Final Thoughts

Abstract

This volume has attempted to describe the military, political, economic, and diplomatic steps that have been taken to define Nagorno-Karabakh—and also to demonstrate the costs to all sides from this “Frozen Conflict.” The Soviet Union/Russia is not the progenitor of ethnic conflict, nor did it have the ability in the 1980s and 1990s to stop it. Russia has, however, become an expert at using those conflicts to further its own political ends. In Karabakh, villagers that argued with neighbors and threatened violence with axes and old hunting guns suddenly found themselves aligned with groups armed with tanks, artillery, and aircraft. Playing both sides against the middle, Russia has emerged as the indispensable party in any peacemaking/peacekeeping operation.