After Karabakh: A Post-Mortem of a Thirty-Year Armed Conflict in the South Caucasus

Publication Date April 21, 2025

From the Foreword by Michael Doran:

Until now, the Second Karabakh War has attracted much less scholarly attention than it deserves. Together with the Syrian civil war, the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan in 2021, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the war that Hamas initiated against Israel, the war belongs on the list of key events and conflicts that have shaped the contours of the contemporary international system. But the other items on the above list have received far more attention, partially because regional experts are scarce and partially because the impact of the war was not felt immediately, at least not in the United States and Europe. Seen from Washington and EU capitals, the Second Karabakh War strikes the eye as a remote and localized conflict—one that is of little importance to the world beyond the South Caucasus.

In fact, the Second Karabakh War is a turning point in a long and complex process of great importance to the world, namely, the re-shaping of the post-Soviet world due to the decline of Russia.