The Radar
The Russian government currently leases ground-based Soviet-built early-warning radar stations in Baranovichi (Belarus), Sevastopol (Ukraine), Mukachevo (Ukraine), Balkhash (Kazakhstan), and Gabala (Azerbaijan). It also operates radars on Russian territory in Murmansk, Pechora, and Irkutsk. [1] Many of these complexes employ obsolete technology, are costly to maintain, and were designed to identify only warheads carried on approaching inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

The Daryal radar facility in Gabala began operating as part of Russia’s early-warning network in February 1985. Its original purpose was to enable the Soviet military to detect ballistic missiles and some cruise missiles launched from south of Russia. These included launches from Asian and African countries, as well as from U.S. strategic missile-launching submarines (SSBNs) operating in the Indian Ocean. [2] The Gabala radar was designed to work in conjunction with the USSR’s extensive network of space-based surveillance systems, with both ground- and space-based sensors feeding data into the Soviet strategic command.

The Russian military continued to use the radar following the USSR’s dissolution. After protracted negotiations, Azerbaijan and Russia signed a 10-year lease for Gabala on January 25, 2002. The original rent was set at $7 million, but the Azerbaijani government asked for a doubling of the rate in 2006. It is unclear to what extent Russia increased its payments as a result. [3] One Azerbaijani source claims that the Russian government has failed to pay even the $7 million figure for the past two years. [4] About 900 Russian troops belonging to the Federal Space Forces presently work at the complex. [5]

With a range of 6,000 kilometers, the Gabala radar can potentially monitor India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and parts of China and Africa. [6] According to Russian sources, during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the station detected over 150 launches of short-range Scud missiles. The Gabala radar also detected test launchings of Shahab-3 missiles from Iran in January 2007. [7]

Yet, the functionality of the radar has been called into question by the fact that the Russian government has already decided to replace Gabala and other Soviet-era early-warning BMD radars with new radar complexes that provide more comprehensive coverage of all types of missile launches, including strategic and tactical ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. [8]

The first new “Voronezh-M” radar station became operational in late December 2006 in the Leningrad Region, near St. Petersburg. It closed the gap in coverage of the sector facing northwest from Russia that arose in 1999 when Moscow abandoned its obsolete Dnestr-M Skrunde radar station in Latvia. [9] In February 2007, Col.-Gen. Vladimir Popovkin, the commander of Russia’s Space Forces, announced that the government expects to complete construction of another Voronezh-type radar in southwest Russia in 2007. [10] At the time, then Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov indicated that Russia plans to build additional radar stations in order to end dependence on the stations located in the other former Soviet republics. He told the Duma (the lower house of the Russian parliament) in February 2007 that, “We should not depend on anyone on this issue and should control everything ourselves.” [11]

The Host Nation
At the G-8 summit, Putin said that he had discussed the issue directly with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev the day before the Russian leader announced his proposal. [12] On June 14, Aliyev gave a lengthy interview to the Japanese media in which he explained his reasons for agreeing to consider Putin’s proposal. First, Azerbaijan already had good relations with both Russia and the United States, cooperating with both countries on many issues. Second, the Putin proposal would help “reduce potential danger in the world and contribute to global security” and, Aliyev noted, Azerbaijan is already “participating in many programs with respect to the provision of security and predictability in our region.” Third, he observed that his nation’s rights and interests would be respected since the 2002 lease agreement “clearly states that any additional agreement by Russia with any third parties with respect to the use of the radar station must also be agreed to by Azerbaijan.” [13]

In further explaining Azerbaijan’s objectives regarding Putin’s proposal, Aliyev told Russia’s Vesti TV Channel that, “I do not think it is an opportunity to get some immediate profit or to snatch something. It is a new element of Russia-U.S. strategic relations.” [14] He later acknowledged to the Japanese media, however, that “Our attitude toward the development of the radar station and discussions about it will be based on our long-term strategic interests.” [15] Other Azerbaijani leaders were more explicit in describing the benefits that might accrue to their country from possible joint Russian-U.S. military use of the Gabala radar. Aydin Mirzazade, deputy chairman of the parliamentary defense and security committee, said that a joint Russian-American operation at Gabala would “strengthen the geopolitical position of Azerbaijan, since the station belongs to our country.” [16]

It is unclear whether the Azerbaijani population will support Putin’s proposal for joint use of the radar. Lack of popular support for hosting foreign BMD systems has been a continuing problem with the proposed U.S. deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic. Azerbaijani nationalists have long seen the Gabala base as an affront to the country’s sovereignty. Citizens’ groups express unease about the Russian military’s traditional lack of attention to the environmental impact of its activities on local communities. The local residents worry, in particular, about the possible detrimental effects of the radiation from the radar station, a concern that has also discouraged tourists from visiting the region. The sharp increase in the price of Russian gas exports to Azerbaijan in early 2007 led some members of the Azerbaijani national legislature to call for renegotiating the lease terms. [17]

