Thread by @LaurenceBroers

On the ‘borderization’ of #Armenia: this week a number of territorial encroachments by Azerbaijani forces were reported on Armenia proper, along the international border between Armenia and those parts of #Azerbaijan that were under Armenian occupation.

On 13/5 Nikol Pashinyan confirmed that some 250 AZE troops had advanced 3.5 kilometres around a remote lake in ARM’s southernmost Syunik region, Sev Lich, that Soviet-era maps indicate is divided by the de jure border. Other movements reported in Gegharkunik.

AZE says it is demarcating the border per maps in its possession. France and the US have called on AZE to withdraw. ARM has referred the matter to to the CSTO. As of today, latest reports are that Russian troops from the Gyumri base are on way to Syunik.

🇦🇲 / 🇦🇿 borders were internal Soviet borders + never demarcated since independence. Incident in Tavush/Tovuz in July 2020 showed that even where 🇦🇲and 🇦🇿 sovereign spaces have been contiguous over the last 25 years, where the border ‘really’ lies is unclear (compare 🇰🇬🇹🇯)

And we know from 🇦🇿🇬🇪 border issues, delimiting borders can be challenging even between friendly states. Rather than a comprehensive normalisation process, the 🇦🇲 / 🇦🇿international border is now being ‘delimited’ coercively through troop movements.

This is ‘borderization’, the process of turning a line of actual control into an international border, as seen in Ukraine, South Ossetia, etc. Rather than a conflict zone, now it is Armenia that is being borderized, another aspect to the ongoing 🇦🇲🇦🇿 rivalry.

For 🇦🇿 this seems to be about maintaining maximum pressure on 🇦🇲, to extract concessions on other issues (e.g. minefield maps, Syunik corridor)? Never-demarcated borders allow conversion of dated or ambiguous cartographies into better positions. More such incidents likely.

In the context of the election campaign exposure of Armenia's inability to defend borders can only strengthen the hand of Robert Kocharian and weaken that of Pashinyan. Maybe Baku believes that Armenia is so weakened now that it no longer matters who is in charge?

Borderization also pressures 🇷🇺 in 3 ways: (1) showing that Russian security guarantees to 🇦🇲are tractable relative to other issues; (2) testing CSTO collective security guarantees; (3) testing Russia’s capacity to broker.

But it seems to be a fundamentally tactical manoeuvre: securitizing Syunik surely advances prospects of this region’s and Armenia’s ever deeper strategic embedding within a Russian security regime. This is regional fracture at work.

Manufactured border crises benefit ‘strongman politics’ on all sides, make regional connectivity plans look ever more implausible.