleansing and Armenia took control of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjoining regions. As a result, over 900,000 ethnic Azeris became refugees or were displaced from their homes in or near Nagorno-Karabakh, while 300,000 ethnic Armenians fled from Azerbaijan.

Armenians call the Nagorno-Karabakh region “Artsakh,” the historic name of the province in ancient Great Armenia. For Armenians, it was wrong that Soviet authorities allocated lands populated primarily by Armenians—-particularly Nagorno-Karabakh-—to Azerbaijan. As a result of the war in the early 1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh and the mountainous corridor separating Karabakh from Armenia were completely “cleansed of” (or, in the Armenian view, “liberated from”) Azeris.

Accompanying graphs.

Thus far no peace treaty exists, as all attempts of the major world powers to mediate a resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute have failed. Currently, Nagorno-Karabakh calls itself an independent state, even though it has not been recognized as such by any country in the world—-even by Armenia, which maintains close relations with Nagorno-Karabakh and sends recruits to serve in the Karabakh army. The 1994 armistice has largely held, although minor clashes along the ceasefire line have occurred regularly and have become more frequent in recent years, raising fears of a return to full-scale war.

On July 19, 2007, the ethnic Armenian residents of Nagorno-Karabakh further heightened the tension by holding a presidential election to replace incumbent Arkady Ghukasyan. Though the election appeared to be relatively clean and competitive, it was not officially recognized by the international community. The Chair of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers declared that “conducting such ‘elections,’ thus preempting the outcome of the ongoing negotiations, cannot contribute to the resolution of the [Nagorno-Karabakh] conflict.” The election met with considerable indignation from the Azeri capital of Baku; an Agence-France Presse article this July quoted the government officially declaring that “The separatist regime in the occupied Azerbaijani territory represents nothing but the illegal structure established by Armenia on the basis of ethnic cleansing of the Azerbaijani population.” For his part, current Armenian President Robert Kocharian, himself a former president of Nagorno-Karabakh, characterized the election to Regnum News Agency as “excellent.”

The historical attribution of this region is a subject rife with fierce disputes between Armenians and Azeris, as both parties put forth historical and ethno-cultural claims to the territory. The quotes at the top of this article are characteristic of statements heard from politicians and common citizens on both sides, and which create a steadfast impression of political deadlock and unwillingness to compromise. Such rhetoric implies growing concerns about a return to open hostilities are no idle talk.

Assessing the military capabilities of each side is beyond the scope of this article, but there appears to be no clear consensus about which side would win an armed conflict. In Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, it is noted with anxiety that Azerbaijan’s national government in Baku is planning to allocate $900 million for defense needs. This is only slightly less than the entire national budget of Armenia. However, despite increased expenditures, some, like The Economist, feel the Azeri army is still too weak to wage a full-scale war. Despite the defense budget imbalance, Armenians are only slightly less likely than Azeris to say they have confidence in their country’s military; 75% of Armenians do so, versus 82% of Azeris.

A further examination of Gallup poll data from both countries produces insights on factors that may affect on the situation—both in terms of each side’s willingness to go to war, and the possible outcomes of such a conflict. A successful military campaign requires more than strong economic conditions and a strong military, though both are critical. More fundamentally, it calls for sacrifice from a country’s people—which in turn requires that they have confidence in their national government, that they be engaged in the lives of their communities, and that they believe in the future of the country. The fortitude to wage war effectively relies to a great extent on what is in people’s hearts.

Certainly Ghukasyan, the former president of Nagorno-Karabakh, believes his people, the ethnic Armenians living in the region, have an advantage over Azeris in this regard. “It would be absurd to compare our human resources with those of Azerbaijan,” he said to Regnum News Agency in an article from 2006. “Azerbaijan has many advantages, but it had the same advantages at the beginning of the war [in the early 1990s] and you all know how that ended. Our advantage is the professionalism of our soldiers and our moral-psychological state. Why could the all-mighty China never bring Taiwan to its knees? Why can Cuba resist the USA?”

But can Armenians more generally claim a distinct “moral-psychological” advantage over Azeris? This survey data suggest not—in fact, the opposite is more likely to be the case.