The shooting in Makhachkala on January 20 of a human rights lawyer and his relative has focused attention yet again on the brutal and indiscriminate approach of Daghestan's security forces to combating the Islamic insurgency.

Republic of Daghestan President Magomedsalam Magomedov recently demanded that the police make cracking down on the insurgency their top priority; Interior Minister Major General Abdurashid Magomedov (the two men are not related, the president is a Dargin and the minister a Lak) for his part complained that midlevel police officers adduce the insurgency as an excuse for their failure to prevent and solve other kinds of crime.

What neither admitted is that the police in Daghestan, as elsewhere in Russia, themselves engage in criminal activities and function as a "krysha" -- protector -- for organized crime groups. In an interview last year with the website Caucasian Knot, Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Center in Moscow described Daghestan's Interior Ministry as not a part of the government called on to protect the state system, but an independent actor, a "fortress under siege" that seeks in the first instance to defend "its own corporate interests."

That the police have long been the militants' primary target is largely due to former Interior Minister Lieutenant General Adilgirey Magomedtagirov, who construed the controversial 1999 legislation banning "wahhabism" (meaning Salafi Islam) as giving the police a free hand to kill anyone suspected of collaborating, or even sympathizing, with the insurgency.

Police have launched counterterror operations on the basis of false denunciations, using tanks and heavy artillery to kill devout but blameless believers, some of them women. They are also believed to be behind many of the cases in which men known to be practicing Muslims are abducted, tortured, and then summarily executed.

The perpetrators of those killings are rarely, if ever, apprehended and brought to trial. There is no incentive to do so; and even given the political will, identification would not be easy given the multiplicity of federal and republican police and security units engaged in counterterror operations in Daghestan.

Individual Daghestani officials have conceded that such indiscriminate violence has proven counterproductive. Rizvan Kurbanov, a former first deputy prime minister with responsibility for the law-enforcement agencies, admitted in November 2010 that "we know that in many cases what impelled people to head for the forest [to join the insurgency ranks] was their outrage at illegal actions by members of the law-enforcement agencies."

But other senior law enforcement officials adduce the difficulty of identifying the perpetrators of arbitrary reprisals to exonerate their subordinates of blame. Last November, for example, the Daghestan Prosecutor-General's Office released a statement saying its investigations have not brought to light any evidence that law-enforcement agencies were involved in any of the 29 abductions reported in Daghestan between January and October 2011. The statement stressed that the fact that the perpetrators in every case were armed, masked, and dressed in camouflage fatigues does not mean that they were police or security personnel.

Such disclaimers cut little ice with the population at large, who are increasingly at risk of being killed or injured. The website Kavkaz-uzel noted that civilian casualties in the ongoing fighting in Daghestan rose by almost 40 percent last year compared with 2010, to reach 74.

In late November, relatives of the "disappeared," together with the independent Muslim organization Ahl us-Sunnah (People of the Tradition [of the Prophet Muhammad]), staged a mass demonstration in Makhachkala to protest police brutality and abductions. Kurbanov, whom President Magomedov dispatched to reassure the protesters their grievances would be investigated, was met with jeers and whistles and shouts of "we don't believe you!"

President Magomedov on January 16 assessed the overall effectiveness of the police in 2011 as "unsatisfactory," despite what he termed a "huge amount of work done." He noted that the number of crimes rose by more than 8 percent but did not cite specific figures. He further stressed that "the fight against terrorism and extremism" should be a priority for every government agency.

Abdurashid Magomedov conceded that his ministry's performance in 2011 fell short in some respects, including in fighting corruption. At the same time, he took issue with the president, arguing that the fight against terrorism should not take precedence over "our primary function of combating crime." One year earlier, in December 2010, he had argued the opposite, telling subordinates in his New Year address that "the primary focus remains the struggle with extremism and terrorism."

President Magomedov's criticism of the Interior Ministry calls into question the effectiveness of the blanket reassessment over the past year of the republic's 16,000-plus police force. Some of the 200 officers dismissed as a result told journalists the process was unfair. One officer who had worked in the police for 35 years attributed his dismissal to a corruption investigation he undertook in 2006-2007 and for which he was formally reprimanded.