In their initial response to Putin’s proposal, the opposition Musavat Party said the best variant for Azerbaijan would still be to close the station. [18] The Azerbaijani Democratic Party has stated that it favors retaining Gabala only if Azerbaijan receives guarantees from Russia and the United States to upgrade its technologies and reduce its environmental impacts. [19]

Nevertheless, Azeri policy-makers seem willing to brook any popular opposition in return for the perceived advantages of hosting a now even more important strategic facility. Some residents near the radar have indicated they hope that the Americans would provide jobs and other compensation for use of the facility. [20]

Washington-Baku Relations
Azerbaijanis seeking to move away from Russia and closer to the United States endorsed Putin’s proposal because it would, in the words of opposition supporter Rasim Musabekov, “mean diversification of this base and would increase the strategic weight of Azerbaijan.” [21] From this perspective, inviting the U.S. military to use Gabala would have the advantage of strengthening Azerbaijani-American relations without being perceived in Moscow as an unfriendly act.

Security ties between Baku and Washington are good, if complex. On the one hand, U.S. policy makers have complained about government restrictions on political freedoms and extensive corruption among government employees. On the other hand, they recognize the pivotal importance of having a friendly secular government in a predominately Muslim country, rich in energy resources. Azerbaijani oil exports underpin the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which U.S. policy-makers see as an essential element of their strategy to diversify the sources and routes of energy exports from the former Soviet Union. [22]
In terms of concrete security cooperation, Azerbaijan is one of only two Muslim countries (the other be
ing Kazakhstan) that have contributed troops, if in small numbers, to the U.S.-led peacekeeping operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. At the June 14 meeting of the NATO Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the Azerbaijani minister of defense reaffirmed his government’s commitment to double the size of its contribution to the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. [23] The Azerbaijani law enforcement, military, and intelligence communities have provided useful data and other assistance
to the United States in the American-led counterterrorist campaigns in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Caucasus.

In October 2005, the United States and Azerbaijan co-sponsored a two-day workshop – attended also by representatives from Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Turkey, and Turkmenistan – in Baku on “Black Sea and Caspian Sea Maritime Nonproliferation.” [24] The United States has spent tens of millions of dollars as part of its Caspian Guard Initiative to enhance the ability of the Azerbaijani Navy and Coast Guard to counter regional proliferation and terrorist threats, including threats against Caspian Sea energy sources (e.g., terrorist attacks against oil platforms). [25]

For several years, the U.S. government has been helping construct two radar stations in Azerbaijan. The first radar site is slightly north of Baku; the second is near Azerbaijan’s southern border with Iran. Unlike the Gabala complex, which detects missile flights, the two American-sponsored radars are designed to monitor the potential movement of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery by maritime and air traffic. Interestingly, the Iranian government has not formally objected to their construction. [26]

Hosting a joint U.S.-Russian military base could also help strengthen Azerbaijan’s ties with NATO. Problems within the Azerbaijani military, persistent disputes with neighboring countries, and a reluctance to implement Western-style political reforms have thus far discouraged President Ilham Aliyev and other members of his government from affirming a desire for alliance membership like Georgia. Unlike leaders in neighboring Armenia, however, Azerbaijani policy-makers have not excluded seeking NATO membership in the future. [27]

Azerbaijan is scheduled to complete its NATO Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) later this year. The renewable two-year IPAPs provide a mechanism whereby non-member countries seeking to deepen their ties with NATO can obtain tailored advice and assistance on a variety of security issues. [28] Robert Simmons, the special representative of the NATO Secretary General for the South Caucasus and Central Asia, visited Baku in March 2007 to discuss the terms of the follow-on IPAP with Azerbaijan Defense Minister Colonel General Safar Abiev. [29]

Armenia and Nargorno-Karabakh
Besides the non-participating European states, the other third parties who will be strongly interested in the Gabala arrangement will be Armenia and Iran. Although Azerbaijan’s relations with these two countries have stabilized recently following many years of tense and (in the case of Armenia) violent confrontations, an increased Russian-American military presence in the region would introduce a new and unpredictable element into these regional dynamics.

Many Azeris hope to leverage the base to gain support in their dispute with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region where ethnic Armenians predominate. The two countries fought a bloody war over Nagorno-Karabakh during the early 1990s, which resulted in Armenian troops occupying most of the territory and the displacement of over half a million Azeris. The chairman of the Azeri opposition Democratic Party declared that hosting a joint Russian-American military base “could lead to the coordination of Russian and U.S. positions on other Azerbaijan-related issues, for example the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement,” implying that Moscow might moderate its traditionally pro-Armenian stand in the dispute as a result of the increased importance of its security ties with Baku. [30]

Despite reports of recent progress in the talks conducted within the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Minsk Group (co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States), the Azerbaijani and Armenian negotiators on the disputed region remain divided over several fundamental issues relating to the area’s future status. Whereas Azerbaijani leaders remain adamant that Nagorno-Karabakh return to their control, Armenian representatives insist on legalizing the region’s independence. In addition, the two armed forces continue to engage in frequent firefights along the ceasefire line. When asked about Putin’s proposal, Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vladimir Karapetian said that Russia and the United States need to “take into account the balance of the power in the region before making such a decision.” [31]

