Interview with Laurence Broers

Laurence Broers is the South Caucasus Programme Director at the peacebuilding organization Conciliation Resources. He has more than 20 years’ experience as a scholar of conflicts in the South Caucasus and practitioner of efforts directed at their peaceful resolution. He is the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of Caucasus Survey, the first scholarly journal dedicated to the Caucasus region, published by Brill. He is the author of Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry (Edinburgh University Press, 2019) and co-editor, with Galina Yemelianova, of the Routledge Handbook of the Caucasus (Routledge 2020) and, with Anna Ohanyan, of Armenia’s Velvet Revolution: Authoritarian Decline and Civil Resistance in a Multipolar World (I.B. Tauris, 2020).

The article deals with “complex” cases of territorial development after the collapse of the USSR: secession, autonomization, gray zones of statehood in all post-Soviet republics. Taking into account both realistic and constructivist grounds of secession, the author lists the main factors (geographical, historical, political, sociological, cultural, linguistic, military) that affect the processes of autonomy and the withdrawal of territorial polities from the parent states, postulating that none of them is repeated in all 20 cases studied. This means that no factor is determinative, although Western sources often refer to Russian patronage in the post-Soviet space as such. The most popular factors are the functioning of the state -the segment within which the secession is being formed, and the presence of a political organization among the separatists (17 cases out of 20).

The author analyzes the policy of non-recognition implemented by Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova in relation to the separatist conflict territories. The policy of non-recognition designates both the refusal to recognize de facto existing political entities, and other measures that accompany it and are associated with the need to build relations with self-proclaimed states. Comparative analysis of the three depicted models shows that, despite the permanent essence of the non- recognition policy, there are significant differences in its practical implementation. Although the policy of non-recognition does not bring the parent states closer to resolving the conflict, in its various manifestations it can both contribute to the gradual disappearance of enmity and intensify existing contradictions. Factors that influence non-recognition politics include political narratives surrounding the conflict, dominant state-building patterns, patron state policies, perceived identity threats, experience of historical trauma and war.

From being a relatively neglected field, the study of de facto states has developed rapidly in recent years. As the break-up of the Soviet Union produced seven de facto states – four that still exist to this day (Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Transnistria) and three that are now defunct (Chechnya, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic) – scholars from this region have contributed greatly to the development of this field. Russian scholars have been particularly active, with Russia serving as the patron state of three of the extant entities (having reintegrated/absorbed the three defunct ones), as well as of the patron of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia. But Western scholars have also made a sizeable contribution, although often working in relative isolation from “local” research. Whereas local researchers excel in in-depth knowledge of the history and culture of the region, their Western colleagues add to the comparative and theoretical approaches. And just as Russian researchers naturally focus on the relations of the Eurasian de facto states with their Russian patron, their Western counterparts often analyse the policies of their own countries towards these entities. Thus, we argue, two separate “ecosystems” of research into Eurasian de facto states have gradually developed: a “local” one and a “Western” one, each with its own peculiarities. In this article, we survey the “Western” literature on de facto states, noting the various assessments of the possibilities for US and EU engagement with the Eurasian de facto states. The scholarly literature discussing Western engagement emerges as partly analytical, explaining what Western states are doing and not doing and why, and partly normative, offering policy recommendations on how best to engage. Implicit in the concept of “engagement,” however, is the understanding that engagement is preferable to “ignoring” or “sanctioning.” According to this view, Western cooperation with de facto state authorities is inevitable.

