#cover t-r-the-renegade-anticolonial-separatism-in-the-ne-1.jpg
#title Anticolonial Separatism in the Neoliberal Era
#author The Renegade
#SORTauthors Brendan S.
#SORTtopics armed struggle, Rojava, statism, the State, Artsakh, neoliberalism, colonialism, anti-colonialism, Armenia, Azerbaijan
#date May 2022
#source Retrieved on 2022-08-30 from [[https://therenegadeshop.bigcartel.com/product/anticolonial-separatism-in-the-neoliberal-era-a-97-page-thesis-by-the-renegade][therenegadeshop.bigcartel.com/product/anticolonial-separatism-in-the-neoliberal-era-a-97-page-thesis-by-the-renegade]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2022-08-31T01:24:23
** Abstract
*In an era of concentrated capital, concentrated power, and
deteriorating political conditions, separatism has yielded itself as a
vehicle for marginalized populations to uplift themselves. Amid a
wavering liberal international order, this thesis serves to provide a
better understanding of how populations free themselves, and what
challenges they face in doing so. From the question of what impacts the
capability of separatist movements to secede in the neoliberal era, I
argue that state coercion, state co-optation, and internal dynamics of a
movement impact this capability to secede. I compare separatist
movements with internally decentralized characteristics to those with
internally centralized characteristics in how they respond to mutual
challenges. The cases of decentralized Rojava in the Levant and
centralized Artsakh in the Caucasus are closely observed and contrasted
as movements that have resisted intersecting problems in the neoliberal
era. I find answers to the question of why Artsakh collapsed while
Rojava has not. Late-stage statism is also included in this thesis as a
new theoretical approach to describe the pattern of an increasingly
authoritarian international system.*
** Introduction
Since the 1970s, a wave of separatist movements has emerged across the
international system in response to increasingly authoritarian
governments, influxes of foreign corporations, and other problems
imposed on marginalized populations. This wave has been described by
some as an “ethnic explosion” which “blasted across the world” with
marginalized populations mobilizing to free themselves from a
deteriorating political environment, leading to the emergence of
anticolonial separatist movements such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party,
Khalistan Liberation Force, Tigray People’s Liberation Front, and many
others (Chandhoke, 2006, p. 1). This description of the “ethnic
explosion” remains consistent, as many active separatist movements today
either began mobilizing or resumed their armed struggle in this nascent
stage of the neoliberal era. While these groups often differ in
ideology, a common characteristic is their anticolonial tendencies, that
is, an emphasis on resisting foreign control and subjugation (Dei &
Asgharzadeh, 2001). A key distinction in their methods of resistance can
be observed between movements that are centralized and movements that
are decentralized (Graeber, 2007).
With some states perceiving these movements as exploitable proxy forces
and other states perceiving them as threats to their power structures,
states have attempted to coerce and co-opt anticolonial separatist
movements in a myriad of ways. In some cases, backer states attempt to
form a dependency by flooding the movement with aid or controlling it as
a proxy, often reshaping its internal principles to accommodate this
dependence (Heibach, 2021). Occupying states, on the other hand, attempt
to diminish these movements into submission by enticing their
represented population with increased political representation and
dividing the population politically (Jesse & Williams, 2010).
How movements respond to these problems often determines their
capability to accomplish secession. To examine the dynamic of recent
anticolonial separatist movements, my thesis asks, **what factors impact
the capability of anticolonial separatist movements to secede in the
neoliberal era?** I argue that state coercion and co-optation along with
the internal dynamics of a movement impact its capability to secede in
the neoliberal era, and that decentralization leads to fewer challenges
in seceding. I will look at how various movements have resisted problems
imposed on them in attaining or failing to attain secession, as well as
ideological frameworks that affect the sustainability of a movement.
Scholars, and certainly separatists themselves, have contributed to the
discussion of how movements secede and the conditions that determine
their fate in the neoliberal era. Looking at state involvement in a
movement, some find dependence on state backers to affect the movement
negatively by diminishing its original principles, as seen in the
Southern Movement of Yemen (Heibach, 2021). Others point out that
dependence on state backers can affect a movement positively,
particularly in movements that are resisting oppression in post-Soviet
regions (Aksenyonok, 2007). The theoretical debate of decentralization
versus centralization is also a central point of conversation as it
pertains to the function of anticolonial separatist movements.
I will compare decentralized movements to centralized movements and
analyze how they have responded to various challenges. In looking at a
decentralized movement, I will examine the Rojava revolution, as this is
a prominent case of anticolonial separatism in the neoliberal era that
displays a decentralized method of resistance. In observing a
centralized movement, I will examine the Artsakh resistance, as this
shows a movement operating from a different model of centralization that
is more susceptible to challenges in the factors discussed. I will
compare and contrast how these differing examples of separatist
resistance interact with factors discussed in the literature review, and
to what extent they have succeeded or failed at attaining secession.
**
** Literature Review
*** Conceptualizing Separatism
For the purpose of this thesis, I contend that movements which are
separatist in nature intend to create a separation of power from
existing political structures, and that this can include autonomy within
a state. Some scholars, such as Don Doyle (2010), suggest that movements
seeking autonomy within a state are not separatist but rather reformist.
Contrary to this assertion, autonomy within a state still counts as
separation of power from an existing political structure. This debate is
rooted in how one perceives the threshold for secession, or separation
of power. Though separatism is most commonly associated with separation
from a state, the term has also been argued by some scholars as
pertaining to religious institutions as well (Bumsted, 1967). In this
thesis, I refer particularly to separatist movements that wish to
separate power from a state.
Furthermore, I contend that separatism and secessionism are
interchangeable terms. This interpretation has also been contested. John
Wood (1981) and Aleksandar Pavković (2015) assert that secessionism
explicitly denotes separation from a state with the aim of creating a
new one, whereas separatism more broadly advocates for reduced central
authority over a population or territory. However, they agree with the
interpretation that separatism can include autonomy within a state, and
can be broadly applied to numerous forms of power separation. Separatist
movements are therefore distinct from other forms of rebellion in that
they aim to form a separate political structure, not necessarily replace
an active government. The premises for separation are often
characterized by a group’s differing ethnic, religious, or political
values from that of a state’s ruling class. The act of secession is thus
defined in this thesis as the creation of political autonomy separate
from an existing state or institution’s power structures.
**** Anticolonialism
Following the suggested interpretation of George Dei and Alireza
Asghardzadeh (2001): movements that are anticolonial in nature are those
that, in their original principles, intend to resist oppression and
control from foreign and external power structures. As described by
Yatana Yamahata (2019), anticolonial movements should be “understood as
a continuous political and epistemic project that extends beyond
national liberation. They challenge the coloniality of power as well as
shift the state-centric focus of decolonisation” (p. 4). The concept of
anticolonialism can scarcely be discussed without the concept of
decolonization as well. According to Dei and Asghardzadeh (2001),
anticolonialism utilizes decolonization as a vehicle to expel colonial
tendences in a given society, both social and political. Helen Tiffin
(1995) argues that decolonization is a “process, not arrival; it invokes
an on-going dialectic between hegemonic centrist systems and peripheral
subversion of them” (p. 95). That is, anticolonialism includes objection
to hegemonic structures that are attempting to colonize a population
with its own social and cultural norms.
This interpretation challenges the traditional idea of colonialism,
which strictly involves the migration of settlers into a colony. This
traditional interpretation is employed by David McCullough (2015) for
example, indicating colonialism to be a practice by settlers who “risked
the dangers of settling new lands for reasons of faith” (p. 403). The
interpretation of colonialism followed in this thesis is not strictly
one of settler-colonialism, but one of social colonialism as well. As
described by social ecologist thinker Cynthia Radding (1997),
colonialism is a process that encompasses “social stratification along
ethnic, class, gender, and income lines” imposed by the administering
hegemonic power. It is a system that entails a myriad of social
repercussions beyond the simple migration of colonists (Radding, 1997,
p. 1). Thus, anticolonialism is the objection and resistance to these
social repercussions of colonialism.
Lastly, I contend that anticolonial movements can be distinguished from
extremist movements in that extremist movements are coercive in nature,
attempting to forcefully subjugate or assimilate populations on the
basis of an enforced hegemony, while anticolonial movements are not
coercive in nature. Anticolonial movements may participate in isolated
acts of coercion, but these acts are not supported by their official
principles. Coercive extremist movements, as suggested by progressive
thinkers such as Aijaz Ahmad (2008) and Geoff Eley (2016) of Socialist
Register, may commonly fall under the label of “fascism.” This includes
clerical fascism in movements like ISIS and al-Qaeda, which intend to
destroy all secular influence by force, or social fascism of vanguard
movements like the Sendero Luminoso of Peru, which intentionally
massacred peasant populations to extend its power. Since the term
“terrorism” is highly subjective and often abused for state narratives,
I will not be using it to describe extremist movements.
**** Neoliberalism
At its foundations, many economists associate the neoliberal era with a
transition from “Fordism” to a “post-Fordism” in the world economy. Mass
production has become a global phenomenon where corporations and
monopolies now have unprecedented international powers compared to the
age of Fordism, where corporate power was more limited and trade
barriers more prevalent (Miller, 2018). The philosophy of neoliberalism,
which advocates oligopoly, decreased trade barriers, and rapid corporate
expansion at the expense of labor rights, became a mainstream political
doctrine in the nation-state system around the time of the 1973 Chilean
coup that brought Western-backed neoliberal dictator Augusto Pinochet to
power in Chile (Miller, 2018). The doctrine subsequently became a
globalized policy during the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the
1980s, definitively replacing the remnants of Fordism. This phenomenon
is weaponized by states against marginalized populations and their
separatist movements, with common state tactics including information
warfare, state integration of the military-industrial complex, increased
armament production, and commodification of weapons technology (Miller,
2018).
Within the topic of neoliberalism there is an extensive discussion on
late-stage capitalism: the idea that capital becomes increasingly
concentrated into the hands of fewer people over time and cannot sustain
itself as a medium of human interaction (Targ, 2006)(Peck and Theodore,
2019). In conflicts involving separatism, one may find *late-stage
statism* to run concurrent with the idea of late-stage capitalism.
Thinkers such as David Graeber (2007), Harry Targ (2006), Jamie Peck and
Nik Theodore (2019) theorize that UN-recognized nation-states grow
increasingly authoritarian and autocratic as political power
simultaneously shrinks into fewer and fewer structures. Like the capital
which has developed them, these nation-states struggle to sustain
themselves as legitimate mediums of human interaction. Growing
exponentially illegitimate to populations marginalized by their power
structures, nation-states and their megapoles resort to coercion and
co-optation to suppress these populations (Targ, 2006)(Peck and
Theodore, 2019). One can find examples of this in both cases studies
observed in this thesis. Since there is not yet a term coined to
describe this phenomenon, I describe it here as late-stage statism.
*** State Involvement
**** Coercion
States will often pursue separatist movements militarily in
“counterinsurgency,” which military sciences scholar David Ucko (2012)
defines as the “totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces”
(p. 68). Counterinsurgency is a major doctrine discussed among military
sciences communities in their approach to coercing separatist movements.
Some counterinsurgency scholars go as far as advocating for aggression
against civilian populations to contain separatist movements, which are
often thrust into the ambiguous and dehumanizing “insurgent” label.
Neoconservative-aligned military sciences scholar Daniel Levine (2009)
maintains that “coercive measures aimed at population control are part
of mainstream counterinsurgency strategy” and that restriction of
civilian freedoms is “backed up with the threat of force” (p. 5).
Disarmament is also a common objective when it comes to state strategy
in coercing separatist movements. Subcomandante Marcos (1998), a
commander of the anticolonial Zapatistas movement in Mexico, points out
in one of his dispatches that the Mexican state has ignored cartel and
rogue paramilitary violence to focus on disarming his movement and
prevent it from seceding.
**** Paramilitaries and Information Warfare
In the neoliberal era, state-backed paramilitary forces have emerged as
an increasingly common instrument to suppress separatism. States will
often arm domestic proxy forces so that conventional militaries and
police forces do not have to confront the separatists directly. In one
example, Ricardo Dominguez (2015) elucidates how the Mexican state has
armed corporate paramilitary forces to combat Zapatista presence in
Mexico. When disarmament of the Zapatistas failed, a state-backed
paramilitary called Máscara Roja was armed with the purpose of combating
the Zapatistas. Máscara Roja subsequently committed the Acteal massacre
of 1997, slaughtering dozens of supposed Zapatista sympathizers
(Dominguez, 2015).
This pattern of arming nonstate actors to coerce separatist movements
has been widely observed across the nation-state system. In arming
unregulated paramilitary forces, states coerce separatist movements by
terrorizing local populations without having to take direct blame for
it. As Frank Bovenkerk and Yücel Yeşilgöz (2004) illustrate, the Grey
Wolves of Turkey, for example, have been armed by the Turkish state to
suppress the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. This arming of the unregulated
Grey Wolves paramilitary has, in turn, led to numerous massacres of
civilian populations in Kurdistan. With the intentions of the state in
this matter, however, it can be argued that regulation or lack of
regulation for the paramilitaries may not make an ethical difference
(Bovenkerk and Yeşilgöz, 2004).
Emma Sinclair-Webb (2013) indicates in her analysis of the Kuşkonar and
Koçağılı massacres of 1994 that states have abused information warfare
to carry out false flag narratives as well, blaming the separatist
movement for actions it did not commit. When this false flag narrative
is accepted among the general population, the movement is then
confronted with a struggle of information warfare. This is particularly
the case with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has been subjected to
a Turkish propaganda machine widely perceived as legitimate among the
engaged Turkish population. Information warfare contributes
substantially to the normative conflict between a separatist movement
and its state adversaries, the state often making an intensive effort to
disseminate and internationalize coercive norms.
**** The Megapole
The concept of the megapole is a key characteristic of the neoliberal
era in its coercive response to separatism. Coined by Subcomandante
Marcos (1997), a megapole is an alliance between the state and corporate
sector intended to coerce (or co-opt) populations into submission via
“destruction/depopulation” and subsequently
“reconstruction/reorganization” to plant state and corporate authority
in a region by force (p. 567). Indigenous populations are often most
impacted by this neoliberal practice from the Mapuches of Chile to the
Montagnards of Vietnam, subjected to renewed settler-colonialism in the
wake of corporate expansionism. Subcomandante Marcos explains that
“Megapoles reproduce themselves all over the planet,” being a natural
tendency of hegemonies in the nation-state system. All megapoles are
entwined with the global capitalist system in one way or another. Marcos
knows best that his movement, the Zapatistas, has not only had to resist
coercion from the Western megapole in the wake of NAFTA but also the
co-optive incentives of dependence on Eastern megapoles such as those
seen in the Belt and Road Initiative.
**** Co-Optation
While many separatist movements are faced with the challenge of external
coercion by force from states, many are also faced with the erosion of
their perceived legitimacy as a result of state co-optation. That is,
when disgruntled populations are “transformed into supporters of the
status quo” (p. 42) as a result of states satisfying the elite of that
population, whether this be via bribery, political power, or social
status (Jesse & Williams, 2010). The elite then disseminate this
satisfaction to the population, causing armed dissent to be ostracized
into an out-group of “radicalism” or “extremism” juxtaposed by a
legitimized “moderate” bloc. The purpose of state co-optation is not
necessarily to defeat separatist movements with hard power, but to
diminish them with soft power.
Anti-separatist Max Boot (2013) argues that separatist movements are
successfully contained in this manner, but with the help of extensive
military involvement. Boot (2013) contends that state militaries must
not focus “on chasing guerrillas, but on securing the local population”
(p. 112). When this occurs in unison with state policy, he argues,
separatist movements are effectively diminished. In other words, Boot
believes that separatist movements cannot truly be dismantled without
concerted state and military efforts to “win hearts and minds” as a
co-optation strategy with the disaffected population (Boot, 2013, p.
112).
**** Federalization
Neera Chandhoke (2006), also in favor of containing separatism, proposes
instead that federalization has acted as an effective deterrent. In
federalization, the dissatisfied population is granted some form of
representation in the political chambers of the state. Chandhoke (2006)
concludes that providing dissatisfied groups with engagement in
collective action erodes demands for sovereignty. The elite are
co-opted, and in a manner that distracts the population in question from
their own armed struggle, diverting their attention to state political
chambers. However, Chandhoke (2006) warns that when a state centralizes,
demands for sovereignty increase as the state’s hegemony absorbs
regional decision-making. Using the Indian state as an example, with the
absorption of regional governments under state administration,
separatist movements in Kashmir, Punjab, and Assam have become more
active as ethnic voices are denied in the political process (Chandhoke,
2006). This has been particularly prevalent during the Narendra Modi
administration.
**** Dependence on Backers
Some scholars find that a movement’s dependence on a backing state or
institution can affect it detrimentally. In one example, the Southern
Movement of Yemen has become so dependent on support from the United
Arab Emirates (UAE) that it “answer[s] directly to the Emirates,” its
decision-making largely replaced by the backing government (Ardemagni,
2017, p. 2). As Eleonara Ardemagni (2017) points out, with the voices of
local populations largely nullified in the administering process, the
movement loses its legitimacy. The presence of foreign influence has
also led to general discontent among local populations (Ardemagni,
2017). Jens Heibach (2021) suggests one of the purposes of UAE backing
is to “usurp the Southern Movement’s secessionist demands,” manipulating
its interests to best accommodate Emirati power in Yemen meanwhile
diminishing the movement’s organic interests (p. 6).
