{"id":2068,"date":"2026-10-13T11:56:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T07:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/?p=2068"},"modified":"2026-10-13T11:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T07:58:13","slug":"between-fortress-and-open-door-azerbaijans-policy-on-security-secularism-and-hybrid-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/archives\/2068","title":{"rendered":"Between fortress and open door: Azerbaijan’s policy on security, secularism and hybrid warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: Farid Shafiyev is the chairman of the Baku-based Center of Analysis of International Relations and Multiculturalism. The article reflects the author\u2019s personal views and does not necessarily represent the position of News.Az.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

The South Caucasus<\/a> has always been a crossroads where empires, regional powers and outside interests compete. In a world now marked by open wars, sanctions and information conflicts, small and medium-sized states in the region are closely watched by global powers. Azerbaijan<\/a> is one of them.<\/p>\n

In a recent speech at the ruling party congress, President Ilham Aliyev set out the government\u2019s view of the country\u2019s security following the events of 2020\u20132023, namely the lliberation of Karabakh<\/a>. Azerbaijan sees its security as resting on four pillars: hard power, economic independence, a diversified foreign policy without membership of military-political blocs, and a secular state capable of withstanding hybrid warfare waged through social media and, increasingly, artificial intelligence. This article examines each pillar before considering the challenges.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

War won; peace is to be built<\/strong><\/p>\n

The starting point is that Azerbaijan\u2019s security was won, not given. For almost three decades, Karabakh and the surrounding districts were under Armenian occupation. Baku came to view the OSCE Minsk Group\u2019s mediation, led by France, Russia and the United States, as an effort to freeze the conflict until the facts on the ground hardened into an accepted legal reality \u2014 the Armenian occupation.<\/p>\n

The military campaigns of 2020 and 2023 reversed that situation. They also changed the meaning of peace in the region. With Azerbaijan having restored its internationally recognised borders, a settlement can now be built on the principle of territorial integrity. Western capitals defend that principle forcefully in other conflicts but long ignored it in Azerbaijan\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

Yet, having achieved victory, Baku has not sought to advance further, despite predictions by some Western experts and think tanks. Azerbaijan proposed the main principles of the peace treaty. Thus, Azerbaijan is not only a beneficiary of the new stability but also its architect. It ended the occupation and put forward the normalisation with Armenia that followed.<\/p>\n

Yet stability is not permanent; it must be defended every day. Defence rests first on a strong army. The second foundation, which President Ilham Aliyev particularly emphasised, is economic and financial independence. A state burdened by foreign debt or dependent on a single economic patron cannot pursue a truly sovereign foreign or domestic policy. Low external debt and energy revenues are therefore treated not merely as economic indicators but as instruments of national security.<\/p>\n

\"NewsSource: AP<\/em><\/p>\n

Independence without isolation<\/strong><\/p>\n

An independent foreign policy does not mean withdrawing from the world. The opposite is true: a state that wants to act independently needs as many options as possible. Azerbaijan builds those options through multilateral platforms such as the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organisation of Turkic States<\/a>, the newer C6 format and others.<\/p>\n

What Baku avoids is membership of military-political blocs. Neither NATO to the west nor the Russian-led CSTO<\/a> to the north is on the agenda. Instead, Azerbaijan deepens its security ties through bilateral and trilateral cooperation, above all with T\u00fcrkiye and, increasingly, through an Azerbaijan\u2013T\u00fcrkiye\u2013Uzbekistan format, which recently held joint exercises in Karabakh.<\/p>\n

The logic is that of a middle power in a contested neighbourhood. Joining one bloc would make Azerbaijan an adversary of the other and limit its room for manoeuvre between Russia, Iran, the West and other global actors. Flexible partnerships provide practical security cooperation without that cost.<\/p>\n

Hybrid war, disinformation and AI<\/strong><\/p>\n

The newest threat comes not so much from military armaments as from narratives. Hybrid warfare involves shaping people\u2019s perceptions through social media, and it moves faster than any state response. A single fabricated story can spread within hours, and even a carefully prepared rebuttal rarely erases the first impression.<\/p>\n

The format matters as much as the content. Fewer people read long texts; many react to headlines, Instagram images and short TikTok clips. Romania\u2019s 2024 presidential election, in which TikTok became a decisive tool, illustrates this transformation.<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan has long faced such campaigns from several directions, including Azerbaijani-language outlets established abroad and coordinated attacks on social media originating in neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n