Currently, more than seven decades after its emergence in 1949, the Taiwan issue has not lost its relevance, but, instead, against the backdrop of growing U.S.–China tensions, is becoming especially acute. The PRC, which has already built up an impressive financial and economic might and a powerful military, is focused on achieving the so-called second “centennial goal” by 2049, which includes, among other things, the return of Taiwan to Beijing’s control. The return to power in Taiwan in 2016 of the Democratic Progressive Party, which stands on the positions of Taiwan’s movement towards independence, led to an almost complete “zeroing” of all the achievements as the results of the normalization of Sino-Taiwan relations in 2008–2016, dispelled hopes for a peaceful solution to the Taiwan problem and caused another round of aggravation of tension in the Taiwan Strait. The purpose of this article is to characterize the strategy and tactics of Taiwan’s foreign policy in 2016–2022, when the Tsai Ing-wen administration, which rejected the “one state, two systems” formula of unification, was under strong pressure from Beijing. In its relations with the PRC conducting the “steadfast diplomacy”, the Tsai Ing-wen administration has been taking efforts to promote a narrative in the world discourse that emphasizes the geopolitical, economic, technological, and ideological significance of Taiwan and its autonomous existence from mainland China for the world community and, first of all, its liberal-democratic part. Continuously losing its “diplomatic allies” due to Beijing’s intensified activities in limiting Taiwan’s international space since 2016, the Taiwan administration purposefully builds up and actively uses such advantages as developed democracy, technological power, and competitive, innovative, open economy in order to attract new like-minded partners for close cooperation.

The article is devoted to the situation in the international Kurdish movement in the context of the growing popularity of Islamist ideas and concepts. For a long time, the leftist doctrine was considered to be the prevailing trend among the Kurds, but after 2011 and the appearance on the regional arena of such major players as ISIS and other radical religious organizations based in Syria and Iraq, ultra-conservative parties and movements gained momentum. In fact, today there is a confrontation between the evolving leftist doctrine, represented by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Syrian Rojava, and the Islamic concept of the caliphate (the territory of universal social harmony, built on the principles of Sharia). During the period of the greatest power of ISIS, several Kurdish groups supported the Islamists and, being part of the extremist international movement, managed to seize significant territories in Northern Syria and Central Iraq. Later, however, left-wing organizations went on the offensive and returned to their pre-war status.

In this regard, it is important to understand exactly what socio-economic reasons led to the growth of the Islamists influence and what the prospects for religious radicals within the international Kurdish movement are.

This essay examines five possible reasons for Russia’s military involvement in the Syrian War. These reasons under consideration are an anti-terror policy, resistance to the unipolarity, domestic populism, overcoming Russia’s isolation after Crimea crisis, and defence of the B. Assad government. I conclude that only the anti-terror and anti-unipolar world motivations were relevant and merged into a single cognitive framework that is prone to launching Syrian military operation.

Other factors, such as a paradigmatic shift of the image of the post-unipolar world, as well as overconfidence in air force and artillery, also confirm that the Syrian War cognitively prepared Russia for its future military operation in Ukraine. Russian policymakers became convinced that the unipolar world was coming to an end. In the case of Syria (2015), the ill-fated US-led anti-terror operations intensified Islamic terrorism, which created an existential threat for Russia. In the case of Ukraine (2022), the United States, whose grip on world hegemony they believed was on the decline, was trying to use Ukraine as a bridgehead for military aggression against Russia. This study is a result of an extensive survey of the relevant literature and my own expert interviews conducted in Moscow in March 2020.

This study covers the history of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) as a de facto state, a status it has held since 1983 after having established its institutional structure in 1975 under the name of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus (TFSC). The TRNC has unique characteristics when compared with other de facto states. While it is home to EU citizens, it enjoys the support and influence of Turkey as its patron state, which is not member of the European Union. Although the TRNC has been declared an independent state, TRNC leaders pursued a federal solution to reunify the island until E. Tatar was elected president in 2020. The TRNC has another unique characteristic: its civil society tradition is more powerful than opposition political parties and non-governmental organizations, which sometimes clash with the government of Turkey concerning the latter’s policies in the TRNC and the Cyprus question. As the TRNC’s patron state, Turkey shapes its stance on the island in parallel with its relations with the European Union. The lack of any progress on Turkey’s EU membership and uncompromising position of the Greek Cypriot leadership at negotiations in recent decades have pushed Turkey to shift its position on the Cyprus problem. Therefore, after coming to power, Tatar stated that a federal solution is not possible on the island and insisted that a two-state model be implemented with the support of Turkey.