Other scholars suggest that dependence on backers has been of
considerable importance to separatist movements, particularly in the
Russian sphere. Adding to the “ethnic explosion” of the 1970s and 1980s,
the collapse of the Soviet Union injected yet another array of
separatist movements into the international system. The Russian
Federation has since been widely observed backing many of these
separatist movements to secure its regional influence. Alexander
Aksenyonok (2007) suggests that without Russian backing, ethnic groups
like the Abkhaz are doomed to perpetual marginalization in UN-recognized
nation-states. Following the collapse of the USSR, “unitary states were
introduced by brute force” leading to “Smoldering interethnic conflicts
flar[ing] up with new intensity when the central governments abolished
the broad privileges that had been enjoyed by ethnic minorities…in a
federal state” (Aksenyonok, 2007, ¶ 25). From this lens, it is argued
that state backing of separatist movements is justified when it ensures
the rights of marginalized ethnic groups.
Russian backing, Arsene Saparov (2014) argues, acts as a mechanism of
conflict resolution for the Russian state, as the autonomy of these
ethnic groups diminishes the responsibility of neighboring states to
suppress their separatist movements. From this lens, dependence on a
powerful backer is mutually beneficial for both the separatists and the
occupying state. This relationship with the backer is not always
cordial, however. Pål Kolstø (2019) argues that in spite of Russian
dependence, Abkhazia has presented its autonomy by voicing dissent with
various Russian policies. Though walking a thin line between Russian
dependence and total collapse, Abkhazian civil society and government
are not always compliant with the Russian Federation when it comes to
making their autonomy clear.
*** Internal Dynamics
The internal dynamics and framework of a movement are fundamental in
determining its capability to resist collapse and attain secession. In
the neoliberal era, a dichotomy between decentralized and centralized
movements comprises the bulk of all active anticolonial separatist
movements. The way in which movements conduct and administer themselves
often determines their longevity, and subsequently their fate.
Decentralized movements generally have power distributed in a web of
social bodies within the movement. This can take the form of a
confederal system where local and regional councils are more powerful
than the central governing body, as seen in the Rojava and Zapatista
movements respectively (Dirik, 2018). Centralized movements, on the
other hand, generally harness concentrated decision-making power in the
hands of a small elite. This is often manifested in the form of a
vanguard, or centralized party which operates a heavily hierarchic
top-down command system beginning with the elite (Vanaik, 1986)(Kautsky,
1997).
**** Decentralization
Proponents of decentralized separatist models often argue that
decentralization creates more elasticity and fluidity in a movement,
preventing it from collapsing easily. In anticolonial movements, this
line of thought usually follows indigenous, libertarian socialist, and
anarchist models, but can also include interpretations of Marxism
(Kautsky, 1997). Subcomandante Marcos (2003), a commander of the
decentralized Zapatista movement of Chiapas, Mexico, proudly exclaimed
in a letter to Basque separatists: “I shit on all the revolutionary
vanguards of this planet.” Here Marcos separates the Zapatista model
from the failed Marxist-Leninist movements of the 20th century which had
collapsed upon the onset of the neoliberal era and the fall of the
Soviet Union. Marcos (1998) explains how his movement, the Zapatistas,
have been able to adapt to the neoliberal era by confronting it with
decentralized power, taking a strictly anti-corporate and anti-colonial
stance collectively, with the power of each community balanced equally
in the movement.
Libertarian socialist thinker Naomi Klein (2002) adds that movements
with less hierarchy are less isolated and more accessible to
international solidarity. The success of the decentralized Zapatistas in
creating autonomy in Chiapas in spite of coercion from state and
corporate actors, she notes, “could not be written off as a narrow
‘ethnic’ or ‘local’ struggle” and instead “it was universal” (Klein,
2002, p. 4). Klein notes, “The traditional institutions that once
organized citizens into neat, structured groups are all in decline:
unions, religions, political parties” (p. 7). The broader phenomenon of
decentralized anticolonial organization emerging organically “is not a
movement for a single global government but a vision for an increasingly
connected international network of very local initiatives, each built on
direct democracy” she continues (Klein, 2002, p. 12).
This form of decentralized administration is also followed by the Rojava
revolution in the Levant, which I will look closely at as a case study.
Kurdish activist Dilar Dirik suggests that without this decentralized
model of “stateless democracy,” the Rojava revolution would be
unsustainable and vulnerable to collapse (Dirik, 2018). This lack of
hierarchy, Dirik (2018) argues, has led to the movement’s success in
keeping its power separated.
Decentralized separatist models are certainly not without critique,
however. In fact, they have been criticized in the Marxist tradition for
at least 150 years. During the formation of decentralized international
models in the 19th century by Mikhail Bakunin and other decentralist
members of the International Workingmen’s Association, Friedrich Engels
(1872) notably adopted a hardline stance against decentralized rebellion
of any kind, arguably exceeding any of Marx’s critiques. In his 1872
piece “On Authority,” Engels angrily insists that decentralists either
“don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are creating
nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are
betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the
reaction” (Engels, 1872, ¶ 14). Since Marx’s and Engel’s expulsion of
libertarian socialists and anarchists from the International
Workingmen’s Association in September of that year, many Marxist
thinkers have inherited this antagonizing approach to decentralization,
particularly in Marxism-Leninism. This 150-year-old debate remains one
of the most divisive in the Marxist tradition to this day. It is notably
Eurocentric and tends to neglect decentralized indigenous models of
resistance such as those seen in Kurdistan and Chiapas.
**** Centralization
Marxist-Leninist thinker Achin Vanaik (1986) argues that centralization
in a movement is critical to opposing centralized institutions of
oppression, particularly hegemonic states. “The bourgeois state is the
vanguard organisation of bourgeois society, the most important bulwark
defending the domain of ruling class oppression and exploitation,” he
asserts, “Just as the bourgeois state must centralise the understandings
and experiences of various segments of the oppressor classes the better
to defend them, so too the revolutionary party must centralise the
understandings and experiences of the various components of the
oppressed and exploited classes the better to defend them” (p. 1640).
This argument has been widely adopted by Marxist-Leninist thinkers in
their approach to separatist movements, following the top-down model of
centralized vanguards. Vanaik backs up his defense of vanguardism, in
this sense, by alluding to the many Marxist-Leninist revolutions of the
20th century that successfully separated power from the “bourgeois
state” (Vanaik, 1986).
Jayadeva Uyangoda (2005) discusses the centralized Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its response to the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean
tsunami. He asserts that the hyper-centralized LTTE structure was able
to enact disaster relief efforts far more effectively than the Sri
Lankan state, which suffered from corruption and an ineffective
bureaucracy. Because of its centralized efficiency, “the LTTE could
immediately deploy its cadres and volunteers in the rescue and relief
operations,” which in turn saved thousands of lives (pp. 10–11). The
LTTE’s model of “humanitarian intervention from above,” Uyangoda argues,
was so effective that it made the Sri Lankan state appear completely
incapable of responding to disasters (Uyangoda, 2005). This use of
centralization to provide efficient humanitarian and medical care can
strengthen centralized movements and improve their legitimacy.
Stephen Day (2010) suggests that centralization in the Southern Movement
of Yemen has helped it remain unified. The Yemeni state has been unable
to divide southern tribes and pit them against one another because of
their mutual loyalty to the top-down Southern Movement. Though now
heavily influenced by the UAE, the Southern Movement was built from the
foundations of the highly centralized state of South Yemen, which
sustained sovereignty from 1967 to 1990. South Yemen “criminalized acts
of tribal revenge, imposing law and order through an assertion of state
power ” while “sheikhs lost their influence in society” (p. 7). With
these centralized acts, a common cohesion and national unity was
consolidated among the southern tribes. This unity through
centralization, so to speak, is part of how the Southern Movement has
been able to sustain its power among the southern tribes of Yemen to
this day (Day, 2010). A similar dynamic can be observed in the Tigray
People’s Liberation Front, which was recently able to separate its power
from the Ethiopian state through a system of democratic centralism.
The centralist stance is heavily contested by decentralist separatist
perspectives. Many point out that centralized movements have failed to
withstand the neoliberal era, and have collapsed under the pressure of
liberal institutionalism. The late anarchist thinker David Graeber
(2007) points out how it has become increasingly rare for centralized
vanguards to sustain “an alliance between a society’s least alienated
and its most oppressed,” mentioning the contradictions between the
centralized movement’s elite class and its general membership (ch. 9).
The hierarchy of centralized movements has become increasingly perceived
as ineffective and even a threat to human rights among critical theory
thinkers. John Kautsky (1997), alluding to the many purges and massacres
committed within centralized movements of the 20th century, notes that
the vanguard relies on “mass persuasion, mass regimentation and mass
terror” to attain and sustain power (p. 379). Kautsky echoes the
sentiment of his grandfather Karl Kautsky, a renowned anti-Bolshevik
Marxist thinker.
Lenin (1917) asserted in *The State and Revolution* that the “democratic
republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism,” while
insisting that the proletarian state is at the opposite end of this
binary. Kurdish revolutionary Abdullah Ocalan (2012) counters this idea
by asserting that the state in itself is a shell of capitalism, and thus
any movement attempting to achieve a state of its own will inevitably
succumb to capitalism or collapse altogether, as seen with the Soviet
Union. Ocalan contends that no matter how much a centralized statist
movement wants to run away from capitalism, it will never be capable of
separating itself unless it dismantles hierarchy beginning at the
community level (Ocalan, 2012).
Centralization relies on vertical (top-down) structures, while
decentralization relies on horizontal (bottom-up) structures. This
discussion also intersects with the concept of conventionality. Armies
and militaries of UN-recognized nation-states are near universally
centralized top-down structures, a model normalized in recent centuries
to the degree it has been deemed the “conventional” or “regular”
military model (Kilcullen, 2019). This model is juxtaposed by
“unconventional,” “irregular,” “asymmetric,” or “guerilla” actors, which
are often structured asymmetrically or horizontally in a manner that
attempts to subvert larger conventional forces with fewer resources at
their disposal. Conventional forces are almost universally centralized
whereas unconventional forces are sometimes decentralized. These terms
are accompanied by “conventional warfare” when two conventional forces
wage war, and “unconventional warfare” when an unconventional actor is
involved (Kilcullen, 2019). Conventional militaries often struggle to
confront unconventional forces on the battlefield with conventional
tactics. Some separatist movements which begin unconventional attempt to
transition to conventionality once a separation of power has been
attained. This can be seen in the case of Artsakh.
*** The Discussion
In sum, scholars and separatists alike have many contradicting ideas as
to what impacts the capability of a movement to secede in the neoliberal
era. Beginning with the meaning of separatism itself and anticolonial
tendencies within the separatist umbrella, there exists no universal
consensus on this sensitive topic. Some find state coercion and
counterinsurgency to be an important determinant, coupled with
information warfare and corporate alliances as symptoms of the
neoliberal era. Others find state co-optation to be a strong deterrent
of separatist power and influence. Regarding the internal dynamics and
ideological framework of a movement, debate is largely split between the
concepts of centralization and decentralization. Marxist and neo-Marxist
thinkers predominate this debate on internal dynamics when it pertains
to anticolonial movements.
** Methodology
I will now address my argument that state coercion and co-optation
impact the capability of an anticolonial separatist movement to secede
in the neoliberal era as well as a movement’s internal dynamics and
ideological framework, with decentralized movements possessing a greater
capability to secede. To address my argument, I will analyze one example
of a decentralized movement and one example of a centralized movement in
how they relate to the factors discussed, then compare and contrast how
these movements have interacted with these factors.
I will look at the Rojava revolution, a decentralized movement
attempting to create sovereignty in Northern Syria. I chose the Rojava
revolution because it is a recent example of a largely successful
anticolonial separatist movement which has achieved a significant degree
of power separation, with its success largely owed to its internal
renewability. I will illustrate how the movement has been able to adapt
to state coercion while resisting co-optation, and discuss how its
internal characteristics have structured the movement’s integrity.
Attempts from foreign corporations to infiltrate the economy of Rojava
will be examined, as they correlate with Western attempts to co-opt
Rojava alongside an increasingly corporatized neoliberal era.
I will also look at the Artsakh resistance, a centralized movement
attempting to create sovereignty in the disputed region of Artsakh
(Nagorno-Karabakh). I chose this movement because it is a recent example
of a movement that has been directly impacted by many of the factors
discussed and consequently faltered. I will address how overdependence
on the Armenian state, conventionalization of its armed forces, internal
rigidity, and other factors have contributed to the collapse of the
Artsakh resistance. The increasingly authoritarian nature of the
Azerbaijani state will also be briefly discussed in how this relates to
its coercion of Artsakh, as this pertains to the temporal dynamics of
the neoliberal era at large. I will relay how the factors discussed have
impacted the movement’s status and observe how much the movement has
achieved in its objective of secession, along with how much it has
changed with the factors in mind.
Lastly, I will compare and contrast these movements in how they have
been capable or incapable of achieving secession. Some questions
considered will be: What are some mutual factors that can be observed in
both the Rojava revolution and Artsakh resistance? How has Rojava
survived multiple invasions while Artsakh collapsed after one invasion?
What have been the determinant factors leading to the success or failure
of the movements in achieving secession? This comparison will aid my
argument and conclusion, displaying how state involvement and internal
dynamics have heavily impacted both movements in their capability to
secede, the decentralized movement generally reacting positively to the
factors discussed and the centralized movement generally reacting
negatively.
** Rojava
*** Contextualizing Rojava
Rojava (meaning “west” or “land where the sun sets” in Kurdish) also
known as Gozarto in Assyrian, is a region within the UN-recognized
borders of Syria that has broken off from the Syrian state and
maintained its autonomy since 2013. The region is often referred to as
“Northern Syria” given that its territory comprises most Syrian-claimed
land north of the Euphrates River. Rojava’s governing administration is
officially called the “Autonomous Administration of North and East
Syria,” although many non-Arab inhabitants do not claim the region to be
Syrian. One may notice Kurdish inhabitants sometimes calling the region
“Syrian-occupied Kurdistan” and Assyrian inhabitants calling it
“Syrian-occupied Gozarto” given the fact it is still recognized as part
of Syria to the international system (Kurdistanipeople, 2020)(Hosseini,
2016). Regardless of the semantics one prefers, Rojava lays at a
crossroads of social and political metamorphosis in West Asia. A
homeland of numerous ethnic groups and communities that have been
marginalized by states and empires alike, many find the autonomous
region to act as an oasis of refuge and egalitarianism, complemented by
its stateless direct democratic political structures. This oasis did not
emerge out of nowhere, however. Tens of thousands of Rojava’s
inhabitants and dozens of foreign volunteers have been martyred while
creating this oasis in a resistance known as the Rojava revolution (RIC,
2020a).
The foundations of the Rojava revolution can be traced back to the
establishment of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 1978 by Kurdish
revolutionary Abdullah Ocalan. In response to the Turkish state’s
authoritarian and discriminatory policies against the Kurdish people,
Ocalan formed the first major revolutionary movement in Kurdistan aimed
at liberating the Kurdish nation from the nation-states imposed on it.
In 1984, the PKK took up arms and mobilized against the Turkish state,
hoping to achieve a separation of power. The movement would soon expand
into Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan, Iranian-occupied Kurdistan, and
Syrian-occupied Kurdistan, becoming a legitimate regional power with
millions of members and supporters (Ocalan, 2017).
Though the PKK began as a centralized vanguard with Marxist-Leninist
tendencies, it would take an ideological U-turn following Ocalan’s
arrest in 1999. Influenced by libertarian socialist thinkers such as
Murray Bookchin, Ocalan removed his emphasis on the creation of a
Kurdish nation-state, instead emphasizing the liberation of all
marginalized communities in West Asia. This abrupt change of pace led
the movement into a period of internal dialogue and restructuring. In
2011, Ocalan published his keystone piece *Democratic Confederalism*,
where he called for the movement’s unitary structures to be entirely
discarded and replaced by a decentralized web of councils under a
stateless and decentralized political system known as Democratic
Confederalism. Women’s liberation became a centrifugal doctrine upon
this restructuring, and intersectional dialogue led the movement to
question its original objective of simply replacing occupying states
with another state (Ocalan, 2012)(Hosseini, 2016). With the exception of
hardline Marxist-Leninists, many followers of Ocalan approved of the
movement’s transition, and his new model would soon become a widely
respected international blueprint via the Rojava revolution.
Just south of the UN-recognized Turkish border, the Rojava revolution
was born out of this internal dialogue and fundamental transition to
decentralization in the PKK, coinciding with a conflagration of
grievances against the Syrian state in the early 2010s. The model of
Democratic Confederalism materialized in Rojava largely due to the
Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM) and its predecessors, a
progressive coalition in Rojava influenced by Ocalan and the PKK. After
decades of Baathist rule, Syria’s marginalized communities were looking
to put an end to Arab hegemony, which had been fused into the state
following the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement and 1923 Lausanne Treaty that
created Syria’s modern borders. Beginning in 1962, hundreds of thousands
of non-Arabs were stripped of their citizenship and subjected to ethnic
cleansing policies that hoped to create an “Arab belt” in their
ancestral homeland (RIC, 2020a). Syria’s colonial legacy led the state
into an authoritarian spiral under the Assad dynasty. Many in the
marginalized Yazidi, Armenian, Circassian, Assyrian, and Kurdish
communities of Rojava found TEV-DEM to be the most suitable candidate
for the desired abolition of Syrian statism, calling for a complete
subversion and overhaul of the Syrian power structures.