Dismantling the ties between the Daghestani police, organized crime groups and government officials may be utopian; drafting and enforcing strict guidelines for the conduct of "special" and "counterterror" operations that would minimize the likelihood of innocent civilians -- including the two men shot dead in Makhachkala on January 20 --  being arbitrarily killed is not.

As Russian journalist Maksim Shevchenko, former head of the Public Council's working group for the North Caucasus recently argued, the process of "adaptation," under which former militants lay down their arms to become law-abiding members of society, should cut both ways, with the "force" agencies, too, pledging to abandon illegal methods.

The protracted standoff in Georgia's breakaway republic of South Ossetia between Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a presidential runoff ballot last November was annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, and the republic's leaders may be close to an end.

Dzhioyeva met on January 23 with Moscow-backed de facto acting President Vadim Brovtsev for talks that both sides described as "constructive," and which they plan to continue.

This could herald a compromise agreement along the lines proposed by Dzhioyeva in December, whereby she is inaugurated as president, but the repeat presidential ballot scheduled for March 25 goes ahead as planned, and she undertakes to back whichever candidate is acceptable to Moscow.

Just days ago, it seemed that a new confrontation between Dzhioyeva and the republic's authorities was inevitable.

On January 18, Dzhioyeva wrote to Brovtsev saying she was withdrawing her signature from the protocol she co-signed with outgoing de facto President Eduard Kokoity on December 9 to end the mass protests by her supporters over the annulment of the runoff ballot, in which Dzhioyeva polled over 50 percent of the vote, defeating Moscow's preferred candidate, South Ossetian Minister for Emergency Situations Anatoly Bibilov.

Kokoity had been barred by the constitution from seeking a third consecutive presidential term.

Scuppered Compromise

Under that agreement, Dzhioyeva recognized the legality of the parliament decree scheduling the repeat ballot on March 25 and undertook to tell her supporters to disperse.

In return, she was guaranteed the right to participate in the repeat election and immunity from prosecution for her political views
.
Kokoity for his part stepped down, and dismissed two of his close associates whom the opposition perceived as having either persecuted opposition and human rights activists, or connived in the annulment of the election results: Supreme Court Chairman Atsamaz Bichenov and Prosecutor-General Taymuraz Khugayev.

The parliament, however, which is dominated by the pro-Kokoity Unity and People's parties, refused to endorse those dismissals.

"Kommersant" last week quoted an unnamed government official as admitting that by demanding only that Kokoity dismiss the men in question, Dzhioyeva and her supporters "walked into a trap, but whose fault is that?"

Prime Minister Brovtsev, a Russian citizen, took over from Kokoity as acting president and met several times with Dzhioyeva and her advisers for talks that both sides described as constructive.

But Brovtsev rejected Dzhioyeva's request to appoint one of her key aides, former Defense Minister Lieutenant General Anatoly Barankevich, as deputy prime minister.

​​Brovtsev did, however, name another prominent Dzhioyeva supporter, former Health Minister and presidential candidate Djemal Djigkayev, who backed Dzhioyeva in the runoff, as one of his advisers.

In her January 18 letter to Brovtsev, Dzhioyeva formally set a deadline of January 23 for him to cede power to her as the legitimately elected president. Addressing supporters in Tskhinvali on January 21, Dzhioyeva branded the March 25 election illegal. (Under the December protocol, she had acknowledged its legality.)

Dzhioyeva also said she would name a date for her inauguration as president if Brovtsev did not meet her demand to cede power.

The presidential press service responded with a statement, describing Dzhioyeva's "demarche" as "opportunistic" and "not constructive," while suggesting that it was deliberately intended to destabilize the political situation in the run-up to the March 25 repeat election, and capable of inflicting irreparable damage to South Ossetia's statehood.

Cordial Talks Amid Hard-Line Rhetoric

It claimed the republic's leaders have fulfilled their commitments under the December protocol.

The pro-Kokoity People's Party issued a statement describing Dzhioyeva's demand as unconstitutional. The party called for an emergency session of parliament to be convened so that it could debate the appropriate response, but no such session has yet been scheduled.

Despite the hard-line rhetoric from both sides, the talks on January 23 appear indeed to have been cordial and constructive.

Dzhioyeva told journalists afterwards that for the first time, she was invited to outline her proposals for resolving the current crisis.