Iran: Threat and Response
Putin said his proposal was unlikely to harm Russian-Iranian relations “because this radar has been operational for quite some time.” [32] Anatoliy Antonov, head of Security and Disarmament at the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that, unlike the U.S. BMD systems planned for Poland and the Czech Republic, “the Gabala radar facility is a ‘passive’ surveillance system [that] does not have an antimissile component. Therefore, we see no reason why our relations with the Asian partners could change for the worse.” [33]

Nevertheless, Kazern Jalali, a member of the Iranian parliament and rapporteur of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, complained that the Russian government should not treat Iran as a “tool” for resolving great power disputes. [34] A commentary in the Tehran Times likewise raised the issue of whether, “by allowing the deployment of U.S. forces so near to the Iranian border, would Russia not be breaking its alliance with Iran? And doesn’t this make it clear that Russia has no qualms about using Iran to neutralize the threats of the United States?” [35]

On June 17, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Ali Hosseini said mysteriously that Tehran had received indications from Russian officials that Moscow had no intention of actually following through with its Gabala offer. The statement sounded as a warning: “It seems Russia does not plan to make decisions that may cause instability and insecurity in the region.” [36]

Putin did not say anything about how his proposal might affect relations between Iran and Azerbaijan, which have been troubled since the latter gained independence in 1991. For many years, Iranians were concerned that Azerbaijan would lay claim to those parts of Iran where large numbers of ethnic Azeris resided. Tensions also arose regarding the division of rights to the Caspian Sea, home to the world’s third largest hydrocarbon reserves. In 2001, Tehran dispatched military vessels and aircraft to threaten two Azeri research ships exploring oil fields in the southern Caspian. [37]

These ethnic, territorial, and other tensions have become less visible in recent years, however. In 2004, the two countries’ defense ministers signed a bilateral non-aggression pact. Azerbaijani officials subsequently cited the pact as excluding their participation in any collective military operation against Iran. Although Azerbaijani officials have allowed U.S. warplanes to traverse their airspace for activities related to the global war on terrorism, they have insisted they would not allow foreign countries to use their territory for military operations against their neighbors. Explaining to the press why multilateral use of the Gabala radar would contribute to regional stability, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov observed, “According to Azerbaijan’s rules, no third country can use our country to attack another country.” [38]

The Gabala radar's large size, location, and proximity to Iran would make it vulnerable to disabling attacks from Iranian air, missile, or even ground forces. [39] The three governments managing the complex would probably need to establish some form of enhanced defense system for the facility, since the Azerbaijani armed forces cannot adequately protect it from Iranian attack. At present, however, Azerbaijani officials, partly to avoid antagonizing Iran, have barred foreign military troops from defending the installation.

On June 14, Azeri President Aliyev told the foreign media that implementing Putin’s proposal would not disrupt Azerbaijani-Iranian relations because it would not involve the deployment of more foreign troops in his country or even “additional infrastructure development with respect to the radar system.” Aliyev pledged that, “Azerbaijan will never do anything to harm the interests of its friends and neighbors. We will not consider allowing the deployment of any foreign military base in Azerbaijan. This is a principle which remains unchanged.”’ [40]

Nevertheless, an Azerbaijani decision to grant U.S. armed forces indefinite access to a military facility whose declared purpose is to help counter an anticipated Iranian missile threat to Europe and the United States could worsen Azeri-Iranian ties dramatically. Iranian state radio commented that the Russian proposal could have “serious regional implications in the domain of security.” [41]

Several members of the Iranian parliament were highly critical of the willingness of the Azerbaijani government to consider allowing the United States to use the Gabala station. The First Deputy Chairman of the National Security Committee of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Nabi Rudaki, cautioned that, “Within the past years Iran-Azerbaijan relations have been expanding, but accepting this offer by the Azeri government is considered as a kind of disrespect for the people of the region, particularly the brave Turkish-speaking people.” [42] Another member of the National Security Committee, Ali Ahmadi, denounced Aliyev’s response and asserted that his government “is neither legitimate nor supported by its own nation and tries to cover this problem by backing Western powers.” [43] A third Member of Parliament said that the Russian-Azerbaijani move was unwarranted since, “During the past few years, the Islamic Republic has invested greatly in the region’s security and stability. Therefore, Iran expects its neighbors to respect the rules of co-existence together with peace and respect, not only in their policies and publicity, but in action.” [44]

Future Issues
Azerbaijani authorities must decide what conditions they will pursue during the negotiations. As in Poland and the Czech Republic, the Azerbaijani government might seek some kind of security guarantee from the user countries, in this case Russia, as well as the United States. These might include simple verbal pledges of assistance against external aggression, the deployment of foreign air defense systems on their territory, or some other kind of positive security guarantee.

The Azerbaijani government would also presumably want some kind of monetary payment from the United States for the lease. The head of the foreign relations department at the Azerbaijani presidential administration, Novruz Mammadov, has indicated that the government would seek to raise the “relatively low” rent for the station if Putin’s proposal is implemented. [45]

Richard Weitz – Hudson Institute