TEV-DEM embraced the PKK’s ideological transition and adopted the new
model of Democratic Confederalism. The movement was given its first
opportunity to implement this model in the wake of the Arab Spring. Upon
the onset of the Syrian Civil War in mid-2012, the Syrian Arab Army
withdrew from the north to confront rebelling militias of the Free
Syrian Army to the south and west. This allowed TEV-DEM to secure
autonomy in the north with a confederation of councils, communes, and
cooperatives (Hosseini, 2016). The following year, the Autonomous
Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) declared its separation
of power from the Syrian state representing one collective Rojava free
of colonial structures, and constructed the first complete governing
model of Democratic Confederalism. Rojava has since faced an invasion
from ISIS and three invasions from the Turkish state and its allied
militias, compounded by sporadic fighting with the Syrian state. Rojava
has also resisted attempted co-optation from the US and other actors
(RIC, 2020b). Despite losing part of its territory in the process, the
decentralized administration of Rojava remains completely intact and has
not been altered. The region is defended by the Syrian Democratic Forces
(SDF), which is a coalition of progressive militias led by the People’s
Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ).
The Rojava revolution is a separatist movement in that it aims to
separate its power from the Syrian state, and it has achieved this.
Rojava was born out of resistance to the oppressive colonial structures
of the Syrian and Turkish states, forging its political model around
ensuring colonial structures are never present in the region again.
Thus, Rojava is anticolonial in every connotation of the term. The
movement has also resisted many components of the neoliberal era that
shall be discussed, such as corporate opportunism, drone warfare,
information warfare, and the megapoles which drive them.
*** State Coercion of Rojava
It is without question that the Rojava revolution has been afflicted
with an onslaught of state coercion intending to limit its capability to
remain seceded and autonomous. Though ISIS has coerced Rojava to a
significant degree, it will not be included in this section since ISIS
is not a nation-state nor is it internationally recognized. The
UN-recognized nation-states of Syria and Turkey will be observed here in
their coercion of Rojava and intent to extinguish its separation of
power, as well as their crimes against Rojava’s population.
**** Syrian State Coercion
Beginning with the Syrian state, the Baathist power structure of Syria
under the Assad dynasty hopes to expand its megapole into Rojava after
losing occupation of the region in 2012. Though an unstable ceasefire
has been in effect between Syria and Rojava since August 2015, it has
been made clear that the Syrian state finds Rojava’s separation of power
illegitimate (AJ, 2015). Military force has been used against Rojava by
both the Syrian Arab Army and its allied paramilitaries, backed with
support from the Russian megapole and military-industrial complex.
The Syrian state has armed paramilitary actors to coerce Rojava, such as
the National Defense Forces (NDF). Two major battles have occurred
between the NDF and SDF in the city of Hasakah after the paramilitary
attempted to expand its occupation in Rojava, the first in August 2016
and the second in January 2022. Both occasions resulted in loss of
territory for the NDF. Battles and skirmishes have also occurred in Deir
ez-Zor region, particularly around Khsham (The Renegade, 2021). Syrian
state backing of the NDF and its direct support from the Syrian Arab
Army have proven problematic for Rojava, though not as dire a threat as
the Turkish state.
Information warfare is also a key piece of the Syrian state’s coercion
of Rojava. Antagonization of Rojava disseminated largely through the
state-run Syrian Arab News Agency
(SANA) can be observed, describing the Syrian Democratic Forces as “Kurd
militants” and frequently spreading claims accusing Rojava of crimes
there is no evidence for (SANA, 2020). The Syrian Ministry of
Information has developed and expanded its operations significantly
throughout the neoliberal era to accommodate social media and digital
information, especially during the Syrian Civil War. The Syrian state’s
information warfare has seen productive results regarding international
support bases, drawing in newfound support from many authoritarian
communities on the left and right alike. A network of front agencies
oversee the international dissemination of pro-Assad information, all
connected to a transnational organization calling itself the “Syrian
Solidarity Movement” (Davis, 2019). In this sense, globalization in the
neoliberal era has allowed the Syrian state to further internationalize
its efforts in information warfare.
**** Turkish State Coercion
Since the attempted 2016 coup in Turkey, the Turkish state has reached
its authoritarian zenith in the era of late-stage statism and
neoliberalism. A Justice and Development Party ruling class led by
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become determined to consolidate its
power and externalize Turkey’s domestic issues. In this process, the
Turkish military-industrial complex has become further entwined with the
government, resulting in a highly imperialist megapole. This megapole
happens to be a NATO power with a military backed by Western tax money.
Unlike the Syrian state, the Turkish state is direct, forceful, and
overt in its attempts to coerce Rojava, making heavy use of
counterinsurgency in its strategy to eliminate Rojava’s autonomy and
replace it with Turkish occupation. The Turkish state has brutally
enforced population control in its three invasions of Rojava: the
invasion of northern Aleppo region in 2016, invasion of Afrin 2018, and
invasion of Serekaniye in 2019 (RIC, 2020a)(RIC, 2020b). This
counterinsurgency operation has been brutal and devastating to the
entire region, and may even classify as genocide. Aggression against
civilians has proven a major component of the Turkish state’s plan to
subjugate Rojava’s population under the guise of counterinsurgency. The
Turkish state has also directed its megapole toward Rojava, evidently
fixated on destroying the region.
(Trigger warning: sexual violence) According to data collected by the
Missing Afrin Women Project between January 2018 and June 2021, 170
women were confirmed kidnapped by Turkish forces and SNA proxy militias,
dozens of these women forced into sex slavery and many of them minors
(Missing Afrin Women Project, 2021). Given heavily enforced censorship
under Turkish occupation, the actual number is likely much higher. Mass
rape and kidnappings have continued following this collection of data,
and some estimates put the figure at over 1,000 victims (Bianet, 2021).
During the invasion of Afrin, some estimates convey that 80% of olive
trees grown by Kurdish farmers were either burned or stolen by Turkish
forces and relocated to Turkey, eliminating the livelihoods of the
farmers while leading them and their families into starvation (ANF,
2018). According to Saleh Ibo, a representative of the Afrin
Agricultural Council in 2018:
“The most beautiful canton in Northern Syria used to be Afrin, it was
known for it. It was
a rich canton with its nature, culture and economy. That is why the
invading Turkish state
targeted Afrin quite deliberately…
The invading Turkish state targeted Afrin’s forest areas in April in
particular. Many trees,
including olive trees, were burned. The invaders first stole 20 tonnes
of Afrin’s wheat and
took it to Turkey in front of the whole world to see. They bought from a
very limited
group of people. We as the Agricultural Council did a study that shows
that the Turkish
state bought produce from Afrin at 25% of what would have been an
acceptable market
price. Farmers and producers can’t survive like this. But they
confiscated most of the
wheat illegitimately in any case” (ANF, 2018).
These crimes against Rojava’s population were exacerbated around the
Turkish state’s second invasion in 2019, which targeted the cities of
Serekaniye and Gire Spi. Prior to the invasion, the Turkish state had
committed mass arson on Rojava’s crop fields, wiping out multiple
seasons of crop yields and rendering the land fallow from Raqqa to
Hasakah regions. In committing this egregious crime against humanity,
the Turkish state attempted to weaken Rojava by starving its population
and sending it into a period of severe famine. This act of state arson
was corroborated by a video captured at the border showing a Turkish
soldier deliberately setting a field on fire (Pressenza, 2019).
Despite sending Rojava into famine, the Turkish state failed to defeat
the SDF and was forced to halt its offensive in November 2019. It did
not stop coercing Rojava, however. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the
Turkish state then weaponized water against the people of Rojava by
shutting down Alouk Water Station near Serekaniye, cutting off water
access to nearly 500,000 people. This left a large portion of Rojava
along with its medical facilities without water, resulting in a sudden
lack of resources to combat Covid. A spike in Covid along with a
worsening famine across Rojava followed, killing many people (HRW,
2020). The Turkish state’s deliberate destruction of Rojava’s basic life
necessities, intended to send the Kurdish, Yazidi, Assyrian, and
Armenian populations into famine, has been described by many as an act
of genocide. Deliberate widespread destruction of sacred historical
sites by Turkish forces and allies has been cited in this discussion of
genocide as well (NPA, 2021).
The Turkish state has armed many paramilitary groups to complement its
aggression against the population of Rojava. In 2017, the Turkish state
founded the Syrian National Army (SNA) to aggregate its coalition of
proxy militias. The Turkish state has exported units of the SNA abroad
to fight as a proxy force, primarily to Libya and Azerbaijan. Presence
of Turkish-backed mercenary militias abroad has added complications to
peace processes and stalled negotiations, especially in Libya. Turkish
state-backed paramilitary efforts against Rojava do not end at the SNA,
however. Turkish National Intelligence Organization-backed armed cells
have been discovered and captured within the territory of Rojava (ANHA,
2020).
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and artificial intelligence are military
characteristics of the neoliberal era which have added a major source of
revenue and power for military-industrial complexes across the world,
the Turkish state one of the most prominent examples of this. Since the
introduction of the Bayraktar drone family in 2005, drones have become
the centerpiece of the Turkish military-industrial complex at the
expense of Rojava’s population and many other communities in the Global
South who have been the recipients of Turkish drone attacks, from Tigray
to Artsakh. Since the Turkish state’s first invasion of Rojava in 2016,
Bayraktar drones have killed hundreds of civilians in Rojava and
probably thousands across the world, though the ever-increasing number
may never be known (Feroz, 2016). The Turkish state is able to use
drones as a method of population control in areas it does not occupy
militarily, striking fear into civilian populations through artificial
aerial terror.
Normatively, the Turkish state bears a neo-Ottoman education system
which indoctrinates its students with anti-Kurdish and anti-Armenian
curriculum, sharing many of the same characteristics of the Azerbaijani
state’s system. Supported by a media network of state-sponsored channels
of information, Turkish education widely desensitizes the population to
state crimes, and is particularly problematic due to the Turkish state’s
expanding regional power.
Thus, information warfare is a fundamental component of the Turkish
state’s coercion in Rojava. Many attacks which occur in Turkish-occupied
territory are immediately blamed on the SDF and PKK without any
investigation, even when they are later found to be committed by ISIS or
a result of infighting within the SNA. Kurds, Yazidis, Assyrians,
Armenians, and all of Rojava’s communities are frequently described as
“terrorists” by the Turkish state, fueling severely racist and violent
currents of Turkish nationalism which span across not only Anatolia but
also the Turkish diaspora internationally (Baghdassarian and Zadah,
2021). Misinformation is often abused as a device to divert
international attention from Turkish war crimes.
Being a NATO member, the Turkish state’s claims are often perceived as
more credible than Rojava’s, creating a perpetual funnel of
misinformation to Western states, human rights organizations, and even
the UN. The Turkish invasions were endorsed by NATO Secretary General
Jens Stoltenburg, who did not condemn the Turkish state but rather
condemned dissent within NATO against the Turkish state’s actions.
Stoltenburg stated in 2018 during the invasion of Afrin: “All nations
have the right to defend themselves…Turkey is one of the NATO nations
that suffers most from terrorism” (Daily Sabah, 2018). He stated in 2019
during the invasion of Serekaniye: “Turkey is important for NATO…We have
used, as NATO allies, the global coalition, all of us have used
infrastructure in Turkey, bases in Turkey in our operations to defeat
Daesh (ISIS). And that’s exactly one of the reasons why I’m concerned
about what is going on now. Because we risk undermining the unity we
need in the fight against Daesh” (Reuters, 2019) In these statements,
Stoltenburg diverts attention from the unilateral nature of the Turkish
invasion, instead falsely claiming it to be a matter of Turkish national
security against terrorism and a matter of collective security. With
this, Stoltenburg aligns with Turkish state information warfare to keep
the Turkish state’s image permissible within NATO. In April 2021, the
Biden administration renewed a $5 million bounty on PKK leaders, also
exhibiting its alignment with Turkish state information warfare (US
Dept. of State, 2021).
*** State Co-Optation of Rojava
**** Syrian State Co-Optation
In the midst of late-stage statism, the Syrian state has also reached
its peak of authoritarianism, which manifested in the Syrian Civil War.
The Syrian state does not dedicate much effort to securing the “hearts
and minds” of Rojava’s population because it has antagonized them both
in policy and military force for decades. Resentment toward the Syrian
state in the region accumulated and festered over decades of repression,
culminating in the 2004 Qamishli massacre. Legitimacy of the Syrian
state is particularly scarce north of the Euphrates River, being the
most marginalized region. With this in mind, the Syrian state has
prevented itself from securing sympathy from most of Rojava’s
population.
Syrian forces have been present in various pockets of Rojava and along
the Turkish border as part of an agreement made during the 2019 invasion
of Serekaniye. The agreement allows the Syrian Arab Army into some
regions, but not any new Syrian state administration, keeping Rojava’s
autonomy unscathed. The Syrian state practices what has been dubbed
“hamburger trick diplomacy,” where relations are dropped once the Syrian
state has extracted the most out of these relations it can,
metaphorically resembling a trick where the meat of a hamburger is
attached to a string then removed so that a customer receives only the
bun (McKay, 2018). Many Rojavayîs have demonstrated their distrust for
the Syrian state, its manipulation of crises to expand power, and
drawing of the Russian military into Rojava (Rudaw, 2020).
Nonetheless, the Syrian state has occasionally shown signs of
willingness to negotiate with Rojava. Negotiations for Syrian-recognized
autonomy for Rojava reached a high point in 2015, but have since been
stalled. Syrian state policy on Rojava became particularly inconsistent
following the resignation of Syrian State Minister for National
Reconciliation Affairs Ali Haidar in 2018 (Belewi, 2015)(Rudaw, 2022).
Federalization has been on the table for the Syrian peace process,
although this becomes complicated with Rojava’s insistence on autonomy
and the Turkish state’s insistence on excluding Rojava from any Syrian
peace process. The Russian state has advocated for including Rojava in
the Syrian peace process, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stating that
the “experience of Iraqi Kurds should be passed on to Syria,” alluding
to the federalized autonomy of the Kurdistan Regional Government within
the Iraqi state (Rudaw, 2022). The Syrian state has remained reluctant,
however, satisfied with Rojava’s complete exclusion from the Syrian
Constitutional Committee.
**** Russian State Co-Optation
The Russian state has taken advantage of its alliance with the Syrian
state to have a military presence in Rojava, being a party in many
agreements made between Rojava and the Syrian state. The Russian state
has been the most important ally to the Syrian state under the Assad
dynasty for decades, but particularly since the beginning of the Syrian
Civil War.
With clear consent from NATO on the Turkish invasions and US policy
yielding to this consent, Rojava has been forced to gravitate away from
its military partnership with the US Coalition in the direction of
Russian backing. That said, relations between President Putin and the
Rojava administration have waxed and waned depending on convenience to
Russian state interests. Putin believes the territorial integrity of
Syria should be respected under the unitary Assad regime. Nonetheless,
he has demonstrated favorability of Rojavayî autonomy over Turkish
occupation in his foreign policy (Rudaw, 2022).
In October 2019, the Russian state agreed to conduct joint-patrols with
the Turkish military in the wake of the US withdrawal from the border,
yielding a deterrence mechanism for further Turkish encroachment and
helping end of the Turkish invasion of Serekaniye. In October 2021, the
Russian state effectively established a no-fly zone over Rojava by
repositioning a squadron to Qamishli Airport (Newdick, 2021). The
Russian Armed Forces have frequently mediated ceasefire negotiations
following clashes between the SDF and Syrian forces north of the
Euphrates. Though this mediation cannot alleviate the ideological
tension between Rojava and Syria, it has led to swift de-escalation of
armed confrontation on numerous occasions. With the Russian state now a
normalized mediator in tensions between the Syrian state and Rojava, it
can be argued that the Russian state has co-opted Rojava diplomatically
to the extent its mediation is deemed legitimate to the Autonomous
Administration.
The Russian state’s presence in Rojava comes with many layers of nuance.
Though the Russian state acts unilaterally in its support of the Syrian
state, its interests in countering Turkish power have intersected with
Rojava’s interests just enough to not have an antagonizational
relationship. Nonetheless, many residents of Rojava have expressed their
dissatisfaction with the Russian state’s presence by confronting patrols
and protesting, finding the Russian state to be manipulative and
opportunistic (Rudaw, 2020). In one noteworthy example in December 2020,
citizens of Ain Diwar village in Hasakah region confronted a Russian
patrol. A man stated to the Russians: “Throughout Syrian history, your
presence has been for your own benefit.” One woman said to the Russian
Army translator: “We are the people of this area. How much money have
you received?” to which the translator responded, “I get a lot.” The
woman replied, “We get honor…You should respect yourselves and go back
to your country” (Rudaw, 2020).