Meanwhile, preparations for the March 25 repeat election have already begun. To date, three potential candidates have informed the Central Election Commission (TsIK) of their intention to participate. (Dzhioyeva has still not given any firm indication as to whether she intends to run again or stay on the sidelines.)

Deputy Defense Minister Igor Alborov, who registered as a candidate in last November's election, but pulled out at the last minute, and State Committee for the Media head Georgy Kabisov, who placed sixth with 7.62 percent of the vote, are both Kokoity's men.

The third, deputy parliament speaker Yury Dzitstsoity, backed Dzhioyeva in December in her standoff with Kokoity, as did a second deputy parliament speaker, Maya Tskhovrebova, whom "Kommersant" has also identified as a possible independent candidate.

Former Russian wrestling team coach Djambolat Tedeyev, who was identified a year ago as Moscow's preferred successor to Kokoity, has likewise announced his intention to participate in the ballot.

The TsIK voted narrowly last September not to register him as a candidate for the November election on the grounds that he had not been permanently resident in South Ossetia for the previous 10 years.

Tedeyev claimed that restriction was introduced specifically to disbar him from the ballot. He then threw his weight behind Dzhioyeva's candidacy.

Assuming that Tedeyev is not again disbarred, and that Dzhioyeva herself does not run again in March, it is conceivable that Moscow might back Tedeyev in preference to either one of Kokoity's associates, or even Bibilov, should the latter choose to stand for election once more.

Contingency Plans

Tedeyev was quoted in late December by the Russian news agency Regnum as arguing that the people of South Ossetia should support a candidate acceptable to Moscow in the March election, and that Moscow in turn "should start talking to the people in South Ossetia who are capable of taking decisions and who will not ignore public opinion."

Tedeyev went on to send a clear message to both the Russian leadership and the Kokoity camp: he is for constructive dialogue, and proposes "turning a new page," rather than engaging in lengthy investigations of the corruption and embezzlement of Russian funds that became one of the hallmarks of the Kokoity regime.

All the same, Moscow appears to have made contingency plans to predetermine the outcome of the March repeat election.

On December 23, three senior Russian officials -- Deputy Security Council Secretary Valentin Sobolev, First Deputy Prime Minister Gennady Bukayev, and Russia's ambassador to South Ossetia, Elbrus Kargiyev -- met with the newly revamped South Ossetian Security Council to discuss how to "prevent destabilization" prior to the March vote.

The South Ossetian Security Council, of which Bibilov is a member, together with Interior Minister Valery Valiyev, presidential administration head Arsen Gagloyev, and acting parliament chairman Zurab Kokoyev, duly tasked the TsIK with "drafting and implementing measures to preclude violations of the law and possible clashes on polling day."

Whether those contingency plans will be quietly shelved if Dzhioyeva and Brovtsev reach agreement on her inauguration as interim president, and on who should succeed her, is not yet clear.

A civic union of Abkhaz "patriotic forces" held its founding congress in Sukhumi on January 19.  The new union, which has named itself Apsadgyyl (Homeland) is not intended as an electoral bloc for the parliamentary ballot scheduled for March 10. Instead, it will seek in the longer term to bridge what lawyer Tamaz Ketsba, a member of the initiative group behind the forum, calls the existing split in Abkhaz society.

The new union brings together an unspecified number of opposition parties and NGOs, including the radical Forum of National Unity of Abkhazia (FNEA) headed by Raul Khajimba, who ran unsuccessfully in the presidential elections of 2004, 2009, and 2011.

Addressing the founding congress, Khajimba argued that Abkhazia's sovereignty is under threat because of the inertia of its leaders, presumably meaning Aleksandr Ankvab, who was elected de facto president in August 2011 following the untimely death in May of Sergei Bagapsh. Only a few countries recognize Abkhazia as an independent entity, including Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and a handful of Pacific island states. 

At the same time, Khajimba called for "constructive dialogue" between the opposition and the authorities.

The Apsadgyyl congress addressed two formal demands to the authorities in the run-up to the March ballot.

The first was for the outgoing parliament to debate proposed amendments to the election law that would minimize the scope for falsifying election results.

One such measure is to revamp the composition of election commissions at all levels. The parliament is reportedly reluctant to debate those amendments.

