The analyst called for stopping Turkey's expansion by putting pressure on its vulnerable points
Turkey's further military-political expansion in the Caucasus will have negative consequences for the national security of the Russian Federation.
This is the conclusion reached by Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, publisher of the magazine "Export of Arms," and member of the Public Council under the Russian Ministry of Defense, in an article published by Kommersant on the results of the second Karabakh war, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to him, Russian strategy must now take into account the political and military presence in the Transcaucasus of NATO member and ambitious regional power Turkey, which played a key role in preparing and conducting the successful offensive operation of the Azerbaijani armed forces in Karabakh.
“Moscow has already recognized this presence by agreeing to the participation of the Turkish military in the work of the joint monitoring center in Agdam. At the same time, Turkey's further military-political expansion in the Caucasus will have negative consequences for Russian security. It must be stopped, pointing out, if necessary, the vulnerability of Turkey’s positions in other regions,” says Pukhov
He emphasizes that Russian-Turkish relations, combining elements of both rivalry and cooperation, are becoming more competitive as Ankara's influence and ambitions expand not only in the countries that were part of the Ottoman Empire, but also in the Turkic-speaking states of Turkestan and Central Asia, and also in the Russian North Caucasus, Crimea, Abkhazia and other regions.
“The successful Turkish intervention in the Karabakh conflict has significantly expanded the basis of this influence. Turkey's efforts to form an alliance with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are already creating a new situation in the Caspian Sea. A direct clash with Turkey is not in Russia’s interests, but retreat under its assertiveness is unacceptable. The Turkish direction deserves a special strategy in which partnership and confrontation are dialectically connected,” the author is convinced.
He also calls for important conclusions to be drawn at the military level.
“The second Karabakh war became a clear example of how a revolution in military affairs manifests itself at the level of local military conflicts. For Russia at the turn of the 1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh became the first link in a long chain of armed conflicts on the territory of the disintegrating Soviet Union. Russia was involved in all these conflicts in one way or another from the very beginning,” the expert recalls.
“Moscow, therefore, cannot fail to take into account the impact of the results of the recent Caucasian war on the thinking and possible actions of the leadership of Ukraine in relation to Donbass or Georgia in relation to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The small Russian military contingent in Transnistria is also in a special, geographically isolated position. It is obvious that in all these regions clarification and correction of not only the political, but also the military strategy is necessary,” summarizes Pukhov.
English version :: Read in English Analyst calls for halting Turkey's expansion by targeting its vulnerabilities