Though the Russian state has indirectly backed Rojava through its
agreements with the Syrian state, the Russian state does not enjoy
nearly as much legitimacy in Rojava as it does in Abkhazia, South
Ossetia, Donetsk, and other separatist regions it has backed. Mutual
interests in deterring the Turkish state create a mutually beneficial
relationship with the Russian state, but also one that enables an
unwelcome Russian military-industrial complex driven megapole in the
region. In the words of SDF commander Mazloum Abdi: “If we have to
choose between compromise and genocide, we will choose our people”
(Abdi, 2019). Enabling of Russian military presence in Rojava is
certainly a compromise, but one that may be necessary to prevent
genocide at the hands of the Turkish state.
**** US State (and Corporate) Co-Optation
In 2014, the Autonomous Administration accepted a military partnership
with the Pentagon and a coalition of Western militaries to help defeat
ISIS, a partnership which continues today consisting of training, arms
supply, and logistics. The Autonomous Administration has maintained its
separation from the US Coalition at an arm’s length so to speak,
refusing Western encroachment on the economy or civil society and
keeping the partnership limited solely to military backing. In October
2019, the US Coalition encouraged the SDF to disarm and demilitarize its
northern borders following a supposed ceasefire agreement with the
Turkish state. This immediately led to the Turkish invasion of
Serekaniye and subsequent heinous crimes against humanity committed in
it. In this sense, the US abused co-optation to subtly coerce Rojava
simultaneously through disarmament, favoring its NATO ally in the
Turkish state over the livelihoods of millions. The US has also subtly
coerced Rojava by arming the Turkish military with vehicles and weapons,
which have subsequently been used against Rojava. US-made and US
taxpayer-funded bombs are found frequently falling on the soil of
Rojava, killing workers, children, and families completely uninvolved in
the conflict. The US arming of the Turkish military and withdrawal of US
forces have been widely perceived as a major backstab to the people of
Rojava and the Autonomous Administration (The Renegade, 2022).
Unlike the Russian megapole in Rojava which is limited to its
military-industrial complex, the US has attempted to expand its megapole
in Rojava to include Western corporations and extraction of natural
resources. “I like oil. We’re keeping the oil,” President Trump told the
press in November 2019 after his agreement to allow the Turkish state to
invade Rojava. (Global News, 2019). In April 2020, Delaware-based oil
firm Delta Crescent LLC was granted a one-year sanctions waiver to
“advise and assist” oil production in Rojava, a waiver which remained
untouched by the Biden-appointed US Department of the Treasury until its
expiration (Rosen, 2021). Delta Crescent LLC then infiltrated Rojava
without full consent of the Autonomous Administration, only a few
officials within it. Tasked with refining oil from Rojava’s oil fields
and exporting it, Delta Crescent LLC failed to gain local support and
its operation crashed in the face of resentment from Rojava’s
population, only able to hire a meager total of 10 employees. The
Autonomous Administration dismissed the corporation as soon as its
sanctions waiver expired. A worker from Qamishli named Ahmed Saeed
commented on the development: “They will pump oil and steal it amid this
famine. They will not work in the interest of the country…Nobody
understands them, the Americans. They have been here for years, what has
changed? When the Americans go somewhere, they work for their own
interests, not the people’s” (Rosen, 2021).
Weaponizing corporations for foreign-direct investment amid crises to
extract from local economies is a common neoliberal characteristic of US
foreign policy which has been observed most extensively since the Reagan
administration. Though attempted infiltration of Rojava’s economy was
initiated under the Trump administration, policy between the Trump and
Biden administrations on Rojava remained largely unchanged. Both
administrations enabled attempts to occupy the oil sector and failed to
do so because of both the population’s and Autonomous Administration’s
refusal to feed the US megapole (The Renegade, 2022).
With these facets of co-optation in mind, the US Coalition presence in
Rojava is likewise met with wariness from Rojava’s population due to its
display of opportunistic co-optation and betrayal. Protests have been
organized against the presence of US forces, often involving stone or
potato-throwing and blocking of patrols (AP, 2019). Mazloum Abdi’s words
of “If we have to choose between compromise and genocide, we will choose
our people” most certainly apply to Rojava’s military partnership with
the US Coalition as well, a compromise seen as a military necessity to
expedite the collapse of ISIS, but not one that can ever damage Rojava’s
self-sufficiency (Abdi, 2019). Firat, a former fighter in the SDF who
fought ISIS, believes ISIS would have been defeated by the SDF without
US military backing, and that it “just would have taken longer” (Firat,
2020–2021). This sentiment has been echoed by many in the SDF.
I asked a member of Asayish (Rojava’s security force) who shall be
called Mahmoud: Do you believe Rojava is overdependent on any of its
backers or allies, from the US to the PKK?
Mahmoud replied:
“Rojava in her current government, what it would take to get to the
shape it is now without the PKK seed and the US air support and
coverage—I don’t think the issue has become related to Kurdistan or the
Kurds, it is related to a Kurdish party. If the Kurds abandon it
(Rojava), they will be killed and displaced whether by the regime or the
Turks. So the PKK is not a supporter but a founder, and the US can be
shaped as a friend with benefits” (Mahmoud, 2022).
I found this description of the US as a “friend with benefits” to be
comical yet precise. The US Coalition is a military partner for
selective military tasks, but not political ones, and certainly not ones
that infiltrate the social psyche of Rojava. From Mahmoud’s standpoint,
the military partnership is necessary so that less Kurds die, but it
does not mean that Rojava has become controlled by or dependent on the
partnership (Mahmoud, 2022).
*** Framework of the Rojava Revolution
Having survived numerous brutal onslaughts of coercion from very
powerful state and nonstate actors that would render most regional
societies collapsed, one must question where the structural resolve of
Rojava derives from. In Democratic Confederalism, the political
structure of Rojava, social balance is emphasized, with no power
structure given power to coerce another, but every power structure free
to determine its own actions with direct engagement from the community
it represents. In the words of Ocalan: “Democratic Confederalism is open
towards other political groups and factions. It is flexible,
multicultural, anti-monopolistic, and consensus-oriented. Ecology and
feminism are central pillars” (Ocalan, 2017). Simultaneously, a social
forcefield of autonomous councils and assemblies spawned by the
democratic confederation resists external aggression and colonialism,
whether this comes from foreign corporations, megapoles, or militaries.
**** Political Structure of Rojava
Municipal councils generally include a defense, economics, free society,
civil society, justice, political, and women’s council. Similar councils
are found at the canton (regional) level. Most councils (excluding
all-women or all-men councils) guarantee at least 40% representation of
women and at least 40% men, the co-chair seats also requiring one man
and one woman. In areas where the ethnic makeup is heterogeneous, seats
and councils are generally reserved for each population. The confederal
Autonomous Administration includes four main chambers: Municipal
Councils, Executive Council, Legislative Assembly, and Syrian Democratic
Council (Ayboga et al., 2016)(SYPG, 2018). These four chambers are
subservient to the municipal and regional councils, municipal councils
collectively being one of the four main chambers of the Autonomous
Administration. In other words, legislations made in the Autonomous
Administration must be passed by these councils in order to go into
effect. Councils may choose to accept or deny legislation from the
Autonomous Administration, but are mutually bound to a confederal social
charter of various egalitarian doctrines and laws (Ayboga et al., 2016).
This horizontal structure ensures lack of social schism in Rojava,
ensuring there is no distraction from the common front against coercive
(and co-optive) actors. The Syrian Democratic Council acts as a
diplomatic and representative body for the many political parties of
Rojava. Though it is mostly concerned with the political and
international relations of Rojava, it also has the power to appoint
members of the Executive Council when elections have been postponed.
A network of media cooperatives serves to combat information warfare
from coercive actors and provide an information channel for news on the
ground that is often ignored by mainstream media. Rojava Information
Center, Syrian Democratic Times, SDF Press, and many other outlets form
a collective voice for Rojava, one that has gained the attention of many
internationalists across the world and made the movement less isolated
(RIC, 2020a). Grassroots media constructed by independent journalists in
Rojava serves as an alternative to profit-driven mainstream media such
as CNN or Fox News, which operate around Western megapole spheres of
consensus. In Rojava, this media network has enabled the
internationalization of the Rojava revolution and contributed
significantly to its internationalist tendencies.
Military councils are detached from civil councils in order to ensure a
separation of the military from civil society. This allows increased
efficiency in the military councils while also preventing them from
infiltrating civil political bodies. Accountability of the military is
ensured both by civil and military councils and also by the
confederation at large. In the defensive dimension, a subterranean
tunnel system has been created, hampering the effectiveness of Turkish
drones and artillery (Ayboga et al., 2016). Owing at least in part to
its horizontal structure, the SDF has been able to hold off the Turkish
state despite its intentions to annex the entirety of Rojava. A
decentralized and unconventional guerrilla force has thrice been able to
stop NATO’s second largest military from annihilating Rojava.
**** Disaster Relief
Though decentralized, disaster response has been highly efficient in
Rojava. During the famine-spawning fires of 2019, disaster committees
were able to rapidly dispatch volunteer firefighter teams, decreasing
the damage done to infrastructure and saving many lives. Agricultural
councils then swiftly enacted efforts to replant lost crops while
ecological councils led efforts to reforest natural areas. During the
Turkish state-induced dysfunction of Alouk Water Station, Rojava’s water
committees worked together to redirect water input and import drinking
water to prevent further humanitarian disaster. This action saved
Rojava’s population. In the midst of the subsequent famine and Covid
spread, health assemblies were able to reorganize medical infrastructure
and expand services such as Heyva Sor a Kurdistanê (Kurdish Red
Crescent). The presence of specialized disaster committees and
assemblies has proven very beneficial for Rojava, no competition between
private interests and no corporate meddling leading to loss of life
(Ayboga et al., 2016)(Pressenza, 2019)(TRISE, 2020).
**** Tekmîl and Hevaltî
In military and civil assemblies alike, a community discussion process
called Tekmîl (meaning “report” in Kurdish) is an important piece of
connectivity, honesty, and cohesion in the community. In Tekmîl, each
participant “gives critiques and self-critiques without any response
from the other participants,” and sessions can be called by any member
at any time, according to former SDF fighter and commune member Philip
Argeș O’Keeffe (O’Keeffe, p. 1, 2018). This may sound like a simple
activity, but it is highly significant to the social structure of
Democratic Confederalism. Tekmîl is driven by a doctrine called Hevaltî.
In the words of O’Keeffe: “*Hevaltî* roughly translates to friendship or
comradeship. It is the idea that we work together, we help each other,
we share everything from the tangible to the intangible not because we
expect something in return but simply because we are comrades, that we
are humans living, struggling and experiencing life together, that we
are sharing the same purpose of trying to advance the collective
wellbeing. It is the idea that we can trust and believe in each other
and that we need not fear ulterior intention” (O’Keeffe, 2018). Tekmîl
and Hevaltî both guarantee that no grievance goes unheard, and that
collective decision-making is fluid while bound to no unilateral
interests. Chairs and co-chairs of a given council are held accountable
by the group they represent in this process. Aggregately this creates an
ever-flexible social engine of civil and military society across Rojava.
**** Women’s Participation
Women’s participation is integral to the Democratic Confederalist
structure. Unlike in Western states, feminism is not a contested idea
constantly battling patriarchal structures of capitalism to become
normalized, it is a codified norm of Rojava which has been interwoven
into society at large. According to one Rojavayî citizen by the name of
Xelîl: “We are embarrassed when we speak about 5,000 years of
patriarchy. We should have raised our voice, we should have risen up.
Dominant history writing belittles the Neolithic society and calls it
primitive, but thousands of years ago, community was more ethical and
centered around women. And now look what happened to the same geography”
(Dirik, 2018, p. 233). The transition from Syrian state occupation to
the Autonomous Administration saw a massive improvement in women’s
rights and representation due to a feminist doctrine in Rojava known as
“Jineology” or “women’s science.” According to one woman from Rojava: “A
lot of husbands would not let women go out and would force them to stay
in the house to take care of the children. Now everything has changed”
(Argentieri, 2016). This is not to say patriarchy has been completely
wiped out in Rojava, however. Sexual repression and internalized
patriarchy in women’s structures have been cited as causes for concern,
showing that the power of internal dialogue in the movement may have its
limits (Gudim, 2021).
By empowering women and placing them at the helm of the revolution as
well as its direction, the Rojava revolution enjoys the feminine power
of half its population, a power which has rarely been accessed in
centralized revolutionary movements to the same degree. The civil
activation of as many social facets of Rojava as possible has allowed
for its maximal power as a separatist movement, and this is largely owed
to its decentralized Democratic Confederalist structure.
**** Flaws in the Democratic Confederalist Structure
Rojava’s political model does not come with perfection, however, having
some notable weak spots. Occasional lack of organization and consensus
can sometimes lead to vulnerability. Delta Crescent LLC’s exploitation
of a few officials in the Autonomous Administration to occupy Rojava’s
oil sector, for instance, shows that there may not be an effective
mechanism of consensus in place at the confederal level. Though
corruption is scarce in Rojava due to its tight systems of
accountability, there is still some room for officials to act
unilaterally, especially at the confederal level.
Irregular elections have also been noted as an issue in the electoral
facet of Rojavayî society, particularly at the confederal level.
Elections have been announced then postponed multiple times for the
Executive Council, Legislative Assembly, and Syrian Democratic Council
due to disruptions and security concerns from fighting (KNK, 2014). This
has consequently expanded the power of the Syrian Democratic Council,
which has the ability to elect members of the Executive Council.
Municipal and regional elections have been held more regularly, though
also frequently face challenges leading to postponement (Ibrahim and
Edwards, 2018).
*** Rojavayî Perspectives
“The martyrs of Rojava never die, they live in our souls, thoughts, and
bodies, they are the light of our path.” -YPG Spokesman Nuri Mahmoud
(2021)
Though the framework of the Rojava administration has been crafted
around eliminating loopholes enabling hegemony, ethical questions have
certainly been raised in some of its practices. Critics often claim that
Kurdish ethnic hegemony has seeped through the cracks in some areas,
particularly against Assyrian and Arab communities. Assyrian and Arab
are official languages of Rojava, both populations granted their own
decision-making powers in local and regional councils. Yet, occasional
protests and reports on human rights abuses surely remain present.
Reports on the Assyrian side (almost exclusively from the Assyrian
Policy Institute, it should be noted) accuse the administration of
closing dissenting Assyrian schools, limiting Assyrian autonomy to the
Kurdish consensus, and appropriating Assyrian land (Joseph and Isaac,
2018). Reports on the Arab side claim arbitrary arrests, disappearances,
and aggression against civilians, particularly in areas ISIS has been
present (STJ, 2022). Conscription is also mandated in some cantons as
part of the Self-Defense Forces, leading members of Assyrian and Arab
communities to feel disenfranchised under a complex superstructure where
Kurds form a majority. The largest protests against the Autonomous
Administration have been held in Deir ez-Zor region and Raqqa, where the
populations are predominantly Arab. Nonetheless, Assyrian and Arab
communities in Rojava are divided on this matter, split between pro-PKK
factions and anti-PKK factions (Joseph and Isaac, 2018).
Similarly, Kurdish communities are also divided on their perception of
the Rojava revolution. Rojava’s main opposition within Kurdistan comes
from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), a Western-backed capitalist
faction which autocratically controls most of the Kurdistan Regional
Government (officially within the Iraqi state) under the Barzani family.
In Rojava, the KDP controls a proxy party called the Kurdish National
Council (ENKS), which aims to extend the KDP’s power and oligarchy in
Rojava. ENKS holds two seats in the Syrian Democratic Council (ANF,
2015). Relative to the structure of Rojava, ENKS and the KDP operate a
far more unitary and centralized model backed by the US, coming in
direct contradiction to that of the anticolonial Autonomous
Administration. Ideological differences and security threats have
manifested in suppression of ENKS in Rojava, sparking controversy
(Hamou, 2021). The Autonomous Administration considers the KDP’s close
alliance with the Turkish state a direct threat to its autonomy, and
ENKS an extension of this threat (Horo, 2021).
The topic of conscription is also discussed within Kurdish communities
in regards to Rojava’s ethical flaws. Just across the eastern border,
the KDP has its own military known as KDP Peshmerga. This force is under
direct control of the party, has no autonomous components, and is a much
more conventional centralized force. As of 2022, unlike the Syrian
Democratic Forces, KDP Peshmerga does not require conscription. This is
in part due to the fact that the KDP is subservient to regional powers
and does not face existential crises to the same degree Rojava does,
enjoying support from the US, Israeli state, Turkish state, and other
imperialist powers in the region. Regardless, some cite this lack of
conscription as an ethical advantage to one of the most ethically flawed
factions in Kurdistan (Hamou, 2021). Though conscription may have a
positive impact on Rojava’s military strength, it may also have a
negative impact on its legitimacy in the region.
I asked my interviewee Mahmoud two questions on the discussion of
Rojava’s framework. The first one: Do you believe the Syrian Democratic
Forces’ unconventional and decentralized structure has helped or hurt
the resistance?
Mahmoud replied:
“At first the guerrilla method was more effective, especially in street
fighting. But after
controlling long geographical spots, the activation of internationally
recognized army and
police system will be in the interest of the cause so that we can be
more credible for the
world.”
My second question: If ENKS organized the Syrian Democratic Forces and
its resistance to the Turkish state in a centralized and conventional
manner, do you believe it would have seen greater success?
Mahmoud replied:
“You have two examples for the two different Kurdish sides, and the best
political view
of the two sides will be seen in a person’s average outcome per month.
95% of Kurdish
people in Rojava think about feeding their kids before making Kurdistan”
(Mahmoud, 2022).
