Azerbaijan: The Land of Fire

Sometimes the bad guys are hard to identify. Other times they call themselves “The Land of Fire…”

There’s no wood in that fire. Isn’t that crazy? You are looking at Yanar Dag, or “Fire Mountain,” in the capital city of Azerbaijan.

The country is so saturated with natural gas it is literally farting out of the earth, forming these silent-but-deadly Bunsen burners just waiting for a spark…

Azerbaijan was the first Phoenix to rise from the ashes of the USSR.

It is a rugged, oil-rich country, resembling something of a Soviet Arizona. Strong leadership, historic trade routes, and a weak aristocracy allowed Azerbaijan to cash in on its petroleum quickly and effectively. Unlike its neighbors, Armenia and Georgia.

Nowadays, Western capital floods in and oil floods out. Its fiery biomes and multicultural history also make it a popular tourist destination. And rightfully so. From the Flame Towers to the Heydar-Aliyev Museum to the many ornate Mosques, breathtaking architecture just seems to find you in Baku.

As you can see, Azerbaijan has a lot of discretionary funds.

This is all well and good, except we’re talking about the actual Fire Nation here. Not in a goofy, Guy Fieri ‘Flavortown’ kind of way. Azerbaijan has a centuries-old bone to pick with its neighbor, Armenia, and the means to exact its revenge.

Now, with Russia distracted and Gay Turkey egging them on, they might just do the evil that post-Soviet republics do: invade their neighbors.

Violence in the Caucasus region is generally the worst of the worst. The history of the region is basically a bunch of little Nazi regimes crashing into each other for hundreds of years, broken up by periods of Russian domination.

It was genocide or be genocided. At least, that would likely be their defense if any side admitted to the g-word. Today, they refer to it as ‘retaliatory violence…’ The ol’ stand-your-ground genocide defense.

The relative equilibrium between the big three in the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia) decisively ended with the advent of the petrodollar. Which was first introduced to Azerbaijan by an idiot.

Robert Nobel, the least prominent Nobel brother, travelled to Azerbaijan in 1873. His younger brother, Ludvig, had given him 25,000 Rubles to buy walnut wood for making the Tsar’s rifle butts… Which shows you how highly Ludvig regarded his older brother. These are the Rockefellers of Eurasia, who would in fact go on to outmaneuver Standard Oil, and they were sending Robert to Azerbaijan to find butt wood… Hilarious. But I digress.

Robert ended up spending all of his walnut money on an Azeri oil well. Which he buys from a Dutchman, despite having no plan to staff it, nor any means of transporting its crude oil back to Europe. Doh!

Rather than just eat the loss wrought on by their imbecile brother, however, the other two Nobels moved heaven and earth to build an international industry around their new oil well.

Alfred Nobel used his latest invention, dynamite, to blast a path from Azerbaijan to Europe through the Caucasus mountains. Meanwhile, Ludvig bought up many more wells and organized investors to build the Transcaucasian Railway, which would transport their Azeri oil to the heart of Europe.

Before long, the Azeri oil industry was flooded with foreign investors. This was mostly to the financial benefit of the Nobels, Rothschilds, and a few other early investors, until the Bolsheviks came in and seized the means of production.

Today, in the absence of the aristocracy who developed Azeri oil and the Bolsheviks who usurped it, the state of Azerbaijan holds undisputed control of the means of production. Making them very, very rich. Like “let’s build a carpet museum” rich.

Like… “let’s put Venetian canals in the desert” rich.

Azerbaijan’s deep pockets combined with its lock-step relationship with Gay Turkey give it a decisive advantage over Georgia, Armenia, and the several micro-nations of the Caucasus region. An advantage which has largely been pressed on Armenia.

I mean, have you ever seen a petty oil pipeline before? Get a load of this.

This pipeline is actually quite insightful. As you can see, the pipeline avoids more than just the state of Armenia... it avoids the Armenian people. Many of whom are trapped in western Azerbaijan and eastern Turkey.

Most of the area circumvented by the oil pipeline would probably vote to be part of Armenia, given the chance. In fact, some of these Armenian areas have openly and democratically sought to to reunite with Armenia, risking life and limb to do so. For example, the Nagorno-Karabakh region has gone as far as to declare independence from Azerbaijan. They now refer to themselves as the “Republic of Artsakh” and fly an 8-bit remix of the Armenian flag.

Yet their democratic actions fall on deaf ears in the West.

Russia is consistently on the side of Armenia and Artsakh in such disputes, but the West has backed itself into supporting Azerbaijan through its alliance with Turkey.

Azerbaijan stylizes itself after Turkey, through whom it finds financial and diplomatic partners in Europe. Turkey is a strategically-important, cooperative member of NATO, projecting Western military strength where it is needed most. It establishes the Easternmost point of NATO’s sphere of influence

Therefore, it has the most exposure to Russian influence, and the longest leash in east-facing foreign policy. Especially if their policies are seen as challenging Russian influence.

So when the Turks chose to partner with the Azeris, who were challenging Russian-supported Armenia and Artsakh, the land of the free quietly lined up behind the land of fire.

Unfortunately for us, Russia is right on this one. We’re the bad guys here. It just might take dramatic military action by Azerbaijan for us to realize it.

There is still hope for peace, however. It just rests in the hands of the hereditary president of the petrocracy, Ilham Aliyev.

Ilham Aliyev exudes a calm confidence. He has those cringe-wrinkles you only get from a Soviet upbringing, like his water always has pulp in it. Yet he smiles often, and you get the sense he is genuinely content. Which he should be. He has an absolutely stellar legacy in Azerbaijan.

Aliyev inherited a small post-Soviet republic from his father and saw it for what it was: a business. Not a military state. He turned Azerbaijan into a regional powerhouse by signing the right contracts and making the right friends. He made his legacy as a businessman and a diplomat, not a conquerer. Despite his penchant for wearing full-camo.

However, Azerbaijan is faced with such a perfect opportunity to penetrate deeper into Armenia, it is hard to imagine them passing it up. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents a singular opportunity where Russia and the West might both look the other way. It would certainly be economically and strategically expedient to steamroll through southern Armenia & form a contiguous border with their best friend Gay Turkey.

I hope Aliyev and the Azeris are too drunk on Western capital to do a full-send invasion. Every conflict in the last few years has only been a few days long, thankfully. Despite a massive military advantage over their sworn enemy, it is just hard to wake up on satin sheets and want to go to war.

But I fear those camo pants are finally getting to Aliyev’s head… Only time will tell.