The second proposal was to guarantee all parties airtime on state TV and radio even before the election campaign gets underway. 

Last fall, Khajimba addressed an open letter to Ankvab complaining that the management of Abkhaz state TV and radio routinely ignores all the opposition's demands for more extensive and in-depth coverage of pressing political, socio-economic, legal, and demographic matters as well as other issues, such as corruption.

Khajimba called for the creation of an independent public council that would advise the management of state TV on programming priorities as well as on promoting feedback from viewers and listeners while also acting on such audience input.

Ankvab rejected that demand. But he did agree to set up a "working group," which is to formulate its reform proposals by March 1, i.e. too late for them to be implemented during the run-up to the March parliamentary elections.

The fragile political stability that followed the agreement signed in December between outgoing de facto South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity and Alla Dzhioyeva, whose victory in the runoff ballot to choose his successor was annulled by the breakaway republic's Supreme Court, is in jeopardy.

Dzhioyeva announced on January 18 she had revoked her signature to the December 10 agreement because Kokoity failed to honor it.

Dzhioyeva also formally asked acting President Vadim Brovtsev to cede power to her. She warned that failure to do so would be construed as a bid to retain power illegally.

The December 10 agreement was mediated by a senior Kremlin official. It required Dzhioyeva to end the protests by hundreds of her supporters against the Supreme Court's annulment of the outcome of the November 27 runoff, in which the provisional results gave Dzhioyeva a clear lead over Moscow's preferred candidate, South Ossetian Emergency Situations Minister Anatoly Bibilov. In return, Kokoity would step down as de facto president (his second term had already expired) and dismiss two of his closest associates: Supreme Court Chairman Atsamaz Bichenov and Prosecutor-General Taymuraz Khugayev.

Dzhioyeva duly complied with the terms of that agreement, but the republic's parliament refused to endorse the dismissals of Bichenov and Khugayev. Dzhioyeva sought to pressure both Brovtsev and Moscow to intervene, but without success.

​​Brovtsev, whom Dzhioyeva thanked for "all the positive things you have done," has not yet responded to her ultimatum. Over the past month, Brovtsev has moved to replace several of Kokoity's cronies, including Construction Minister Chermen Khugayev and state advisers Nugzar Gabarayev and Kosta Dzugayev. He then named former Health Minister Dzhemal Dzhigkayev, who placed last of the 11 presidential candidates and backed Dzhioyeva in the runoff, to replace one of those advisers.

To date, three people have announced their intention to register as candidates in the repeat presidential ballot scheduled for March 25. Deputy Defense Minister Igor Alborov registered as a candidate in last November's election but pulled out at the last minute. State Committee for the Media head Georgy Kabisov placed sixth with 7.62 percent of the vote. Deputy parliament speaker Yury Dzitstsoity, who backed Dzhioyeva in December in her standoff with Kokoity, announced today that he will run.

Dzhioyeva plans to convene a meeting of her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 21.

There can be little doubt that Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov sees himself -- and craves recognition  -- not just as a secular political leader, but as the head of a national-religious community.

In that latter capacity, Kadyrov has sought in recent years to systematically impose, by force if necessary, his own eclectic vision of what constitutes "traditional Chechen Islam," along with the code of behavior, ethics, and dress he considers one of its key components.

But although some eminent Arab leaders treat him with respect, Kadyrov's relentless promulgation of a bizarre syncretic amalgam of Chechen Sufism and popular Islam; canonical Sunni Islam, as represented by the Shafii legal school; and, more recently, Christian practice has alienated many clerics and ordinary believers in Chechnya. Few dare risk incurring his wrath by openly expressing dissent, however.

A classic example of Kadyrov's idiosyncratic approach is the way he has sought to exploit his acquisition last summer of a chalice allegedly owned by the Prophet Muhammad and two rugs that temporarily covered his grave.

One of the two rugs has been placed on the grave in the village of Khosi-Yurt of Kadyrov's father, former Chechen mufti Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov, which has become a site of pilgrimage. Cisterns containing "holy water" from the chalice, liberally diluted with tap water, have been delivered throughout Chechnya in light of its imputed miraculous healing and reconciliatory properties, even though the Christian concept of "holy water" is totally alien to Islam.

