War and Peace How to survive the new realities

During a recent interview with local TV channels, President Ilham Aliyev was asked about the place and politics of Azerbaijan in a changing world. Before giving excerpts from the answer of the Head of State, let us take a short excursus to the essence of the question.

World processes are increasingly discussed by both experts and leaders in the context of the breakdown of the global world order. Contrary to the thesis of American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, who heralded "The End of History" in the early 1990s, the eternal laws of nature, which do not abhor emptiness, have disturbed the earth by well-forgotten controversies and conflicts. In this sense, the prediction of another prominent American scholar Samuel Huntington on the "Clash of Civilisations" proved more credible.

Fukuyama's thesis was intended to reflect the landslide victory of the Western bloc in the Cold War, which extended the American order (Pax Americana) to the rest of the world.

Since the noughties of this century, this system has begun to undergo serious changes. The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, marked the beginning of a sharp phase of confrontation with the American world and dealt America a huge image blow that it could not compensate for with military expansion in the Middle East. Against the backdrop of China's growing economic power as the main threat to the United States, other players also stepped up, asserting their geopolitical claims bolder and louder.

The European Union has given rise to a serious fracture. The lack of a common vision for the future has resulted in right-wing politicians coming to power in Austria, Hungary, and Italy. Britain has left the EU. Revolutions erupted in several Arab states. The civil war in Syria has sharply exposed contradictions in the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East, revealing the geopolitical ambitions of new players - Russia, Türkiye, and Iran.

The climax of these changes was Russia's aggression against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. Putting aside all other causes of the war, in a symbolic sense the successor to the Soviet Union, Russia, thus declared its unwillingness to admit defeat in the Cold War. The conflict in Ukraine, which has already claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, seems to be becoming a new assemblage point for the world order.

"If we look at the number of countries that have joined this conflict, we see that this is actually the Third World War...", President Aliyev stated in response to journalists.

It is noteworthy that the beginning of the Karabakh conflict in 1988, the occupation of 20 per cent of our territory, and the war of liberation in 2020 seem to outline this period of the timelessness of total Pax Americana. In this sense, Azerbaijan has, we may safely say, gained invaluable experience in navigating through the storm.

Now it is very important for us to comprehend both the international situation and our position in it in order to avoid geopolitical cataclysms and ensure the country's sustainable development. In this regard, the following remark by the leader of Azerbaijan looks very important: "Since we must always rely on reality and not set unrealistic goals, we must know and strengthen our place in the region and the world...The main issue is to reduce to zero the possible risks expected from abroad, which we have managed to do, and the steps that are under discussion today are designed for this".

An example of this "realpolitik" was Azerbaijan's conclusion of the Shusha Declaration on allied relations with Türkiye, amid various challenges and disagreements over the settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, and then the Declaration on allied relations with Russia on February 22, 2022, shortly before the outbreak of war in Ukraine. To this should be added the strengthening of our relations with the European Union on the solid economic basis of hydrocarbon exports, as well as our participation in communication projects connecting China with Europe as part of its "One Belt, One Road" mega-project.

Reflecting further on the state of affairs in the world, Aliyev also touched on the ability of international organisations to influence the situation: "As for the UN...in the current circumstances, not only we but also many countries are talking insistently about the need for serious reforms. In particular, the composition of the Security Council should be reviewed...".

Indeed, the United Nations, despite the work it does in the humanitarian field, lost its key role as world arbiter in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is not surprising, since the UN is a structure created under the Yalta-Potsdam picture of the world that emerged from the Second World War. In the geopolitical aspect, it was meant to provide mechanisms to curb aggressive encroachments of the opposing blocs and their satellites. As long as this confrontation existed, the system worked, for better or for worse. However, the collapse of the socialist camp led naturally to a policy of unilateral intervention by the United States in the internal affairs of the world.

The UN has been playing a bad game ever since. We have felt it very well on the example of resolutions of the UN Security Council of 1993 demanding Armenia to release the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. They were adopted, but no pressure was exerted on Armenia to implement these resolutions.

While the UN and its structures were undergoing a crisis of inferiority in the era of American voluntarism, this era, in turn, has also come to an end. It is now up to this organisation to find a new identity. In this regard, Ilham Aliyev continues his thought: "Of course, there should be new members in the Security Council. I think one permanent seat should definitely be reserved for a Muslim country... Another seat should be given to the Non-Aligned Movement".

With this thesis Aliyev actually offers the world a new formula: old empires cannot fairly rule the world. The world order should not be in the monopolistic hands of modern hegemons who, under the rhetoric of humanism (the West), protection of traditional spiritual values (Russia), and economic expediency (China), are in effect promoting an imperialist expansionist agenda. On the contrary, it should include actors who stand outside this discourse, representatives of communities whose very concepts embody the principle of justice - the Islamic community and the Non-Aligned Movement.

Our Head of State calls upon these two camps to combine their efforts in promoting a just world order. The solidarity of independent states will enable us to steer the objective process of globalisation towards equitable cooperation among countries and communities and to respect both traditional values and the true content of human rights and freedoms.

The policy of neo-liberal management of the world led to enormous social inequalities. Aliyev's concept will formulate the aspirations of hundreds of millions of people cut off from global governance to voice their own political agenda and find a platform to advance it. Despite the sometimes different interests of members of the Non-Aligned Movement, there are positive precedents of solidarity, one of which took place during the 44-day war in Karabakh, when representatives of this organisation actually prevented the adoption of an anti-Azerbaijani UN Security Council resolution initiated by France.

Azerbaijan itself is actively involved in making the organisation more effective. It should be noted that Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan, is the chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement from 2019 to 2023.

Suggesting the key to a proper strategy, Ilham Aliyev summed up his answer (and the question-and-answer session in general) with the following allegory: "We use our power extremely carefully. Long-distance athletes usually adjust the pace to be first at the finish, we are a stayer like them, but if necessary, we use sprint as well".

We are confident that using this strategy, our country will not only manage to get out of the global storm with honour, but can also become the cornerstone of a new, more just world order.