In this discussion, Mahmoud suggests that decentralized and
unconventional resistance has been effective in resisting coercive
actors, but may become obsolete as Rojava strives for legitimacy in the
international system. For him, the topic of conventionality and
centrality is more a sociopolitical one than a separatist one. Because
the people of Rojava (and by extension Kurds in Turkish-occupied
Kurdistan) have been existentially threatened with genocide, they have
had no other choice but to fight unconventionally for their survival and
immediate separation of power, adopting the model of Democratic
Confederalism to ensure this. Only now that separation of power has been
achieved in Rojava, there is time to contemplate conventionality. ENKS
and the KDP on the other hand enjoy the support of large powers, and are
not threatened to the same degree of Rojava, thus can implement a more
conventional centralized force to accommodate this privilege. As Mahmoud
implies, the ENKS and the KDP are too privileged and powerful to require
a decentralized resistance for anything. People in Rojava are concerned
“about feeding their kids” while the KDP and its supporters are
concerned about expanding national power under the Barzani autocracy.
Two different goals requiring two different models, largely determined
by privilege (Mahmoud, 2022).
** ARTSAKH
Map of Artsakh region (also known as Nagorno-Karabakh or NKR), April
2022. Russian peacekeeper occupation is shown in red, Azerbaijani
occupation in blue (LUAM, 2022). Prior to September 2020, virtually the
entire region had been under administration of the Republic of Artsakh
since 1991, a republic which is now in peril.
*** Contextualizing Artsakh
Officially known as Nagorno-Karabakh to the international system, the
land known to its ancestral Armenian inhabitants as Artsakh bears a
socially piercing and bloody contestation over its name and ownership.
Artsakh and earlier forms of the word have been used to refer to the
region for millennia, beginning with proto-Armenian tribes. “Ar” refers
to the Caucasus, while “tsakh” means forest or woods in Armenian
(Avakian, 2021). Nagorno-Karabakh, on the other hand, is a strictly
colonial term to describe the region which has been internalized by the
international system and United Nations to the point where the Republic
of Artsakh has been obligated to adopt it officially. The term is
half-Russian and half-Azeri, “Nagorno” meaning “Mountainous” in Russian,
and Karabakh meaning “Black Garden” in Azeri (NKR, 2022c). Use of this
term is dehumanizing to the ancestral Armenian inhabitants of Artsakh,
as it legitimizes their historical oppressors. It has been weaponized
extensively against Armenians, especially in the era of neoliberalism
where information warfare pervades communication.
Artsakh borders the Armenian state’s Syunik, Vayots Dzor, and
Gegharkunik provinces to the west, the Iranian state’s East Azerbaijan
and Ardabil provinces to the south, and the Azerbaijani state’s Aran
region to the east and Ganja-Gazakh region to the north. Political
organization in Artsakh dates back to the 5th century BCE, however
proto-Armenian tribes had settled in the region thousands of years
beforehand (Petrosyan et al., 2012). Turkic peoples would later arrive
in the Caucasus around the 11th century CE, intermingling with
Armenians, Kurds, and other indigenous peoples. This intermingling
created the Azeri ethnicity in what is today the country known as
Azerbaijan. Between the 11th century CE and 1921 CE, Azeris made up less
than 5% of Artsakh’s population, and the land was perceived and
respected as the homeland of Armenians (Gorzaim, 2011). This perception
among Azeris would change during Soviet occupation, however.
Much like Rojava, Artsakh lays at the crossroads of hostile states and
empires, and is constantly subjected to militarized colonial threats.
Since the last year of de facto Armenian sovereignty over Artsakh in 428
CE, Artsakh has frequently been thrown around and devoured by bordering
empires, namely the Ottoman, Byzantine, Persian, and Russian empires,
and more recently the Soviet Union (Yeghiazaryan, 2013). Despite facing
onslaughts of aggression over many centuries, the Armenians of Artsakh
have refused to leave their ancestral homeland. Armenians have secured
their cultural and religious autonomy through centuries of self-defense,
which forced these empires to grant them autonomy in the form of
suzerainty and tributary sovereignty. In one example, following decades
of war between Armenians and the Sasanian Empire in the 5th century CE,
Armenians forced the Persian power structure into agreeing to the Treaty
of Nvarsak in 484 CE, granting autonomy to Armenians including those in
Artsakh (Khachatryan, 2020)(Frye, 1983). This suzerainty was
subsequently continued by the Byzantines and Ottomans up until the
Tanzimat Reforms of the 19th century, which would end the suzerainty
system and eventually lead to the Armenian Genocide.
Nonetheless, it was the Soviet Union that arguably played the most
significant role in exacerbating ethnic tensions that led to the
necessity for Artsakhi resistance against foreign occupation, beginning
with Soviet complicity in the Armenian Genocide. In 1920, the nascent
Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin invaded the Caucasus and installed
Armenian SSR and Azerbaijani SSR. Lenin aided Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in
his continuation of the Armenian Genocide extensively, supplying the
Turkish Army with 39,000 rifles, 327 machine guns, and 147,000 shells
which were then used directly against the Armenian population, including
many Artsakhis who had joined militias in defense of Western Armenia
(Egorov, 2021). In March 1921, amid ongoing ethnic cleansing and
massacres of Armenian communities, the fledgling Turkish state and
Soviet Union signed the “Treaty of Friendship and Brotherhood.” Lenin
was so determined to sustain the Turkish alliance that he was documented
stating to Envoy Semyon Aralov in 1921: “We can help Turkey financially,
although we ourselves are poor” (Egorov, 2021). Lenin stated the same
year that Ataturk “is a good organizer, with great understanding,
progressive, with good thoughts and an intelligent leader” (Boncuk,
2012).
Given close ties between the Turkish and Azerbaijani nationalist
movements, this also meant support for Azerbaijani nationalism in its
common pursuit of subjugating Armenians. In 1923, the then
secretary-general Stalin ceded Artsakh region to Azerbaijani SSR
(Sargsyan, 2020). This action would create many festering social
problems. During Soviet occupation, the Azeri population of Artsakh
changed from 5% in 1921 to 23% by 1979 as a result of Soviet-sponsored
resettling and favoritism toward Azeri power structures (Gorzaim, 2011).
This led Azeris to construct a conception of Artsakh being rightfully
Azerbaijani, even though it had never historically been Azeri land.
Similar to Rojava, Artsakh’s contemporary political climate can also be
traced in part to the 1923 Lausanne Treaty. This treaty, signed and
still upheld by Western powers to this day, legitimized the Armenian
Genocide by recognizing the Turkish occupation of Western Armenia. It
also legitimized Soviet occupation of the Caucasus by throwing out the
original plan of independence for Armenia and Azerbaijan that had been
agreed to in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres (Hovannisian, 2017).
Though Armenians and Azeris had generally coexisted peacefully during
the Soviet administration, ethnic tension and violence in Artsakh
increased exponentially during the Soviet Union’s collapse. In 1988, the
predominantly-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Republic Council
voted overwhelmingly to cede Artsakh’s power to Armenian SSR. This vote
was then vetoed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, leading to mass
protests in Artsakh (Sargsyan, 2020). Armenians began mobilizing to
transfer the political power of Artsakh into the hands of its
inhabitants, forming militias that would become the Artsakh Defense Army
(ADA). Anti-Armenian pogroms and retaliatory anti-Azeri pogroms ensued
across the region, subsequently devolving into the First Artsakh War
(also known as the First Nagorno-Karabakh War).
In April 1991, Gorbachev approved Soviet intervention to keep Artsakh
occupied by Azerbaijani SSR in an event known as Operation Ring. Ethnic
cleansing was initiated directly by Soviet forces, thousands of
Armenians expelled from their villages and deported. In July, Gorbachev
announced the completion of the operation and withdrew Soviet forces,
believing the region would remain in the control of Azerbaijani SSR.
Just months after the Soviet withdrawal, the Armenian, Artsakhi, and
Azerbaijani states finally broke away from the Soviet Union and declared
independence, their immediate priority to secure power over Artsakh
(Sargsyan, 2020). Full-scale violence ensued in 1992. The Artsakh
Defense Army, independent from but supported by the Armenian military,
drove out the Azeri military and captured the entirety of Artsakh by
early 1994 and forced a ceasefire (Papazian, 2008).
The period following the First Artsakh War was riddled with tensions and
occasional flare-ups of violence. Though Armenians had secured their
ancestral homeland, the international system generally viewed the
conflict as a primordial ethnic feud that did not impact the Western
oligarchy, and thus did not matter (Papazian, 2008). In 2003, Ilham
Aliyev was appointed Prime Minister of Azerbaijan by his father, 3rd
President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev, turning the Azerbaijani state
into a nepotistic autocracy. Under Ilham, the post-Soviet Azerbaijani
state has become increasingly authoritarian, externalizing domestic
tensions against Armenians to create a racialized diversion. Over the
past decades of a wavering Azerbaijani economy and deteriorating human
rights, internal suffering in Azerbaijan has been channeled through its
ultranationalism, state policy pointing toward Armenians as the culprits
for most of Azerbaijan’s problems.
Inevitably, over years of festering anti-Armenian hatred in Azerbaijan,
Ilham was obligated by his ultranationalist support base and the Turkish
state to step up Azeri aggression. In April 2016, the Azerbaijani state
launched an offensive attempting to probe Artsakh’s defenses in what
would become known as the Four-Day War. Four years later in September
2020, this was followed by a full-scale invasion of Artsakh by the
Azerbaijani state. This time, the Azerbaijani state took advantage of an
unprepared Artsakh Defense Army, successfully overrunning major
settlements such as Shushi and Hadrut. this forced the Armenian state
into a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement in November that enabled
Azeri occupation of the region once again. As an unrecognized state, the
Republic of Artsakh was excluded from ceasefire negotiations and
Artsakhis were denied a voice. Russian peacekeepers have since
controlled areas in central Artsakh accompanied by a very limited
Armenian armed presence. Though the Republic of Artsakh remains in
administration of some areas including Stepanakert, Artsakhi autonomy is
almost entirely extinguished, hanging on only by the thread of the
Russian peacekeeper contingent.
A post-Soviet conflict unique to conditions in the era of neoliberalism,
the Artsakh wars stand out as bloody reflections of the Soviet Union’s
failure to withstand this era. Coerced by an increasingly authoritarian
and colonial Azerbaijani state connected to the Turkic megapole, the
movement for Artsakh’s self-determination itself was born out of the
collapse of a state which failed to survive neoliberalism, that state
being the USSR. Seen in these conditions, similar neoliberal problems
impacting Rojava have also impacted Artsakh.
*** State Coercion of Artsakh
**** Azerbaijani State Coercion
Though the Azerbaijani state has recently invaded Artsakh in its
practice of brutal counterinsurgency, the roots of Azeri coercion begin
perhaps in the state propaganda engine. Anti-Armenian hatred
systematized into rote learning has forged a narrative basis for crimes
against the Armenian people, beginning in early childhood. Azeri
kindergartens, for example, have been observed teaching their students
to view Armenians as their enemies, many of these students as young as
4-years-old. In one example, a kindergarten teacher was filmed in 2018
asking her students: “Who are our enemies?” to which the students reply
in tandem “Armenians!” The teacher also points to Artsakh and makes the
students tell her how the region is Azeri, not Armenian (Armedia, 2018).
Many instances like this have been documented in the Azerbaijani school
system, showing a pattern of indoctrination derived from and controlled
by state policies. Additionally, denial of the Armenian Genocide is a
key component of Azeri education, adding a layer of historical denialism
to the Azerbaijani state’s engine of ethnic hatred. President Ilham
Aliyev tweeted in 2014: “Turkey and Azerbaijan work in a coordinated
manner to dispel the myth of the ‘Armenian genocide’ in the world”
(Aliyev [@presidentaz], 2014).
From an instrumentalist viewpoint, anti-Armenian hatred has clearly been
disseminated by Azeri elite from across the state and oligarchy alike.
President Aliyev frequently weaponizes Azeri supremacist rhetoric. In
one example, Aliyev tweeted in 2015: “Armenia is not even a colony, it
is not even worthy of being a servant” (Aliyev [@presidentaz], 2015).
This is the head of a UN-recognized state dehumanizing Armenians and
implying the justification of genocide. The UN has remained
characteristically silent about this Azeri ultranationalist vehicle of
hatred which drives the conflict. Instead of addressing systemic hatred,
the UN calls on both sides to end hostilities, even though the
structural hostility objectively only derives from the Azerbaijani state
(UN News, 2020).
As is the case across the international system in the neoliberal era,
the elite control mainstream media structures in Azerbaijan, leading to
flawed and selective channels of information. Antagonization of
Armenians can be observed across the Azeri media system, with the
Azerbaijan State News Agency at the head of this information warfare.
AzerNews, for example, has a category on its homepage solely for
“Armenian Aggression.” Many of the reports are composed of
ultranationalist soundbites and fabricated claims of Armenian abuse
(AzerNews, 2020). Similar propaganda efforts can be found in most Azeri
outlets. The state sphere of consensus pervades Azeri access to
information, as both dissenting and nonpartisan media are banned by the
state. Azerbaijan was the 12th worst ranking recognized country in the
world on the 2020 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index
(CEO, 2021).
For those not exposed to critical thought in the country, this education
and stream of information yields a perception of the Azerbaijani and
Turkish states as a single immaculate entity that is unconditionally
justified in its imperialist expansion of pan-Turkic state power
structures, resultant in genocide or otherwise. Deemed the “One Nation
Two States” doctrine, this doctrine uniting Turkish and Azeri
ultranationalism under a single Turkic national identity was constructed
during the Heydar Aliyev presidency and carried on by his son. It has
been warmly accepted by the Turkish state, echoed by many Turkish
diplomats and ministers, and integrated into a single Turkic megapole.
This megapole is complete with an intersecting military-industrial
complex and propaganda engine intended to occupy indigenous homeland and
export Turkic power abroad (AzerNews, 2020).
NATO and Western institutions have shown characteristic complacency and
occasional support of the Azerbaijani state’s coercion. In 2004,
Armenian Lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan was murdered by Azeri officer Ramil
Safarov, who broke into Margaryan’s dormitory and bludgeoned him to
death with an axe during a NATO training exercise in Budapest. NATO
initially made no official statement on the matter and attempted to
cover it up. The Hungarian state arrested and charged Safarov but
extradited him to Azerbaijan in 2012, where he was pardoned by President
Aliyev and hailed as a hero, then promoted. The European Court of Human
Rights failed to intervene in this extradition, allowing the Azerbaijani
state to get away with murder within a NATO state (Walker, 2020). NATO’s
creation of a space for anti-Armenian hatred and lack of penalty for the
Azeri state’s abuses have shown its complicity. This is just one
instance in a long list of anti-Armenian crimes indirectly or directly
supported by NATO.
It is only after understanding this rhetorical and political root of
Azerbaijani state brutality that the Azerbaijani state’s
counterinsurgency can be realized with sufficient context. The
Azerbaijani state’s counterinsurgency during the Second Artsakh War,
propelled by its rhetoric and policy, has prioritized terrorizing the
Armenian population. Though the Azerbaijani military was unprepared for
Armenian resistance in the 1990s, the introduction of drones and
consolidation of the Turkic megapole contributed significantly to the
Azerbaijani state’s 2020 occupation.
While war crimes have been committed on both sides, those of the
Azerbaijani state have proven particularly egregious, spawning disasters
and crises on a regional scale. Many of these crimes have been designed
to annihilate the Armenian population. (CEO, 2021). Extensive Azeri use
of white phosphorus and incendiary munitions led to widespread
ecoterrorism and agroterrorism in Artsakh, incinerating large portions
of the ecosystem and crop fields often with Western-supplied munitions.
All of this in the midst of a Covid-19 pandemic which certainly
contributed to the Azerbaijani state’s timely invasion, taking advantage
of a vulnerable Armenian community to forcefully occupy their homeland.
Azeri forces also enacted state terror by beheading Armenian civilians
and collecting ear trophies from fallen Armenian bodies as a mechanism
to encourage the Armenian population to flee (Arutyunyan, 2021)(Gerami,
2020). Reports have also confirmed instances of Azerbaijani soldiers
forcing Armenians to convert to Islam or be executed (Hetq, 2022).
Following the war, a military park and museum was opened in the
Azerbaijani state capital Baku to celebrate the occupation, depicting
Armenians as primitive and subhuman (Agha, 2021).
Much like in Rojava, weaponization of water was also abused against the
Armenian people during the Second Artsakh War (Mejlumyan and Natiqqizi,
2021)(CEO, 2021). Water in occupied Artsakh has been diverted to
Azerbaijan via new dams, leading to water insecurity across Armenia.
This also impacts electricity. Artsakh lost the entirety of its
hydroelectric power and the Armenian state lost roughly half. Because of
this, the Armenians who remain in Artsakh under Russian occupation are
now increasingly dependent on Russian resources. In the wake of the
Second Artsakh War, the Republic of Artsakh has largely been nullified
and the Armenian state has lost its influence in the region.
Similar to the Turkish state’s invasions of Rojava, the Azerbaijani
state’s coercive efforts in Artsakh have been brutal, dehumanizing, and
devoid of ethical consideration.