While individual Chechens are reportedly convinced of the miraculous qualities of the chalice, theologians remain divided over whether Shari'a law permits the veneration of material objects considered sacred.

It is both odd and incongruous that Kadyrov, the son of a respected mufti who studied in the 1980s first at a madrasah in Bukhara and then at the Islamic University in Tashkent, should have grown up with such a rudimentary and flawed understanding of both Islamic dogma and ritual. In contrast to 20-year-old insurgent commanders who quote the Koran in flawless Arabic, he has never been known to quote verbatim from the Koran in public.

Some of Kadyrov's assertions border on the heretical. Addressing religious advisers last month, he characterized Sufi saints as "companions of God" whose lives the media should make familiar to every Chechen. At the same meeting, he equated respect for the secular Russian state with piety, affirming that "he who is embarrassed to rise to his feet when the flag of the Russian Federation is hoisted is no Muslim."

​​

Such pronouncements play into the hands of the North Caucasus insurgency, whose members profess a puritanical Salafi Islam that is increasingly proving more attractive to young Chechens than Kadyrov's bastardized Sufism. Salafis reject such elements of Sufism as the worship of Sufi saints and pilgrimages to holy places ("ziyart").

The insurgency's ideologues routinely denounce Kadyrov and his henchmen, including the republic's official clergy, as "murtads" (apostates) and "mushriks" (idolators). Challenging Kadyrov's pronouncements is fraught with risk, however. An imam from Urus-Martan who publicly denounced last year as a pagan ritual the celebration of the Christian New Year, complete with the traditional Russian New Year's tree, was abducted by Kadyrov's security personnel and beaten to within an inch of his life.

Chechen Saint Kunta-Hadji

Central to Kadyrov's institutionalization and exploitation of Chechen Sufism for political ends is his elevation to cult status of the 19th-century Chechen Sufi preacher Kunta-hadji Kishiyev, one of the most venerated representatives of the pacifist Qadari tariqah (Grozny's Islamic University is named after him).

Kunta-hadji advocated the acceptance of infidel Russian domination in order to avert the extinction of the Chechen nation in an endless war against the Tsarist regime. To that end, he even advised believers to enter an Orthodox church if required to do, as "it is only an edifice." 

Such dissimulation, whether or not consciously deriving from Kunta-hadji's teachings, was widespread among Chechens in the 1970s and 1980s. In his stellar "Chechnya. Tombstone of Russian Power," the British scholar Anatol Lieven quotes Chechen friends who explained to him that it was not considered a sin to deny one's membership of a Sufi "vird" (brotherhood), or even to consume pork while serving in the Soviet military.

Kunta-hadji was deported in January 1864 to central Russia, where he died in prison three years later. His followers have never been able to come to terms with the collective trauma of losing their spiritual leader. To this day they await the return of their sheikh; he is rumored to have been sighted in Mecca in 1971.

The importance imputed to Kunta-hadji by Kadyrov and the Chechen official clergy serves two interrelated political purposes. First, it substantiates Kadyrov's implicit claim to religious leadership by showcasing the Kadyrov family's association with the saint: Akhmed-hadji's great-grandfather Iles was reportedly arrested together with Kunta-hadji.

Second, the superficial resemblance between Kunta-hadji's creed of nonviolent resistance and dissimulation in the name of preserving the Chechen nation and the professed subservience to and financial exploitation of Moscow espoused by first Akhmed-hadji and then Ramzan Kadyrov serves to rationalize, even ennoble that latter strategy in the eyes of the Chechen population.

The anniversary of Kunta-hadji's deportation on January 3 was celebrated this year on a far more lavish scale then ever before. And increasingly, Kadyrov and his advisers attend public functions dressed in the traditional garments and skull cap favored by Kunta-hadji's followers.

Representatives of five extra-parliamentary opposition parties met on January 12 in Baku to formalize the creation of a new Resistance Movement for a Democratic Society.

Nonetheless, it is questionable how effective this movement will prove in a situation where the authorities have succeeded in sidelining all genuine opposition and society is, to quote analyst and opposition Public Chamber member Zafar Quliyev, prey to civic passivity, politically indifferent and socially disorganized.

The five parties in question are:


Oruc says the new movement's objective is to reform election legislation and create conditions for holding democratic elections. Quliyev, however, who participated in the January 12 meeting by telephone from the United States, cited different priorities, namely resolving the Karabakh conflict and fighting corruption.

