The Geography of the Caucasus
The Caucasus is a largely mountainous region between the Caspian and Black seas. Running from the west-northwest to the east-southeast are two parallel mountain chains: the Greater (or Northern) Caucasus and the Lesser (or Southern) Caucasus. Between the two chains are two funnel-shaped lowlands that open toward the Black and Caspian seas and that connect at their narrowest point, where the Mtkvari River cuts through a small mountain chain that connects the Greater and Lesser Caucasus ranges at the modern-day city of Tbilisi. The western funnel is the contemporary state of Georgia, and the eastern funnel is Azerbaijan.
The western portion of the Greater Caucasus is considerably higher than the eastern, and the vertical difference helps wring more water out of air currents. Consequently, the western lowland has a humid, subtropical climate that typically receives more than 10 times the annual precipitation of the eastern lowland. This makes the western lowland more fertile, but it also generates sufficient river activity to cut myriad deep valleys into the southern flanks of the western portions of the Greater Caucasus range. This has resulted in a multitude of minority groups tucked away in western fastnesses, many of which — like the Abkhazians and Ossetians — stubbornly resist Georgian rule. In the arid eastern funnel, river activity is so limited that there is only one area where there is a deep cut into the Southern Caucasus: at the mountain enclave known as Nagorno-Karabakh, home of the Karabakh Armenians, who have proven most resistant to modern-day Azerbaijan's centralized control.
North of the Greater Caucasus the terrain quickly widens, flattens and dries, becoming the Eurasian steppe — home of the Russians, and before them the Mongols and their offshoots. South of the Southern Caucasus, there is no similar transformation. The Lesser Caucasus, as the name implies, are not nearly as steep or stark as the Greater Caucasus, and they soon merge with the rugged highlands of the Anatolian Plateau in the west and the Zagros Mountains in the south. The eastern of the two lowlands directly abuts the northwestern edge of Iran's Elburz Mountains, the domain of the Persians.
The eastern flatlands are far more exposed to the major powers to the region's north and south. The Caspian coastal plains are considerably wider and shorter than their equivalents along the Black Sea, which are long and thin. Additionally, the southern portions of the eastern flatlands directly abut the Persian highlands, a region that is still quite rugged but far more accessible and traversable than the Caucasus chains.
The final piece of the region is the Armenian highlands. Armenia's importance lies in the area where the majority of its population lives: the Zangezur Corridor. The Zangezur is a rather large piece of reasonably flat and well-watered land in an otherwise rugged, arid region. It lies where the Lesser Caucasus, the Anatolian highlands and the Zagros Mountains blend together.
The Zangezur's relative arability makes it a valuable asset in its own right, but its true value is its role as a transport corridor. Whoever controls the Zangezur Corridor can project power into the Turkish sphere of influence in Anatolia, the Russian sphere of influence in the intra-Caucasus and directly into the Persian core territories. This small, seemingly forgotten patch of land has been the crossroads of regional competition since long before there were Turks and Russians.
Currently, the Zangezur is not under singular political control. The bulk of the Armenian population lives in the Zangezur's northeastern quadrant, the corridor's most arable zone. The northwestern quadrant is the least arable, but holds the strategic high ground of Mount Ararat and is exclusively Turkish. The southwestern quadrant is Iranian territory jutting up between Turkish and Armenian lands. The southeastern quadrant is the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan. The four portions do not have any significant geographic insulation from one another.
The Importance of Nakhchivan
Nakhchivan is the portion most likely to be the object of competition for anyone wanting to go to or from the Persian core. As an Azerbaijani exclave, Nakhchivan shares no land connection with Azerbaijan, instead being sandwiched between Armenia to the north and Iran to the south and sharing a tiny border with Turkey to the west. While Nagorno-Karabakh has a higher international profile because of the Armenian-Azerbaijani struggle over the territory, Nakhchivan is the true piece of strategic property in the region.
Nakhchivan was part of the Armenian empire of old; indeed, its strategic features have dictated that it be a part of every major empire that has ever existed in the region. Azerbaijan has been able to chip away at the size of the Armenian population in Nakhchivan — Azerbaijanis now make up 99 percent of the population, compared to only 50 percent a century ago — to ensure Baku's hold on the region.