**** Turkish State Coercion
Part of a single Turkic megapole, the Turkish and Azerbaijani states
overlap considerably in their coercive actions surrounding Artsakh and
Armenia. Beginning with the military-industrial complex, the Turkish
state has interwoven itself into the Azerbaijani war effort. What sets
apart the two states militarily is the fact that the Turkish state is a
member of NATO while the Azerbaijani state is an observer state in NATO.
Nonetheless, both receive direct and indirect support from Western
states. Many of the weapons used against Armenians during the Second
Artsakh War were not Azeri-made, but Turkish-made.
The Turkish-supplied TB-2 Bayraktar drone had a significant effect on
the Second Artsakh War, able to detect and destroy targets while not
being spotted. The Israeli-supplied Harop “suicide drone” also had a
devastating impact on Artsakhi communities in the Second Artsakh War,
designed to terrorize its victims with a screaming noise before
detonating (Newdick, 2021). The few air defense systems held by Artsakh
were quickly overwhelmed and many of them destroyed. Turkish and Azeri
drone pilots were able to take advantage of Artsakh’s open trench system
to inflict significant casualties on the defending units of the Artsakh
Defense Army. The drone attacks also killed many civilians and were not
limited to the Artsakh Defense Army, however. The parts for these drones
are sourced almost exclusively from corporations in NATO states, from
France-based Eurofarad to Kansas-based Garmin Ltd, with the exception of
Switzerland-based Faulhaber Minimotor SA (Sarukhanyan, 2021)(Garmin
Ltd., 2020). Turkish international relations and NATO integration helped
facilitate the flow of these drones into Azeri hands during the effort
to both occupy and terrorize Artsakh.
Perhaps the Turkish state’s most harmful coercion in the Second Artsakh
War was not its supply of drones, but its deployment of Syrian
mercenaries. Following the invasion of Afrin, the Turkish state began to
recruit members of its proxy force, the Syrian National Army (SNA), to
fight for Turkish interests abroad. First deployed in Libya in January
2020 then to Azerbaijan in September 2020, SNA units have participated
in trafficking sexually enslaved women from Afrin to where they are
deployed. This has been confirmed during their deployment in Libya, and
may very well have occurred during their deployment in Azerbaijan as
well (The Renegade, 2022). This deployment of mercenaries was meant to
create a tipping point in the conflict, given similar personnel numbers
on both sides. A low estimate confirmed 1,000 Syrian mercenaries
deployed to Artsakh, though later reports from SOHR put the number at
2,600 (Saradzhyan, 2020)(SOHR, 2020). Though this exporting of
mercenaries is a clear violation of international law, it is also clear
that few states tend to pay any attention to international law in the
neoliberal era, and thus international law cannot be usefully included
in any discussion of this thesis.
With the Turkic megapole in mind, it can be cogently argued that without
Turkish backing, the Azerbaijani state would not have been able to
occupy Artsakh in 2020. In fact, it may not have even come close.
*** State Co-Optation of Artsakh
**** Armenian State Co-Optation
From the formation of the Republic of Artsakh during the collapse of the
USSR to the near-collapse of the Republic of Artsakh itself in 2020,
Armenian state co-optation of Artsakh has been of existential importance
and detriment to the movement. Artsakh has faced a dilemma in this
regard. On one hand, Armenian backing has lent a channel of economic and
military support as well as indirect representation in the international
system. On the other hand, overdependence on Armenia has crippled
Artsakh’s own capabilities. The Armenian state has taken advantage of
Artsakh’s centralized unitary republican structure to maintain a tight
grasp on the region.
Though an economic lifeline, dependence on the Armenian state has come
with major consequences. Until the occupation, a significant portion of
the Artskahi economy was interconnected with the Armenian economy, to
the extent where an independent economy was made impossible. Despite
Artsakh’s full capability to attain self-sufficiency, the region’s
extensive cultivation and output was funneled directly into the Armenian
economy instead of its own in nearly every sector from watchmaking to
hydroelectric power. Before the Second Artsakh War, a whopping ¾ of
Artsakh’s exports were sent to Armenia, then frequently relabeled “Made
in Armenia” to be commodified and exported abroad (Martin, 2020). In
this process, the Armenian state marginalized Artsakh and exploited it
for the mainland economy, which is centered 200 miles away in Yerevan.
With this in mind, impoverishment in Artsakh was and still is largely
owed to the Armenian state’s exploitation. Meager Armenian state
attempts to uplift the Artsakhi economy and make it further dependent by
subsidizing various sectors such as construction were obliterated during
the Second Artsakh War (Martin, 2020).
From a military standpoint, in the years following the First Artsakh
War, the Artsakh Defense Army became increasingly reliant on training
and support from the Armenian military, and adjusted to emulate the
conventional Armenian military structure. Inability to distinguish
between Armenian military and Artsakh Defense Army in Armenian diplomacy
has corroborated Azeri propaganda and created a series of problems for
the movement (Sarukhanyan, 2021).
Armenian journalist Vahe Sarukhanyan (2021) points out in the wake of
the Second Artsakh War:
“Pashinyan (Prime Minister of Armenia) signed a paper that creates big
problems not
only for the present but also for the future. What does the withdrawal
of ‘Armenian
Armed Forces’ mean? Is it about the RoA Armed Forces, and/or the Artsakh
Defense
Army? This is a point that is already being exploited by Azerbaijan.
Second, Azerbaijan and Armenia are considered parties in the statement,
which notes that
both must remain in their November 9 battlefield positions. In other
words, was it a case
of Armenia and Azerbaijan fighting each other? If so, had Republic of
Armenia forces
invaded Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders?
By signing the statement, Pashinyan basically strengthened the thesis
expounded by Baku
for years that this is a territorial conflict, and that Armenia has
occupied a part of
Azerbaijan. This statement, signed by Pashinyan, can be used by Baku as
a ‘confession’
of the Armenian authorities to the above.”
Armenian state diplomacy representing Artsakh has also been widely
questioned. Armenian scholar Tamar Gharibian, states: “Although Artsakh
and the Armenian communities that live therein are the primary
stakeholders to the conflict who suffer the direct consequences of war,
they are not represented by themselves on the negotiating table, but
rather, by Armenia” (Gharibian, 2021, p. 59). The Republic of Artsakh
was not a negotiating party during the Second Artsakh War, and the
Armenian state did nothing to make it one. Instead, the Republic of
Artsakh was expected to abide to PM Pashinyan’s decisions, which it did.
**** Russian State Co-Optation
The Russian state has made substantial efforts to regain what the USSR
lost in the Caucasus. The Armenian state is a full member of the Russian
state’s three major regional organizations: Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) (Karenian, 2019). Both the Armenian and
Azerbaijani state are members of CSTO and CIS, however Russian
co-optation affects Armenia and Artsakh disproportionately. Russia has
taken advantage of the Artsakh conflict to pull both Armenia and
Azerbaijan further into its sphere of influence and economic grasp.
As part of the November 2020 ceasefire agreement, roughly 2,000 Russian
personnel have been deployed to Artsakh for “peacekeeping” operations.
This does not include the 3,000 Russian personnel who are deployed in
Gyumri within the borders of Armenia (Mgdesyan, 2021). The Russian state
occupies Lachin Corridor, the main artery linking the Armenian mainland
with Artsakh, and therefore effectively has full authority over what
enters Artsakh and what does not (Nahapetyan, 2021). With an added layer
of foreign bureaucracy in between Armenia and autonomous areas in
Artsakh, the Russian occupation has widely exacerbated Artsakhi
dependence on Russian aid.
Before the war, only a quarter of Artsakhi exports went to Russia. From
the areas that still enjoy limited autonomy, the portion of exports to
Russia may now exceed exports to Armenia (Martin, 2020). Facing a
massive inundation of Russian tech companies in Armenia, Artsakh is
threatened by a wave of Russian foreign-direct investment and further
economic extraction particularly in its capital city Stepanakert (Massis
Post, 2022). The Russian economic sphere of influence has acted as a
safety net amid global sanctions against the Russian state following its
invasion of Ukraine. Despite crippling sanctions, the Russian economy
has stabilized in part due to Armenian and Artsakhi economic dependence
on Russia, as well as dependence from other member states of the CIS. In
2021, the Russian and Azerbaijani megapoles made a series of timely
gas-swapping agreements to the benefit of Russian oil giants Gazprom and
Lukoil, subsequently extending Russian possession of Caucasian oil and
increasing the state’s revenue (TASS, 2021).
The Armenian state has in recent years revealed its subservience to the
Russian state’s power on many occasions, going to the extent of
sacrificing its own national security to do so. In February 2019, the
Armenian state sent a detachment of medics and demining personnel to
support the Syrian Arab Army in the city of Aleppo, only nine months
after major clashes had broken out between Armenian and Azeri forces in
Nakhchivan region. In January 2022, the Armenian state was one of the
first CSTO states to send a “peacekeeper” contingent to suppress
protests in Kazakhstan despite ongoing Azeri shellings and ceasefire
violations along the Armenian border (Kuzio, 2022). Despite these
deployments for the sake of Russian relations and economic entwinement,
some Russian sources have gone as far as claiming Armenia has not done
enough for the Russian state, and should deploy more personnel to Syria
alongside Russian personnel (Stronell, 2021). In this process of Russian
co-optation of the Armenian state, resources have been diverted away
from Artsakh and instead thrust into Russian imperialism.
The Russian state will decide on whether or not to renew its 5-year
peacekeeping mission in 2025. Though the fate of dwindling Artsakhi
autonomy remains unclear, what is clear is that the Russian state has
effectively secured its Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast once again.
Perhaps it was neither Armenia nor Artsakh nor Azerbaijan that truly won
the Second Artsakh War, but rather the Russian state, which acts as a
marionettist toying with its rival post-Soviet puppets, watching them
fight with unilateral intrigue whilst expanding its regional hegemony.
*** Framework of the Artsakh Resistance
Artsakh is perceivably an anticolonial movement, but not a Marxist one,
and thus does not have a vanguard. It is a movement for an independent
nation-state integrated into the international system. Its presidential
quasi-autocracy, however, does exhibit some characteristics of a
vanguard. The top-down structure remains vertical across almost every
dimension of Artsakhi society, and communities have little autonomy to
make decisions. Armenia at large has long struggled with
authoritarianism in its political structures, and this has carried over
into Artsakh. Though some of Armenia’s authoritarian structures were
dismantled in the 2018 Velvet Revolution, the post-Soviet political
landscape of Armenia continues to manifest itself, and police state
strategies are still exercised against dissenting members of the general
population. Modeled off of the Armenian state structure but with even
further concentrated power since 2017, the Republic of Artsakh has not
been spared of this post-Soviet panopticon. The unitary rigidity of the
Republic of Artsakh means strict state control of the Artsakh Defense
Army with no questions asked, nor questions that can be asked to begin
with.
**** Political Structure of Artsakh
The political structure of Artsakh began largely decentralized, but has
become increasingly unitary and vertical since its separation of power.
In 1992, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF)-driven Republic of
Artsakh adopted a multi-layered model crafted in a series of conventions
with the Nagorno-Karabakh and Shahumyan Councils of People’s Deputies in
the region. A central Supreme Council was held in check by a Council of
Ministers, State Defense Committee, 75-seat People’s Deputies chamber,
and Standing Committees, producing a hybrid system where decisions could
be made both vertically and horizontally. Political chambers at all
levels were included in this process and activated in the nascent stages
of the republic, with 82.2% of the population participating in the
initial referendum and elections (Natl. Assembly). Local and regional
chambers would lose their power beginning in 1995, however, when the
multicameral Supreme Council was gradually replaced by a much smaller
unicameral 33-seat National Assembly. The ARF’s power waned to more
conservative statist factions, spawning a period of political
restructuring (Natl. Assembly).
Under the Arayik Harutyunyan administration in 2017, Artsakh’s entire
ministerial structure was wiped out in its new constitution, pushing the
presidential office to the cusp of autocracy and eliminating most
remaining local power (Rettman, 2017). Since 2017, at the top of the
Republic of Artsakh’s structure, a president is elected via popular vote
and has full power over the Artsakh Defense Army as its
commander-in-chief. The president also has the power to veto any
legislation from the National Assembly. According to Article 113 of the
constitution: “The president of the Supreme Court and other judges are
appointed by the National Assembly at the recommendation of the
President of the Republic” (NKR, 2022a). With such a small unicameral
National Assembly that will almost certainly yield a majority in the
president’s faction, the president effectively has individual power to
appoint the entire Supreme Court. Because of this concentration of power
and erosion of checks and balances, the Republic of Artsakh can now be
described as a quasi-autocracy.
**** Nationalizing Architecture
Perhaps to the disgruntlement of the Armenian state, Artsakh has taken
on a national identity of its own. In contrast to the nationless
projection of Rojava, Artsakh is, in its essence, a national movement
attempting to achieve national liberation. “We are our mountains” is the
national motto of Artsakh, and it comes with its own monument. The We
Are Our Mountains Monument in Stepanakert serves as one of the major
nationalizing devices of Artsakh. Depicting an elderly man and woman
with tufa stone, the monument is pictured in Artsakh’s coat of arms and
aims to remind Artsakhis that they are fighting an ancestral struggle
for their ancestral homeland without many friends in the neighborhood
(Asbarez, 2014). This national narrative is driven largely by the
republic, with the republic at the core of Artsakhi nation-building.
Thus, the state itself co-opts the narrative to a degree. The republic
forges a narrative of unitary statehood inseparably attached to the
nation, producing a perception that decisions of the nation must be
concentrated in the state, none localized nor regionalized, only
nationalized, otherwise they are invalid.
**** Disaster Relief
Artsakh’s Soviet-era “Semashko” healthcare system depends on a vertical
hierarchy from the Artsakh Ministry of Healthcare downard, and rations
accessibility to health services based on population density (Gharibian,
2021). This seemingly left a serious gap in rural accessibility to
medical support during the Second Artsakh War, with rural communities
widely neglected from the central medical system. Lack of community
medical structures and reliance on an overwhelmed Artsakh Ministry of
Healthcare created inefficiency during the war. Responses to ecological
and agricultural disasters were hampered by the rapid pace of the war
and output of fleeing communities. The Artsakh Emergency and Rescue
Service was overstretched and unable to function efficiently, even early
on in the war. Because of these factors, disaster response was often ad
hoc and initiated by Artsakh’s citizens, but also outsourced to the
Armenian state and aid organizations (Hovhannisyan and Bagirova,
2020)(CEO, 2021)(Connolly, 2020)(Gharibian, 2021).
**** Rise of the Artsakh Defense Army
The discussion on Artsakh’s collapse cannot solely surround its
political environment and state structure, however. Flaws in the
military structure must also be considered. Between the first and second
Artsakh wars, the Artsakh Defense Army attempted a transition to
conventionality that may have harmed the movement. Whilst Artsakhi
political leaders made a pivot to transition the Republic of Artsakh
into a UN-sanctioned presidential model, the Artsakh Defense Army also
made a pivot to transition its model to that of a conventional
nation-state army (Aysor, 2021). In the recent failure of both diplomacy
and defense in the Second Artsakh War, some have questioned the
conventionalizing structure of the Artsakh Defense Army after it failed
to separate itself from the official ceasefire declared by the Armenian
state. To arrive at a holistic answer on this, one must carefully
observe the foundations of the resistance itself.
Looking back to the success of guerilla forces in the First Artsakh War,
the Artsakh Defense Army was able to defeat the Azerbaijani military and
hold the region for over 25 years. Armenian journalist Avet Demourian
(1997) attributed this success to the local population of Artsakh and
its autonomy in defensive action. In the wake of the First Artsakh War,
Demourain describes a “well-developed system of defensive fortifications
and an armed garrison formed from the local population” from which
regional units are “capable of extended military action — both defensive
and offensive — Independent of the regular armed forces” (p. 83). In
other words, the Artsakh Defense Army was constructed without direct
control of the Armenian state, and thrived in the First Artsakh War due
to its grassroots unconventional nature. A decentralized regional
command structure allowed the Artsakh Defense Army to be internally
fluid and to fully employ its potential power through a network of
semi-autonomous units.
The initial unconventional nature of the Artsakh resistance is owed at
least in part to the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia
(ASALA), a revolutionary organization founded in 1975 aiming to attain
retribution for the Armenian Genocide and liberate Western Armenia by
asymmetric force through a decentralized network of cells. Following a
deadly bombing in 1983, ASALA split into two factions, the Hagop
Hagopian faction practicing indiscriminate violence abroad and Monte
Melkonian faction organizing a more ethical asymmetric force intended to
confront immediate threats to Armenia without targeting civilians
(Topalian, 2010). Melkonian’s faction saw the most influence during the
formation of the Artsakh resistance. ASALA revolutionaries of the
Melkonian faction were fundamental architects in this unconventional
construction, Melkonian himself a regional commander for Martuni who
fell in the 1993 Battle of Aghdam (Topalian, 2010).
Following the First Artsakh War, ASALA elements were nullified and
replaced by conventional commanders, many of whom former members of the
Armenian military. Initiated by conservative Armenian militarist
elements through pressure from the Armenian state, this effort to
suppress ASALA’s influence is partly what contributed to the process of
conventionalization in the Artsakh Defense Army, and by extension the
Republic of Artsakh at large. By muting unconventional voices and
homogenizing its command structure, the Artsakhi state sidelined an
essential component of its defensive planning.