Human psychology makes these campaigns effective. People prefer one simple explanation to several complex ones, often in the form of conspiracy theories, including claims about a \u201cworld government of the rich\u201d. A rise in oil prices may be caused by a combination of war, production decisions and the energy transition, but the claim that \u201ca world government is behind it\u201d is easier to absorb. Online, a mundane dispute between two people can be reframed as one community attacking another. Rumours of this kind fuelled violence at the outset of the Armenian\u2013Azerbaijani conflict in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence adds a new layer. Large language models such as ChatGPT and Claude do not produce neutral truth from nowhere. They learn from material available online and therefore tend to reproduce dominant narratives.<\/p>\n

In political science and international relations, those narratives are largely shaped by Western media and academia. For example, decades of lobbying by the Armenian diaspora have influenced the material available on the history of Karabakh and the causes of the Armenia\u2013Azerbaijan conflict. As a result, an AI model may reproduce Armenian narratives about the conflict by default. Users should explicitly ask for the positions of both sides, but they rarely do so.<\/p>\n

What response is needed to counter the influence of fabricated online stories and organised propaganda campaigns? First, law enforcement should act firmly, within the law, against those who deliberately spread provocative content, distinguishing them from people who share false information unknowingly. Second, and more importantly in the long term, education is essential: schools, journalists, YouTube channels and \u201csocially responsible influencers\u201d must explain these issues, because a government press release alone is no longer enough to persuade anyone.<\/p>\n

\"NewsSource: Dreamstime<\/em><\/p>\n

Secularism as a security pillar<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the Armenian threat resolved, the next challenge is religious radicalisation, which can be encouraged from outside but also find support within the country. Armenian nationalism never had a constituency within Azerbaijan. Religion is different: it is personal, emotional and important to many people, making it easier to exploit.<\/p>\n

Here, a careful distinction must be drawn between spiritual values and the secular order. Only a secular state can guarantee the religious rights of every citizen because it belongs to no single group. Azerbaijan is home to Shia and Sunni Muslims, Christians and Jews, and the secular framework helps maintain peace between them.<\/p>\n

The Middle East<\/a>\u00a0offers an important and tragic lesson in what happens when religious radicalisation is allowed to take hold. In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shias, as well as between religious communities more broadly, has lasted for decades. Lebanon\u2019s civil strife began in the 1970s, and 50 years later the country remains an arena for outside powers. A war with an external enemy ends at a border; a civil or sectarian war, once ignited, is almost impossible to extinguish.<\/p>\n

Radical movements also follow a recognisable pattern. They seize on everyday grievances, such as water and gas shortages, corruption or a poorly handled response to a natural disaster, and present themselves as champions of \u201cmoral purity\u201d. The result, as the experience of ISIS in Iraq and Syria showed, can include women being barred from education, imposed religious dress codes and public executions.<\/p>\n

The historical lesson shows that majorities do not necessarily determine such outcomes. The Bolsheviks had little popular support in 1917 and dissolved the Constituent Assembly in January 1918 after elections showed that they lacked a majority. ISIS, too, was a small, armed and fanatical core. Both emerged amid genuine social and economic hardship. Even if most Azerbaijanis value secular life, an organised group comprising five or 10 per cent of the population could do lasting damage.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the government needs to address the underlying factors, relying on law enforcement to safeguard the Constitution and promoting civic education from school onwards so that citizens understand why these values matter to their country.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Azerbaijan\u2019s emerging security doctrine combines old and new thinking. The traditional elements are familiar: a strong army, a sound economy, and freedom from dependence on any single power or bloc. The newer approach recognises that a state can lose stability without a single foreign soldier crossing its border \u2014 through a viral clip, a manufactured sectarian incident or an online campaign.<\/p>\n

In this vision, secularism is not an abstract ideology but practical infrastructure for peace in a diverse society. It stands alongside the army and the budget as a pillar of national security. Whether the approach succeeds will depend on maintaining a balance between firmness against organised provocation, openness to legitimate criticism and investment in an educated, discerning public.<\/p>\n

The goal of education here is not to tell citizens what to believe, but to help them understand why certain values matter to their country. In an age of hybrid warfare, that may prove to be the most durable defence of all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: Farid Shafiyev is the chairman of the Baku-based Center of Analysis of International Relations and Multiculturalism. The article reflects the author\u2019s personal views and does not necessarily represent the position of News.Az. Introduction The South Caucasus has always been a crossroads where empires, regional powers and outside interests compete. In a world now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2069,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-center","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2070,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068\/revisions\/2070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}