But for Armenia, Nakhchivan is more about identity than strategy. The Armenians believe that they are the direct descendants of the Biblical Noah, whose ark is broadly agreed to have settled on the slopes of Mount Ararat. Ararat is within Turkey's borders, but the Armenians still claim it as their national symbol. In the Armenian mythos, Noah's family — the first Armenians — settled in the lands that currently cross from Armenia into Nakhchivan.
The region spent most of the past millennia as part of either Persia or Ottoman Turkey. Each conqueror attempted to flush out the populations of the other, a pattern complicated by Russia's late entrance into the competition and Moscow's tendency to use Armenians as regional proxies. Between the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and the rise of the Soviet Union, Nakhchivan entered a chaotic period. During a rash of Caucasus conflicts, Nakhchivan was sometimes a province of Armenia, sometimes an autonomous republic of Azerbaijan and sometimes an independent state.
The Soviet invasion ended that. One of Josef Stalin's most-used strategies was redrawing disputed borders to maximize the potential for ethnic strife so that, if the various pieces of the Soviet Union should ever gain independence, they would be more concerned with fighting each other than challenging their former master. In his role as Commissar of Nationalities, Stalin used this strategy to make the decision that set Nakhchivan on its current path. Great power geopolitics entered into the decision. In the 1920s, the Soviets had no desire to do battle with the newly republican Turks, who were busy reconsolidating their territories. Turkey had no qualms about using its military force to seize pieces of territory it felt belonged to it — most notably ejecting the Greeks from their western territories and the Syrians from Hatay. Turkey's price was low: Nakhchivan must not be Armenian, and it must share a land border with Turkey. Stalin assented, and that deal still haunts the region.
With the Soviet collapse, full war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan — starting in Nagorno-Karabakh. That war quickly spread to Nakhchivan. Two factors made Nakhchivan remain part of Azerbaijan. First, Nakhchivan was a front-line Soviet military location on the borders of both Iran and Turkey. As such it boasted impressive defensive fortifications and numerous weapons depots. Second, the Turks warned the Armenians that if they were serious about attacking an Azerbaijani exclave that shared a border with Turkey, the Armenians would have a larger war on their hands. All of the regional players, big and small, covet the region even if they do not formally lay claim.
The Potential for Greater Tensions
Nakhchivan — and the Zangezur Corridor in general — is currently quiescent. It will take years for the Turks to marry economic and military capacity to their newly recovered political voice. It has been nearly a century since Turkey has played a meaningful, independent international role, and Ankara is occupied with interests in Europe and the Arab world for now. Iran is focused on countering U.S. actions in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region and simply cannot afford pressuring a point as sensitive as Zangezur at present. The Russians are broadly pleased with the current state of affairs: The last thing they want is a hot war with Turkey or Iran, and the 5,000 Russian troops stationed in Armenia give Moscow de facto veto power over Yerevan's Zangezur policy.
The wild card is Azerbaijan. While Baku is friendly with both the United States and Turkey, it is dissatisfied with both powers' unwillingness to support it in its ongoing struggle with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani oil wealth has already allowed Baku to increase its defense budget to eight times the size of Armenia's, and barring a break in trends, Baku will be spending more on its military than Armenia's entire gross domestic product within a few short years. Any Azerbaijani-initiated conflict would occur on several fronts, with perhaps the most important one seeking to connect the core Azerbaijani territories to Nakhchivan. After all, Nakhchivan is the homeland of the ruling Aliyev clan. Considering Russia's forward position in Armenia, and long-standing Turkish and Iranian interest in the Zangezur Corridor, the potential for a bilateral Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict to spread rapidly should not be underestimated.
Moreover, although the three major powers are quiet now, they are certain to revisit the Zangezur issue in time. Iran and Turkey are both rapidly rising powers already eyeing each other warily across much of the Arab world, and Zangezur is by far the most strategic spot along their shared border. Russia, in contrast, is in sharp demographic decline. Its position in the Caucasus generally and Zangezur/Armenia specifically are only sustainable as long as the Russian army can continue to be a numerically massive force. Collapsing demography could well make that impossible as soon as 2020.
