The Caucasus Chessboard: Will Baku Become a ‘Gun for Hire’?

First and foremost, Baku is a net military importer. Russia was its primary market. Then, with warming ties to Turkey, Ankara became its biggest partner. As gas money kept filling the coffers, Aliyev also diversified his shopping partners. Israel became a strategic and crucial supplier in that regard. But even Belarus and many other nations have been Baku’s military suppliers. It has a modest military and a modest air force. While it boasts a “battle-hardened” image from the 2020 and 2023 Karabakh operations, those victories relied heavily on Turkish F-16s, Bayraktar TB2 drones, Israeli intelligence, and Syrian Jihadists who were available as guns for hire.

Politics

Caucasus states have had many autocratic leaders, except for Armenia and Georgia at times. Azerbaijan is ruled by the Aliyev dynasty. First, it was Heydar Aliyev, once a senior KGB Politburo strongman. After his death, the junior Aliyev came to power. He, of course, conducts elections; they are neither free nor democratic. In every election, he wins nearly 90% of the vote while independent journalists and activists suffer in jail cells. UNHCR and many other organizations have been voicing concerns to no avail. When you sell gas to the democratic EU, you automatically become a democratic leader. That is how the current global order works. His entire family is also part of the administration, his wife being the vice president, for example.

The ‘Front Against Iran’ Scenario

Now that we have established the facts on the ground, let’s imagine Baku becomes a gun for hire and opens a front against Iran. Iran has proven to have zero mercy on its enemies and has not been modest in attacking economic lifelines. The BTC Pipeline, which provides oil to the EU, and the SCP, which provides gas to the EU, run through Georgia. None of that would last more than an hour once Tehran’s drones swam in.

The BTC and SCP pipelines are the only way Baku can realistically transport its energy supplies of 50 million barrels of oil per year and 12.8 to 12.9 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas to the EU. The other option is the Russian connection through the Baku–Novorossiysk Pipeline (Northern Route), which can transport only 5 million oil barrels annually. In a nutshell, a single hour of Iranian missile strikes could evaporate Azerbaijan’s GDP for the next decade.

The Russian and Turkish Paradox

The Russian factor is the key here. Azerbaijan is not a part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military club, the Russian version of NATO. This Russia-led security organization is duty-bound to defend its members, which includes Baku’s arch-rival, Armenia. Baku has been showing the middle finger to Moscow for a while, ever since the Ukraine war started. There has been much anger in Russia towards Baku, and it escalated into almost a hot conflict just last year. Putin has no reason to save Aliyev’s dynasty. Russia sees Iran as a much more vital ally that could determine its own strategic depth. Moscow will defend its most vital interest. Tehran giving a bloody nose to Aliyev will be well-tolerated by Moscow and its military. However, Moscow would want to retain a weakened and humbled Aliyev rather than a totally defeated one.

Turkey and Azerbaijan have been boasting about their relationship with the slogan “one nation, two states.” Historically, linguistically, or nationally, this rhetoric holds no ground. Baku and Ankara are supposedly military partners, and Turkey has to come to Azerbaijan’s help in the face of an attack. At least, this is a rumor that is commonly believed. But there is a problem: to save Baku from Iran, Turkey has to come through Iranian routes to attack Iran, as it is the only available land route. Armenian skies are guarded by Moscow; thus, there is no overflying.

Although Georgia could be open to such a deployment, it will not want to become a part of a war that will only bring death, destruction, and Moscow’s wrath. Twenty percetn of its lands are already occupied by Moscow, and Tbilisi will not want to take on another military adventure for which it has no means or budget.

In a worst-case scenario, if Tehran executes a leadership decapitation strike, as decapitation strikes are now an accepted method of warfare in Western military doctrine, Baku will plunge into an unknown fate. The reason is simple: its entire state architecture is based on a one-man power center. The judge-jury-prosecution-god-devil all in one.

If an analyst could perceive this dynamic and read the Caucasus chessboard, there is no doubt that the military strategists in Baku and Aliyev’s advisors might very well be advising him to keep badmouthing Tehran, yet stay the hell away from opening a salvo. If anything is true about this war, while you could fire the first shots, no one knows how and where it would end, and which region will go up in flames next. I have a feeling that Baku will not want to fight its last war and would stay away from becoming a gun for hire, at least for now.

See also this related video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUu-WJAm_XM