Quliyev and Miralioglu both affirmed the new movement's readiness to cooperate with the Public Chamber established one year earlier.

Oruc, by contrast, has spoken disparagingly both of the Public Chamber, and of the opposition Musavat Party, which is one of the most prominent forces within it.

For his part, veteran Musavat Party leader Isa Qambar has argued that for the sake of expediency "all democratic forces should align under the aegis of the Public Chamber."

​In contrast to the new Resistance Movement, the Public Chamber brings together several of the "big names" among the opposition, including Qambar, Azerbaijan Popular Front leader Ali Kerimli, former opposition parliament deputy Panah Huseyn, the author of a "road map" for a peaceful transition to democracy, and respected Islamic cleric Ilgar Ibragimoglu. 

It is true that unsanctioned protests organized by the Public Chamber were systematically dispersed by police, and over a dozen participants have been jailed.

The Public Chamber has nonetheless succeeded in bringing together under its banner people of widely diverging views, according to Kerimli.

"Nationalists, believers, atheists, leftists, rightists, -- all those who want change, regardless of their political views, are with us," Kerimli told a meeting earlier this month to review the Chamber's activities in 2011.

Addressing that meeting, Qambar raised the possibility of calling for the resignation of President Ilham Aliyev, while Kerimli argued that "regime change in Azerbaijan must become our basic slogan."

Just seven months after joining the Non-Aligned Movement, Azerbaijan is now revitalizing its engagement with the NATO alliance.

Does this apparent inconsistency reflect diverging priorities within the upper echelons of the country's leadership? Or are both moves part of a complex and far-reaching strategy focused on winning back control over Nagorno-Karabakh?

The "National Security Concept" approved by President Ilham Aliyev in 2007 affirms that "Integration into the European and Euro-Atlantic political, security, economic, and other institutions constitutes the strategic goal of the Azerbaijan Republic. The Azerbaijan Republic views its partnership with the Euro-Atlantic structures as a means for contributing to security, economic prosperity and democracy in the whole Euro-Atlantic area."

But the "National Military Doctrine" adopted by parliament in 2010 does not list such "integration" as a strategic goal, although it does affirm Azerbaijan's continued willingness to cooperate with NATO. 

Azerbaijan has successfully implemented two successive Individual Partnership Action Plans (IPAP) with NATO, in 2005-07 and 2008-09. But already in 2008, opposition politicians and Baku-based military analysts were voicing concern that NATO membership was clearly not a priority for the country's leadership.

NATO's Parliamentary Assembly for its part highlighted areas in which Azerbaijan still failed to meet key criteria, such as strengthening parliamentary control over the armed forces and the country's questionable record on human rights.

Azerbaijan's third two-year IPAP, for the period 2012-13, was approved only last month. Armenia's was approved one month earlier. Within days, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry published a list of three NATO training courses in which Azerbaijani servicemen will participate during the first six months of 2012. There will also be a working meeting in Brussels next week, and talks in Baku with German defense specialists.

In late November, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov reportedly attributed the delay in finalizing Azerbaijan's third IPAP to objections by unnamed NATO member states. But Cesur Sumerinli, head of the Doktrina Center for Journalistic Military Analysis, said it was the result of Azerbaijan's failure to comply with some requirements of the second IPAP concerning civilian oversight over the armed forces and increasing civilian representation in the upper echelons of the Defense Ministry.

Some commentators construed Azerbaijan's accession to the Non-Aligned Movement as evidence that the country had turned its back on NATO. Military expert Uzeir Jafarov termed it "a blow to everything done to date to promote cooperation with NATO." 

Addressing the Bali meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement at which Azerbaijan was formally accepted as a member, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov explicitly noted that membership would give Azerbaijan "an additional platform" for promoting the resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

If Baku regards the Non-Aligned Movement primarily as a forum for exerting diplomatic pressure on Armenia, then by the same token Azerbaijan's renewed cooperation with NATO is presumably intended to enhance the military's capability to make good on Aliyev's periodic warnings that if diplomacy fails, Azerbaijan will have no choice but to resort to force to bring Nagorno-Karabakh back under its control.