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In 2020, the Azerbaijani army launched a massive attack on Armenian positions in Nagorno-Karabakh. After 44 days of fighting, Azerbaijan scored a major victory, forcing Armenian forces to retreat from the territories around Karabakh, followed by the deployment of Russian peacekeeping troops. While many analysts have focused on advanced technology to explain Azerbaijan's victory, this article argues that a comparative study of the First Karabakh War (1991–1994) and the Second Karabakh War (2020) points to differences at the strategic level, including political transitions, diplomatic policies, and military forecasts, to propose a comprehensive and strategic discussion of the two wars, away from technological determinism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mass violence inflicted by the radical Islamist fighters of the 'Islamic State' organization on the Yazidi population of Iraq is the latest of modern genocides. The violence has placed this little known but ancient community of the Middle East at the centre of international attention, triggering direct international intervention in the fight against ISIS. This article aims to study the motives of ISIS in attacking the Kurds of northern Iraq and in particular the Yazidi population. It will also study the contradictory narratives that emerged in the aftermath of the attack to use it to critically challenge the grand-narratives of the modern history of the Middle East. If one writes the history of the Middle East from the experience and the perspective of the Yazidis, it will be a radically different one than those found in our history books. Hence, its subversive potential that needs to interrogate us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These articles initially appeared in English translation in I The Current Digest of the Soviet Press i (1949-1991), I The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press i (1992-2010) and I The Current Digest of the Russian Press i , all published weekly by East View Press. Mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), diplomatic efforts to bridge the gap between Armenia and Azerbaijan were intense, especially when Heydar Aliyev was president of Azerbaijan. The articles are selected from Russian language newspapers, published in Russia as well as in Armenia and Azerbaijan, such as I Bakinsky rabochy i , I Krasnaya zvezda i and I Kommersant" i . [Extracted from the article]

On the other hand, the percentage of the titular nation increased dramatically: while in 1939, Azerbaijani-Turkish speaking Muslims formed only 58% of the total population, in 1959, '67.5 percent of people in the Azerbaijan SSR were categorized as Azerbaijani' (pp. 133, 130). Therefore, when Soviet Azerbaijan officials spoke about "Leninist national rights", they actually meant the rights of the titular nationality (p. 129), not those of the other, smaller ethnic groups. This "double assimilation" led to discrimination against smaller ethnic groups, who were forcibly assimilated within the titular nation as a first step towards the final goal, the fusion of all nationalities into the ultimate group, that of Soviet citizens, a progressive, socialist identity. [Extracted from the article]

This paper argues that a long view perspective of contemporary sectarianism between Sunni and Shia Islam in the Middle East could be read on the background of earlier forms of sectarianism going back to the 19th and 20th century history of the region. Such an approach would disentangle sectarianism from primordial narratives as an intrinsic problem of Islam going back to the early schism of the 7th century and place it in social formations and social practices, and link it to the emergence of sectarianism during the Ottoman age of reforms. It would explicit arguments that link sectarianism with modernism, discussing how the emergence of modern, secular institutions that were based in early‐modern millet system led to sects and sectarianism. The outcome of this approach is conceptualization of sect and sectarianism, its categorization, and confronting it with other modern narratives of the history of the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Did the 1915 genocide of the Ottoman Armenians play a role in the genesis of the Karabakh war? In the early phase of the conflict, many Armenian activists and politicians drew parallels between the evolving struggles of the present and the traumatic events of 1915. This essay explores the ways in which Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey have referred to the events of 1915 to formulate their policies towards the conflict. The essay argues that the largely suppressed past trauma was present in the mass psychology of the conflicting parties, although in radically different ways, and that it shaped developing events. After depoliticising genocide commemorations in the early years of its independence, Armenia has recently witnessed an increase in references to the genocide in political discourse. The same also applies, somewhat paradoxically, to Azerbaijan, which has developed its own state-sponsored discourse of genocide, vehemently denying that the genocide took place while portraying Azerbaijan as a victim of genocide itself. This exchange of roles clearly needs further explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ISIS has successfully linked jihadi ideology to sectarian division. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts in the Caucasus began as a result of the weakening of the institutions of the Soviet Union. Since then there have been some major transformations. Initially, there were ‘triangular conflicts' with the centre (Moscow) on the one side and two competing national projects on the other side (a Union Republic and a minority group with an autonomous status within this republic). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, these conflicts evolved into bilateral ones between two popular-nationalist movements with competing territorial claims: newly independent nation states, on the one hand, and minority groups with autonomous status, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented to a special section that discusses the February 2008 Western recognition of Kosovo's independence and the August 2008 Russo-Georgian War over South Ossetia as instances of state recognition and of conflict between the West and Russia.

A series of events in 2008 influenced the Karabakh conflict resolution efforts: the Kosovo declaration of independence, the August war, and Russian recognition of independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Two new diplomatic initiatives to resolve the Karabakh conflict were launched immediately after the August war, one by Russia and the second by Turkey. This article discusses why the two initiatives failed, and the structural problems of Karabakh conflict resolution efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines political instability in the Central Asian island country of Kyrgyzstan. While the nation was once seen as a bastion of stability in a volatile region, violence has erupted since the overthrow of Kyrgyzstani President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in April 2010. Since that time ethnic clashes between Kyrgyzstan citizens and those of neighboring Uzbekistan have become commonplace. The author attests that the biggest threat in the region is not militant Islamism but rather surging nationalism.

Environmental challenges as a factor of security problems have entered mainstream discourse. Various international organisations have developed new instruments to look at the overlap between environmental problems and security threats. One such theatre of late has been the Maghreb, a sensitive region bordering the European Union. By looking at EU-Maghreb relations, this paper argues that, very often, environmental discourse is part of several other discourses and policy options, and rarely the dominant one. It coexists with other discourses such as 'economic reforms', 'democratisation', and 'good governance'. Yet, under conditions of rapid liberalisation and privatisation, these have simultaneously brought the Maghrebi economies under Western influence and kept them away from sustainability. As a result, environmental concerns become instrumentalided to re-design new hierarchies, or to legitimise old hegemonic relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the five days' war between Georgia and Russia, a highly politicized debate began about 'who started the war'. While this debate is far from over, it is important to analyse whether the 2008 war marks an important evolution in the series of conflicts that started in the Caucasus simultaneously with the weakening and collapse of the Soviet Union. While in the late 1980s and early 1990s the conflicts were the result of mass mobilization around the banner of the nation, marking a revolutionary period of paradigm shifts, the 2008 war was much closer to classical wars between states and their centrally commanded armies. The direct Russian military intervention, Moscow's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as 'independent' states, further modifies the nature of the Caucasus conflicts. The 2008 war also reveals how much the Georgian state has evolved since the Rose Revolution, from one described as 'weak state' to a state capable of surviving a military defeat without internal collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the Rose Revolution in the Republic of Georgia in 2003, focusing on the social or systemic change that occurred within the country that distinguished Georgia's transition to democracy from other Color Revolutions at the same time in the region such as in Serbia, Ukraine, or Kyrgyzstan. Topics of discussion include the unity of post-revolution Georgian leadership and its domination over Georgian politics, pushes for the change of the powerful elite and socio-economic reform. The cultural context that drives change and transition in Georgia in 2008 is also discussed.