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SOUTH CAUCASUS: POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE SPREAD OF SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS
Rauf GUSEINOV
Rauf Guseinov, D.Sc. (Hist.), professor, Moscow State Open University Baku affiliate (Baku, Azerbaijan)
Introduction
The spread of small arms and light weapons (SALW) is part of the negative processes unfolding in the post-Soviet area, including in the South Caucasus. At the same time, it is an element of a global phenomenon that for brevity could be defined as proliferation.
This process is a threat and challenge to mankind in general and in particular to states that are openly and consistently countering the spread of SALW. This threat is no less dangerous than drug trafficking and terrorism, kidnapping and corruption, separatism and extremism, organized crime and money laundering, etc. Furthermore, it is directly related to human rights and recognition of the rules of international law and political obligations by individual states.
Proliferation of small arms and light weapons is especially conspicuous in zones of tension, in states with pseudo-democratic regimes—totalitarian and military-political (of the junta kind), in less developed countries of the Third World, and in dependent and pseudo-sovereign limitrophe states—in short, wherever there are pronounced negative trends and a lack of unity at the politico-state level.
In the South Caucasus, small arms and light weapons “disappeared” from the arsenals of Soviet military units deployed in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia before the breakup of the Soviet Union while in the 1990s this process intensified, as a result of which an incalculable amount of small arms and light weapons fell into the hands of illegitimate structures. They appeared in the region in the course of local and interstate conflicts. Their consequences are well known: It will be recalled that this process was marked by the presence of (or intervention by) certain external forces with interests at stake, in particular, the United States, Russia, Iran, and Turkey as well as certain Arab states.
This complex and ambiguous situation provided fertile soil for the spread of small arms and light weapons, which in turn set the stage for collisions and conflicts in the region as a whole and in individual states with the involvement of both internal and external players. As a rule, crucial periods in the life of a particular country or a region as a whole are an essential factor in………………..
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