Since becoming prime minister in 2007 and subsequently president of the
Republic of Artsakh in 2020, Arayik Harutyunyan has made it a marked
priority to conventionalize the Artsakh Defense Army and rid it of its
semi-autonomous foundations. During this undertaking, Artsakh Defense
Army commanders who were critical of the Armenian state’s Pashinyan
government were fired and demoted, leading to further instability in the
command structure just two years prior to the Second Artsakh War
(Sanamyan, 2018). The Armenian state clearly reaps the benefits of this
conventionalizing process while the Artsakh Defense Army has remained
excluded from all joint military partnerships abroad.
**** Fall of the Artsakh Defense Army
In August of 2020, one month prior to the Azeri invasion, Artsakhi
presidential advisor Armine Grigoryan reported on the conditions leading
up to the war. Though careful attention was paid to Azeri offensive
tactics and Armenian defensive abilities in this report, there was no
mention of drones to be found. Grigoryan stated on the trench system:
“The recurrent escalations including the trench war enable keeping
trench data current…The Defense Army implements unilaterally
synchronized and agreed mechanisms for investigation of borderline
incidents with ceasefire control devices along the borderline to nullify
subversive warfare” (Grigoryan, 2020, p. 133). There is an important
piece missing from this report: drone pilots do not care about trench
bureaucracy. The Artsakh Defense Army relied heavily on its trench
system not just for reconnaissance but also for communication. When the
lines were breached by Azeri forces, a vital organ of the now
centralized conventional military structure ceased its function. Given
the loss of horizontal structure, there was now no alternative for
Artsakhi forces but to follow the central ceasefire orders demanded by
Pashinyan in November 2020. With this we have a man who has overseen the
exploitation of the Artsakhi economy and refused to allow them
representation in the Armenian state, deciding for the entire nation of
Artsakh that it needs to stop resisting occupation. So, while
bureaucracy has flooded the Artsakhi resistance since its pivot to
conventionality, this has not necessarily made it a more effective
force.
I interviewed an Armenian officer in a NATO army who shall be called
Andranik and inquired him on the matter. I asked Andranik (2022), do you
believe the Artsakh Defense Army’s increasing gravitation toward
conventional warfare helped or hurt the resistance? Andranik gave his
perspective as an officer in a NATO military:
“The Artsakh liberation movement was made possible by well experienced
military
commanders that served in the Soviet-Afghan War and revolutionaries like
Monte
Melkonian and Jirair Sefilian. I would say gravitating towards
conventional warfare
helped the state of Artsakh and believe that the Artsakh Defense Army
did not gravitate
towards conventional warfare quick enough. The Artsakh Defense Army
would not be
able to sustain itself in defense as a revolutionary and insurgent style
force. The goal was
to protect Artsakh and its inhabitants and to build a professional
military. As we saw, an
attempt of a professional military was what it got. For the Artsakh
Defense Force to
continue as a revolutionary style force it would be at a even worse
position as it is today.
I believe there is a place for militias and volunteer units but they
should be behind a
professional active and reserve army.
It is necessary for the Artsakh Defense Army to be experts in tactical
and operational
realms. A focus on small unit tactics, lightweight mounted units, armed
aerial
reconnaissance assets, and electronic warfare specialists to be able to
be a formidable
force against the wealthier and larger enemy such as Azerbaijan. To
quote Jean Larteguy,
‘I’d like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks,
little soldiers, staffs,
distinguished and doddering generals, and dear little regimental
officers who would be
deeply concerned over their general’s bowel movements or their colonel’s
piles, an army
that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country.
The other
would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in
camouflage uniforms,
who would not be put on display, but from whom impossible efforts would
be demanded
and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That’s the army in
which I should like to
fight.’
And myself an army officer, that’s the army in which I would also like
to fight. I don’t
think the separation of conventional and unconventional should continue
in the way it is
currently. The conventional combat arms force should be separated from
the benign tasks
that they’re given and only focus on being a fighting force. And for the
unconventional
there is always a need for that.”
I found some gaps in Andranik’s argument, however. If a few conventional
commanders helped Artsakh secede back then, why did the presence of more
conventional commanders and a more conventional command structure not
keep Artsakh seceded in 2020? Though this pivot to conventionality was
rushed, the context to the question of conventionality begins with the
fact that Artsakh seceded unconventionally, and was lost conventionally,
both in its military and political structures. Whether an increased
integration of the conventional model would have turned the tides may
really be a question of whether conventionality itself could have
subverted a Turkish-backed Azerbaijani military, not so much a question
of whether the Artsakh Defense Army could have become more conventional
than it already was. I also find, particularly when looking at the case
of Rojava, that expertise in the tactical and operational realms is
certainly not exclusive to conventional armies.
From a social ecologist standpoint one finds that, unlike in Rojava, it
was only a limited portion of Artsakhi civil society that mobilized in
the Second Artsakh War. The male population is conscripted at age 18 for
a two-year contract, and this composed the bulk of the 2020 Artsakh
Defense Army. Weaving patriarchy into conventionality, women were
prevented from forming their own units and mostly constrained to
auxiliary roles (Sarade, 2020)(Sargsyan, 2021). A decentralist would
likely argue that limiting women’s participation inherently weakened
civil integration in the resistance, and therefore also weakened the
capability of the movement at large. Given subordination of the Artsakh
Defense Army to the Armenian state, the force’s patriarchal
centralization deterred Armenians from forming a separate asymmetric
resistance to the Azeri occupation. Despite a burning desire to keep
fighting Azeri occupying forces, Armenians were prevented from
continuing their resistance because of a unitary Artsakh’s subservience
to a unitary Armenian state.
When asking what was lost in the original foundations of the Artsakh
Defense Army, one finds a largely horizontal command structure replaced
with a vertical one, and the subsequent integration of a defensive
system planned by a small group of central brass rather than a system
which involves the grassroots engagement of civil society at large.
Artsakh lost this grassroots element to its defensive plan while Rojava
sustained it.
**** Addressing Human Rights Abuses
Comparing the First and Second Artsakh War, Armenian ethics improved
while Azeri ethics deteriorated (HRW, 2022). Azerbaijani state crimes
and massacres were considerably more frequent than those of the Armenian
side both in the First and Second Artsakh War. This left a deeply
traumatic impact on Armenian communities not just in the highlands but
also in the diaspora, compounded with generational trauma collected
during the Armenian Genocide. Nonetheless, human rights abuses from the
Armenian side were certainly committed as well, leaving their own
impact. Armenian crimes were far more isolated and less systematic in
the Second Artsakh War than in the First Artsakh War, a major ethical
improvement from the 1992 Khojaly massacre, which the Azerbaijani state
has since widely utilized as a victimization device. The topic of
Khojaly (also spelled Khojali) is especially sensitive in Armenian
discourse. ARF politician and former minister Gerard Libaridian (2014)
explains in a 2014 article:
“It is very difficult for an Armenian to write about Khojali. Khojali
represents a case
when Armenians have been accused of atrocities against others, in this
case against
Azeris. Armenians are not used to being victimisers; being the victim is
more of a pattern
for us…Still, Armenians do not speak about it and Azerbaijani sources
are more
interested in using Khojali for propaganda purposes than as a subject
for serious study,
thus they are unreliable.
When in 1999 and 2000 I was interviewing Armenian and Azerbaijani
officials in Baku and Yerevan for my next book, Azerbaijani officials
dismissed Sumgait and other cases of Azerbaijani atrocities, while
Armenians ignored Khojali. I do hope that someday scholars will find out
what happened exactly with the cooperation of all parties concerned.
Regardless, something unacceptable did happen, something that involved
killings and mutilation of Azeri civilians by Armenian forces in
Karabakh. Armenians deny or explain it away just as Azerbaijanis do with
what was done to Armenian civilians earlier in Sumgait, Baku and other
Azerbaijani cities. It would have been very proper and useful if
Azerbaijan had recognised the pogroms against Armenians in Sumgait and
other Azerbaijani cities. But recognition by Armenians of the wrong done
by Armenians should not depend on a corresponding recognition of
Azerbaijani wrongs against Armenians…human suffering should not be a
matter of haggling as if we were in a bazaar. This is a matter of what
values we adopt for ourselves and what values we would want others to
adopt regarding our own history.”
While there is an open discussion on Armenian crimes in Armenian
discourse, the same cannot be said of Azeri discourse, which is often
censored and confined to denialism. Azeris in Azerbaijan fear diverting
from the state sphere of consensus and are forced to depart the country
to dissent safely. Although a state sphere of consensus exists and is
enforced in Armenia, dialogue is less censored. Libaridian’s perspective
on the Khojaly massacre is tolerated in Armenia whereas claims
corroborating Azerbaijani state crimes are censored and cracked down on
in Azerbaijan (HRW, 2019).
Khojaly aside, the broader Armenian treatment of Muslim populations
during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War was ethically questionable and has
not been fully reconciled by the Armenian state nor the Republic of
Artsakh. With the Artsakh resistance being an Armenian national
movement, Azeris who chose not to flee were largely excluded from
Artsakhi national politics and discouraged from participating beyond the
local level. This discouragement was also rooted in pressure from the
Azerbaijani state to delegitimize the Artsakhi political structures,
diverting Azeri communities from pressing for increased political
integration (Sarade, 2020). Azeri representation was entirely lost
during Artsakh’s process of power concentration, leading to the
appearance of Artsakh as an Armenian ethnostate.
Armenian discrimination of Muslims in Artsakh has not been limited to
Azeris. The Sheylanli Kurds of Lachin region, for example, had lived in
Artsakh for at least five centuries until their forced displacement and
the subsequent repopulation of Lachin by Armenians in the 1990s
(Krikorian, 2006). The Sheylanli Kurds have since been vulnerable to
Azeri assimilation policies, of which a portion of its population has
succumbed to. Many of the 24 Kurdish tribes that arrived in Azerbaijan
and Artsakh in the 16th century CE have already been forcefully
assimilated into the Azeri national identity, the Sheylanli Kurds being
one of the last unassimilated Kurdish tribes in the Caucasus (Bidlisi,
1967). Armenian ethnocentrism in Artsakh has led to neglect for the
cultural preservation of these populations. In Armenian discourse, most
are either unaware of this displacement of Kurds in Lachin or dismiss it
as an isolated incident. While the discussion on Lachin is not complete
without Kurdish representation, Kurdish access to discourse surrounding
ethnography in Lachin is unfortunately very scarce, and mostly limited
to the works of the late Caucasian Kurdish scholar Shamil Asgarov.
*** Armenian and Artsakhi Perspectives
“We do not believe in benevolent friends, the inevitable triumph of
justice, or covertly and cleverly manipulating the superpowers. If we
are to achieve national self-determination, then we ourselves, the
Armenian people, will have to fight for it.” -Monte Melkonian (1990) in
*The Right to Struggle*, (p. 60).
Even with its efforts to forge a cohesive national narrative, the
Republic of Artsakh has run into problems unifying its population under
a single national identity. A schism has emerged in Artsakhi politics
between a faction which intends to be united with the Armenian state and
a faction which intends to stay separate. This schism coincides with the
progressive remnants of ASALA and ARF clashing with a Harutyunyan-led
conservative bloc that yearns to expand the clerical power of the
Armenian Apostolic Church. Evidently, the Armenian state’s political
isolation of Artsakh from the mainland has worsened sectarian conditions
within Artsakh, treating it as a satellite state while insisting the
territory as its own and bringing its actual sovereignty into question.
Meanwhile, Artsakhis have no representation in the Armenian state’s
governing chambers. This has not impacted the popular drive to defend
Artsakh, however, which is viewed throughout the Armenian nation as
Armenian homeland.
The voting population of Artsakh tends to lean conservative, which
entails trust in the post-Soviet republican model and elevating the
power of the clergy. The conservative Free Motherland Party ruling class
and its allies hold a supermajority in the National Assembly, with
Harutyunyan at their head. Of 33 seats in the assembly, only eight are
officially held by the opposition. ARF holds three of these opposition
seats as of the 2020 elections, which saw a 72% turnout (Natl. Assembly,
2020).
During the outbreak of the Second Artsakh War, Armenian scholar Ohannes
Geukjian (2020) recognized the separation of interests between the
Armenian state and Artsakh separatists as a serious problem for the
secession of Artsakh from Azerbaijan. Geukjian explains in a September
27, 2020 article: “Recognition of needs and dialogue are preconditions
and for these to be met both parties have to be accepted as legitimate.
Indeed, official negotiations often disintegrated because of a failure
to involve representatives from the Karabakh leadership and from
Azerbaijani inhabitants of N-K and address their needs. When asymmetry
is reduced, negotiations may become successful.” That is, because of the
Armenian state imposing its diplomacy on Artsakh and failing to consider
Artsakhi interests, the Artsakh resistance has been constrained to the
will of Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan. With this, it has been
incapable of actually representing Artsakhis both on the battlefield and
at the negotiating table. The Republic of Artsakh and its Artsakh
Defense Army had become too dependent on the Armenian state to function
from their own interests, which is what Geukjian suggests led to their
vulnerability.
Many Armenians feel that Artsakh was inextricably dependent on the
Armenian state and thus could not exercise its own capabilities to a
sufficient capacity, contributing to its collapse. This stance is not
uncontested, however. According to Andranik, the Republic of Artsakh had
some degree of autonomy from the Armenian state that was reflected in
its dissent. I asked Andranik (2022): Do you believe Artsakh’s lack of
diplomatic independence from Armenia affected its ability to remain
seceded from Azerbaijan? How do you believe this affected its
representation on the global stage?
Andranik replied:
“On a micro level I would say the Republic of Artsakh was ‘independent’
of Armenia,
especially when it came to their local politics. Because in reality, the
leaders of Armenia
and the NKR (Artsakh) disagreed on quite a lot of things, but the
general political course
was the same. The ‘political course’ being heavy Russian pressure,
keeping them from
returning the seven adjacent districts and moving towards peace. On the
international
level the Republic of Artsakh was perceived as a puppet government of
the Republic of
Armenia. I believe it was Vartan Oskanian (Armenian Minister of Foreign
Affairs,
1998–2008) who said that Artsakh’s independence only served foreign
consumption and
that Armenia controls the region, instead of the government of the
Republic of Artsakh. It
should be emphasized that prior to Oskanian’s leak, the NKR held a much
stronger
position when it came to its de facto independence, and Azerbaijani
allegations were
largely ignored. After the leak, what helped push Azerbaijan’s narrative
was the
willingness of Armenia’s negotiators to sideline the authorities in the
NKR, which only
fed the Azeris’ propaganda of the NKR being a front for heavy Armenian
involvement…
Where I see the problem being was the failure of Armenian diplomats to
create the case
of Artsakh being its own independent state free of foreign political
involvement. Using
the claim of defending the lives of ethnic Armenians living in the state
to justify military
support.”
Armenian approval of the Armenian state government headed by PM
Pashinyan has wavered considerably since the Second Artsakh War.
Armenian journalist Harut Sassounian (2022) states: “Ever since the
catastrophic 2020 Artsakh War, I have been repeatedly saying that the
prime minister is too incompetent to govern Armenia. He caused the loss
of most of Artsakh and thousands of young Armenian soldiers. As a
defeated and psychologically crushed leader, he is incapable of
repairing the damage he caused to the country.” This sentiment of
disaffection with Pashinyan is among the most commonly held in
mainstream Armenian discourse. Geukjian explained in the aftermath of
the war: “The authorities in Armenia are either not transparent on all
the details of the ceasefire agreement or unwilling to reveal the
realities to further avoid political tension and civil unrest in
Armenia” (Avedian, 2020).
Because of the Armenian state’s role, Artsakhi governance is scarcely
considered in this dicussion, which can become problematic. Harutyunyan
and the Free Motherland Party are rarely mentioned as extensions of
Pashinyan’s grasp. Peace studies scholar Dr. Philip Gamaghelyan (2010)
explained 10 years prior to the Second Artsakh War: “The Armenian
leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh is often considered radical and
uncompromising. But this is an assumption. The real problem is that they
are primary stakeholders in the conflict and not present at the
negotiating table. Their needs are neglected and their opinions are
largely unknown” (Gamaghelyan, 2010, p. 16). This sentiment has since
been echoed by many Armenian thinkers such as Tamar Gharibian (2021) in
the wake of the war. Problems of governance in Artsakh are often
conflated with the Armenian state, and this has negated dialogue on
local and regional problems within Artsakh.
Russian state alignment is also a major discussion in Armenian politics,
which creates yet another diversion from local visibility in Artsakh.
Armenian stances on the Russian state’s influence are mixed. Perception
of the Russian state in Armenian discourse is fused to decades of Soviet
occupation in Armenia, some Armenians nostalgic of Soviet Armenia and
others not. The Armenian oligarchy has close ties to the Russian state,
and this relationship is reflected in favorable Armenian state policy
which has encouraged the Russian occupation of central Artsakh
(Karenian, 2019). Some Armenians perceive this occupation as beneficial
to the remaining Armenian inhabitants of Artsakh while others perceive
it as a power grab. On some occasions, these two perspectives overlap
with one another (Khudoyan, 2022).
Looking at Armenian perspectives surrounding the collapse of the Artsakh
resistance, the general consensus is that the failure of the Republic of
Artsakh and Artsakh Defense Army can be attributed to ignorance and
negligence of the Armenian state rather than overdependence on it.
** Analysis
*** Effects of Neoliberalism and the State
The neoliberal era and its repercussions have yielded a considerable
impact on the cases of Rojava and Artsakh, to the degree that their
comparison is of utmost importance to conceptualizing separatism in the
neoliberal era. Both movements have been born out of and shaped by this
era in the world order, forced to accommodate to its rapidly changing
political environments. The pattern of the “ethnic explosion” seen on
the first graph closely pertains to each movement discussed in the case
studies, the Rojava revolution’s roots in the mobilization of the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party in 1984, the Artsakh resistance beginning
during the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. In both
Rojava and Artsakh, the movements and their respective populations have
been faced with many challenges unique to this era, from integration of
drone warfare into military-industrial complexes to fighting mutual
state-backed paramilitaries of the SNA to rampant digital information
warfare enacted by aggressing states. Though Rojava is located in the
Levant and Artsakh in the Caucasus, the two movements have faced
coercion from similar actors, both of them in the Turkic megapole.
The Turkic megapole under the Turkish state’s sphere of influence is a
crucial component of this research, as it is a coercing actor in both
cases; Rojava invaded by the Turkish state and Artsakh by the
Azerbaijani state. The Turkish and Azerbaijani states’ “two states one
nation” policy has conveniently integrated much of their corporate and
military sectors to pursue a shared national coercive effort,
amalgamating the oppressive power of their hegemonies under a single
megapole. The Turkic megapole is a leading power of military technology
in West Asia, which has evolved and become increasingly lethal
throughout the neoliberal era.
US and NATO backing of the Turkic megapole marks a renewal of Cold War
behavior but with neoliberal characteristics, deriving from their
obsession with contesting Russian presence. The US and NATO’s clear
manipulation of and/or negligence toward coerced populations in both
Rojava and Artsakh display in full view their unilateral interests which
are funded by Western taxpayers. One megapole allying with another,
NATO’s direct backing of the Turkish state and indirect backing of the
Azerbaijani state have been funneled into acts of genocide. Likewise,
the Russian state has pursued its own megapole, the Russian
military-industrial complex a vital lifeline to the Syrian state and a
source of ignition for conflict in Artsakh. Russian state manipulation
and exploitation of war in West Asia has resulted in a more powerful
Russian megapole and more bloodshed, where conflict is perpetuated in a
cycle of Russian power and revenue. The same can be said of every
foreign megapole involved to some degree.
In the cases of Rojava and Artsakh, the legitimacy of UN-recognized
nation-state power structures have deteriorated. The power of the Turkic
megapole has become increasingly concentrated into the hands of its
ruling classes, and it has chosen coercion to keep these state power
structures upheld. As the neoliberal era has become deeply interlaced
with marginalization and conflict across the international system, it
can be argued the Rojava revolution and Artsakh resistance alike have
resisted the neoliberal era itself, as well as late-stage statism.
*** (Re)Structuring Resistance
In both cases, one finds similar methods of coercion and similar
coercive actors imposed on the movements, but varying challenges
regarding state co-optation and internal structuring. Both cases are
unique to the neoliberal era yet practice widely differing approaches to
it, resulting in widely differing results in their struggles for
liberation. Rojava maintains its separation of power from the Syrian and
Turkish state while Artsakh has almost entirely lost its separation of
power from the Azerbaijani state. Rojava was invaded three times by a
much larger force which outnumbered the Syrian Democratic Forces
considerably, while Artsakh was invaded by a force of a roughly
equivalent size, possibly even smaller. Drones were used to a major
extent in both instances, but had a more dire impact in Artsakh. The
conventional defensive structure of Artsakh disintegrated in the face of
this drone onslaught, while Rojava’s underground tunnel systems and
stealth-heavy guerrilla strategies have often impeded drone abilities.
The cases juxtapose an Autonomous Administration in Rojava which has
become increasingly decentralized over time and a Republic of Artsakh
which has become increasingly centralized over time. Through an
unconventional decentralized model, Rojava has sustained itself despite
being subjected to economic blockades on all sides and three invasions
from NATO’s second largest military. Rojava has also averted the
existential threat of being stripped of water and crops by the Turkish
state. Structural self-sustainability has allowed Rojava to resist
co-optation, both in its administration and economy. Democratic
Confederalism plays a mandatory role in all of these factors.
Rojava and Artsakh have responded differently to state-co-optation.
Though Rojava was harmed by US co-optation, it has maintained enough of
a distance to isolate and contain this co-optation. Artsakh, on the
other hand, has been suffocated by an Armenian state co-optation enabled
by its own unitary political structure, incapable of exercising autonomy
in every political layer from the local to national level. This has
prevented Armenians from converting the resistance into an asymmetric
force to continue fighting Azerbaijani state occupation. Meanwhile in
Rojava, parallel forces exist to confront Turkish occupation, such as
the Afrin Liberation Forces. Perhaps this can be viewed in some
dimensions as Artsakh succumbing to late-stage statism and Rojava
actively resisting late-stage statism.
Contrary to the centralist assumption of effective disaster response,
Artsakh was widely incapable of organizing one, relying on its
communities to organize an ad hoc disaster response instead. Rojava, on
the other hand, responded effectively through a localized disaster
response system, exercising this system to avert major famine and water
scarcity. This seems to disprove the idea that centralized movements are
more capable of effectively organizing responses to disasters while
decentralized movements are less effective. It is very much the opposite
in this comparison.
Rojava and Artsakh have both struggled with state information warfare as
unrecognized actors. The international system muffles their voices and
uplifts their occupiers’ voices. In spite of this, Rojava remains
consistent in its digital presence, preventing occupying states from
completely colonizing the discussion. A network of media cooperatives
has facilitated the transition of Rojava from a regional struggle into
an international movement. Artsakh and its media structures, on the
other hand, have been less successful in internationalizing their
presence, remaining mostly limited to Armenian audiences.
In the ideational dimension, Rojava is a movement for a stateless and
nationless confederation, Artsakh a movement for a unitary nation-state
appended to a republic. Both the populations of Rojava and Artsakh have
scarcely deviated from unity in their resistance to external coercers
with rare exceptions, showing that a significant degree of popular unity
can be attained in both decentralized and centralized movements, and
that this is not just a characteristic exclusive to centralized
movements. Rojava relies on its civil structures for this unity, whereas
Artsakh relies on its nationalizing architecture. There is no Tekmîl and
Hevaltî in Artsakh, but there is a collective national identity that has
been forged over the course of millennia.
A strictly national approach in Artsakh has neglected other social and
political approaches, however, leading to festering sectarianism. An
early power struggle between Armenian progressive and conservative
factions resulted in an exclusionary conservative monopoly on Artsakhi
politics. Contrarily, the Rojava revolution did not attempt to assert
its power over other local movements, but rather granted them increased
representation and autonomy. This created a heterogeneous political
environment where few voices were lost and coercive power was diminished
collectively. Whereas, in the process of homogenizing power in Artsakh,
Muslims and progressive Armenians were almost entirely excluded from the
political process.
There is no consensus in Rojava nor in Artsakh on the ethics of these
respective movements, with every community and political faction
impacted differently than the next. While perspectives differ on
internal problems, intersections can be found in popular grievances
toward external actors. For example, ethnically associated leaders and
elite in both cases have contributed to harmful actions without the
support of their populations. Similar to how Kurds in Rojava feel
betrayed by the Barzani family ruling class for supporting the Turkish
state, many Armenians feel betrayed by PM Pashinyan for his submissive
actions regarding Artsakh.
** Conclusion
*** Navigating the Tide of Interference
In the neoliberal era, there is an unprecedented range of strategies
that states abuse to keep their power structures in place while
subjecting populations to the margins of society. Populations suffer as
power and capital continue to concentrate exponentially, and they are
forced to mobilize against the structures causing their suffering. Upon
mobilizing, a separatist movement will likely face a duality of coercion
and co-optation from occupying actors, foreign actors, and transnational
actors, with states at the core of this duality. Separatist movements
must then navigate this massively powerful tide of interference. When
the movement navigates effectively, this results in a successful
separation of power.
By looking at problems and responses to problems facing separatist
movements in the neoliberal era, it is evident that decentralization is
generally more capable of addressing and resisting these problems than
centralization in a separatist movement. Decentralization seems to
respond particularly well to internal discourse, providing adaptability
to changing conditions. Increased internal fluidity and civil capability
mobilizes a population to its fullest capacity, but in a manner that is
resourceful and not inefficient nor impulsive.
From the two cases observed closely in this thesis, Artsakh has not been
able to overcome the potent cocktail of neoliberal state aggression
whereas Rojava has. Faced with a similar state torrent of ecoterrorism
and agroterrorism, the structures of Rojava and Artsakh responded very
differently to existential threats. Structurally, Rojava has positioned
itself in a constant process of addressing its own flaws and
restructuring accordingly, while unitary Artsakh is nowhere near having
an inclusive process for civil dialogue to begin with. By looking at the
affects of these dynamics carefully, it is apparent that centralization
inherently discourages restructuring through localized dialogue whereas
decentralization often relies on this for its very framework. While the
outcomes of either case cannot be reduced to any single concept,
centrality is certainly an important facet of the separatist picture
that is not often discussed in international relations nor the military
sciences. When decision-making is concentrated, decisions are not
specialized nor localized, and this can lead to a series of structural
problems that make the movement vulnerable. Looking at recent history,
there are arguably no cases of a separatist movement finding success in
a structural transition from decentralization to centralization, whereas
there are clear observable cases of separatist movements finding success
while transitioning from centralized to decentralized. With this in
mind, if Rojava’s SDF attempts to conventionalize and/or centralize
while neglecting the local military councils, it may run into similar
problems as the Artsakh Defense Army.
When social and political hierarchy is structurally nullified, women’s
power becomes accentuated and felt throughout society as a powerful
force that is otherwise muffled by patriarchy-driven centralized
structures. Rojava has tapped into this power while Artsakh has not.
However, this does not mean Rojava has achieved complete abolition of
hierarchy by any means. Ethical blemishes in the Rojava model display
that, even in a decentralized movement hoping to eliminate hierarchy,
hierarchy still pervades some facets of society. There is perhaps no
true decentralization in Rojava, but rather, an inherently imperfect
decentralization that is more politically tangible than it is normative,
struggling to deconstruct traces of social hegemony due to internal
contradictions. This discussion requires separate research, however, and
must include the Zapatistas and other horizontal movements in how they
approach contradictions in eliminating hierarchy.
Artsakh does not exhibit the same characteristics of all centralized
separatist movements, and it would be fallacious to assume so. However,
the movement certainly displays the flaws in centralization that exist
when resisting a state power, particularly when a movement is co-opted
to the degree Artsakh has been. Given top-down decision making and
enforced rigidity, centralized movements are far more vulnerable to
co-optation and its negative impacts than decentralized movements. As
seen in the case of Artsakh, when a single chamber at the top of the
hierarchy succumbs to co-optation, so does the rest of its body. In
Rojava, when a chamber is co-opted, that chamber is contained, and
generally incapable of extending its co-optation to other chambers.
In the case of Artsakh, there arguably can be no centralized movement
that is not inherently controlled by the Armenian state. In order for
Artsakh to dismantle its subservience to the Armenian state, its popular
resistance must operate in a decentralized and unconventional manner
that does not answer to a conventional command structure. Through an
autonomous network of popular resistance, coercive social structures
such as patriarchy are also held in check as state norms are
delegitimized. As of the Second Artsakh War, it appears Artsakh’s
conventional state and military model is woefully incompatible with its
own national liberation.
Movements such as the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and
Polisario Front can be observed as centralized anticolonial movements
which have seen some degree of success in separating power from an
occupying state. Although, part of what separates these movements from
the Artsakh resistance is the fact they are unconventional in nature and
not strictly vertical. Both the TPLF and Polisario Front hold a hybrid
system of horizontal and vertical structures, similar to those seen in
the first years of the Republic of Artsakh. This applies especially to
the TPLF. These examples still bear many of Artsakh’s problems, however.
In the TPLF, one finds an exclusionary ethnic Tigrayan structure that
depends on a coalition with other ethnic movements for collective power.
In the Polisario Front, one finds similar problems of co-optation from
the Algerian state.
Given the mutual factors impacting Rojava and Artsakh, I felt these
examples provide a credible contrast between decentralized and
centralized responses, and by extension of this unconventional and
conventional responses. State coercion and state co-optation are
challenges to virtually every separatist movement in the neoliberal era,
and movements must take these factors into consideration when
considering methods of resistance to occupying states. The cases of
Rojava and Artsakh show the breadth of tactics states use to coerce and
co-opt populations attempting to achieve self-determination in the
neoliberal era. By dissecting these two cases, we find a myriad of
common challenges and responses to these challenges facing separatism in
the neoliberal era. Though there are many commonalities in the factors
impacting separatism globally, each separatist movement responds
differently to these factors per its dialectic conditions, and no
universal generalization can be made of overall conditions that shape
separatist movements at large.
*** Potential Problems in the Research
I found some vulnerable parts of the research to include light attention
on conventionality, small sample size for case studies, situational
questionability, accessibility of dialogue, and my own position as an
external perspective.
From an organizational standpoint I found that conventionality could be
explored more closely in its relation to centrality. Concepts such as
defense and asymmetric warfare apply more to the discussion of
conventionality, whereas centrality applies more to political
structures. With this in mind, the discussion of conventionality is an
essential component to the broader discussion on internal dynamics of a
movement. Though I include this as an additional idea adjoined to the
discussion of centrality, research focused on centrality may
consequently neglect some aspects of conventionality as an alternative
explanation.
Regarding the case studies, the problem when closely observing only two
cases in a broader study on separatism is the fact that other movements
are neglected. Though I briefly mention movements such as the
centralized Tamil Tigers or decentralized Zapatistas, these are separate
cases that would benefit from more of a spotlight in the research. Given
the small sample size in this thesis, more extensive research is
required to encompass movements in other continents and regions beyond
West Asia. The fact that both movements analyzed in this thesis are
located in West Asia and struggle with similar regional megapoles may
also detract from understanding unique dialectic problems in other
regions and continents.
Regarding comparison of these case studies, differing timelines,
landscape, and population size are not considered as essential factors.
At the time of this research, Rojava has not yet existed as an
autonomous region for 30 years while Artsakh has. That said, this does
not detract from the comparison given that both movements were invaded
at a similar frequency and force by the Turkic megapole within a mutual
timeline (2016–2020), resulting in very different outcomes. Difference
in population size is also a factor not closely observed in this thesis.
Artsakh is smaller than Rojava both in size and population: the
territory of Artsakh 4,457 square miles with a population of 145,000,
the territory of Rojava roughly 23,500 square miles with a population
somewhere between 2–5 million (NKR, 2022b)(Arraf, 2022). I did not find
these factors to substantially impact the outcomes of each movement
given the relative size and force of the actors involved, though a
social geographer may disagree on this dimension.
Particularly in the case of Artsakh, critical theory explanations in
general are hard to come across in the discourse. Discussions of
conventionality and centrality are not part of mainstream discourse in
either Armenia nor Artsakh, and thus it is difficult to find regional
perspectives on the matter. If I were to present these ideas at a bazaar
in Stepanakert, they would probably be perceived as esoteric and
abstract compared to mainstream discussions, which are situated mostly
around Pashinyan, the Armenian government, and Azeri aggression. Being a
grassroots journalist, I am used to making information accessible and
condensed. Even though I make an effort to break down ideas and concepts
here, this thesis brings me a sense of discomfort knowing that it may
serve the academic circle jerk to some extent. Nonetheless, the ideas
can certainly be broken down further with more effort.
The explanatory discourses surrounding Rojava and Artsakh vary widely.
Rojavayî discourse often takes a more critical social approach while
Armenian discourse is more often state and governance oriented. While
explanations from my external perspective are not part of the mainstream
Armenian discourse and are less trafficked, they do not serve to detract
from Armenian discourse on the collapse of the Artsakh resistance, but
rather to elevate and expand it. Though defeatist and alarmist
narratives along the lines of “everything is gone and we are defeated,
Armenia is next” have been common in the Artsakh discourse since 2020,
these narratives are self-traumatizing and do not elevate any dialogue,
and thus I do not find they should be included in any serious discussion
on Artsakh. These so-called “doomer” narratives are especially harmful
when they are peddled by supposed international experts and allies of
the Artsakh resistance. Nonetheless, it is important to note that this
thesis is written from an external internationalist perspective as
opposed to a domestic one.
*** Our Standing in the Anthropocene
As late-stage statism and its sibling of late-stage capitalism continue
to affect the international system in this era of neoliberalism,
separatist movements around the world are faced with intersecting
challenges. In an Anthropocene with uncertainty at every corner, every
step, and every blink, the struggle to corrode the chains of statism
remains one of the most pressing international dilemmas of our time. One
that must be answered with the collective power of all underclasses and
allies, whereby the neoliberalizing architecture is turned against
itself. It is in this pursuit of unconditional internationalism that the
human condition may bloom in the collapse that surrounds us. It is in
this pursuit that the human condition may germinate amid the ashes,
empowering itself under a plane of indifferent stars whilst shaking off
its own structural parasites. The human condition bears no exoskeleton
against itself nor against the universe, yet it bears communication.
Within this, a boundless renewability found in its own uplifting. Those
who sacrifice for this social vehicle breathe among an eternal core
which catalyzes the evolutionary path before us.
We are our mountains, after all.
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