Regional geopolitics

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

ՀՀ-ՌԴ զորքերի միացյալ խմբավորում ստեղծելու համաձայնագիրը նախ և առաջ բխում է ՌԴ-ի շահերից. Լևոն Շիրինյան
14.11.16

http://www.tert.am/am/news/2016/11/14/shirinyan/2192790

Կովկասյան տարածաշրջանում Հայաստանի և Ռուսաստանի զորքերի միացյալ խմբավորում ստեղծելու մասին համաձայնագրի կնքման պատճառը նախ և առաջ Ռուսաստանի անվտանգության առջև ծառացած խնդիրներն են` հատկապես Սիրիայում, Կովկասում և աշխարհի այլ տարածաշրջաններում:

Այս մասին Tert.am-ի հետ զրույցում ասաց քաղաքագետ Լևոն Շիրինյանը։

Հիշեցնենք, որ Ռուսաստանի նախագահ Վլադիմիր Պուտինը ստորագրել է Կովկասյան տարածաշրջանում Հայաստանի և Ռուսաստանի զորքերի միացյալ խմբավորում ստեղծելու մասին համաձայնագիրը:

«Որ մենք առանց ռուսական օժանդակության կարող ենք ապահովել մեր անվտանգությունը, դա բացարձակ սուտ է, չենք կարող նաև 1000 դրամ կամ 1000 ԱՄՆ դոլար դրամահավաքով: Գլխավոր նախապայմանն այն է, որ մենք պետք է լինենք ինքնավար: Ես ժամանակին առաջարկում էի, որ մենք ՀՕՊ համաձայնագրին միանայինք որպես ինքնավար միավոր՝ պայմանագրային հիմքով: Բայց, ինչպես տեսնում ենք, մեր ղեկավարությունը բոլորովին այլ կերպ է պատկերացնում մեր անվտանգությունը, դրա համար էլ մեկ-մեկ ռուսերեն է խոսում»,- հավելեց Շիրինյանը:

Խոսելով Հայաստանի Ռուսաստանից կախվածության թուլացման մասին՝ Շիրինյանն ընդգծեց, որ անհրաժեշտ է ԱԺ-ում կազմակերպել «անկախության գործընթաց», որը ոչ թե ենթադրում է թշնամանք Ռուսաստանի հետ, այլ մերձեցման թուլացում:

Շիրինյանն ուշադրություն հրավիրեց նաև ԱՄՆ-ում ծավալվող զարգացումների վրա: Նրա խոսքով՝ պետք է հետևել նորընտիր ԱՄՆ նախագահ Դոնալդ Թրամփի գործողություններին և դրանցում գտնել այնպիսի ճեղքեր, որոնք թույլ կտան Հայաստանին Ռուսաստանից որոշակի հեռավորության վրա քաղաքականության վարել:

«Թրամփը, եթե շարունակի վարել մեկուսացման քաղաքականությունը, ուրեմն կարող ենք Կովկասն ու Ուկրաինան հանձնել Ռուսաստանին: Իմ կարծիքով՝ հանրապետականները ԱՄՆ-ում հավատարիմ կմնան այդ քաղաքականությանը»,- հավելեց քաղաքագետը:




Արթուր Հովհաննիսյան

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Finian CUNNINGHAM | 14.11.2016 | OPINION
US, British ‘Clean House’ to Delete Syria Terror Links
US President Barack Obama has just given the Pentagon orders to assassinate commanders of the Al Nusra terror network in Syria. American mediaxreportsxover the weekend say the new urgency arises from US intelligence fears that al Qaeda-affiliated groups are preparing to mount terror attacks against Western targets from strongholds in Syria.
The purported US «kill list» will be acted on through drone strikes and «intelligence assets». The latter refers, presumably, to US special forces that are already operating in northern Syria alongside Turkish military.
Last week, a similar announcement was carried in the British press, whichxreportedxthat elite British SAS troops had received orders to kill up to 200 jihadi volunteers from Britain who are suspected to be active in Syria (and Iraq). Again, the same rationale was invoked as in the latest American plan. That the assassination program was to pre-empt terror attacks rebounding on Western states.
A British defense official was quoted as saying that the mission could be the most important ever undertaken by the SAS in its entire 75-year history. «The hunt is on», said the official, «to take out some very bad people».
Significantly, too, the British SAS kill operations in Syria are reportedly being carried out as part of a «multinational effort». That suggests that the Pentagon’s initiative reported this weekend in being coordinated with the British.
However, there is something decidedly odd about this sudden determination by the Americans and British to eliminate terrorists in Syria.
Since the outbreak of the Syrian war in 2011, US, British and other NATO forces have shown meagre success in delivering on official claims of combating al Qaeda-linked terror groups, such as Islamic State (IS, ISIS or Daesh) and Jabhat al Nusra (also known as Jabhat al Fatal al Sham).
A straightforward explanation for this apparent anomaly is that the US and its NATO allies are in reality covertly working with these terror networks as proxies for regime change against the Assad government – a longtime ally of Russia and Iran. What Washington refers to as «moderate rebels» whom it supports are in reality serving as conduits for arms and funds to the known terror groups. In this context, the terror groups have been Western assets in the regime-change war. Therefore, there has been no incentive to liquidate these assets – until now that is. Why now is the telling question.
The recent ceasefire debacles in the battleground northern city of Aleppo have demonstrated a systematic Western terror link. The failure by Washington to deliver on its commitment to separate so-called moderates from extremists is clear evidence that the alleged dichotomy is a hoax. The plain fact is that the US-backed «rebels» are fully integrated with the terror groups. That is, the US and its allies are sponsors of terrorism in Syria.
This has led to the reasonablexchargexby the Russian government that the US is supporting al Nusra, despite the latter being an internationally proscribed terrorist organization at the heart of the so-called American «war on terror». That charge has been corroborated byxclaimsxmade by Nusra commanders who say that they have been receiving covert weapons supplies from the Americans. It is also substantiated by recentxfindsxof US weaponry among terrorist dens that have been over-run by the Syrian Arab Army.
So, the question is: what is this latest urgency from the Pentagon to wipe out Nusra's leadership in Syria really about?
First, let’s note that the implied precision of terrorist «kill lists» that the Americans and British are suddenly working on seems incongruous given that these NATO powers have up to now apparently been unable to furnish Russia with coordinates for extremist bases in Syria.
The Russian Ministry of Defense disclosed last week that the Americans have not provided a single scrap of information on the location of terrorist groups in Syria. The US was obliged to share intelligence on extremist positions as part of the ceasefire plans resolved in September by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
That then marks a seeming curious shift. From not being able to provide any intelligence on terror groups, now we are told in a different context that the US and its British counterpart are urgently moving ahead to carry out decapitation strikes on Nusra and ISIS commanders.
On the British side, reports said that a kill list of hundreds of British jihadis had been drawn up by the intelligence services of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. Why wasn’t this information shared before with Russia, as part of the Kerry-Lavrov accord?
Timing is also another telling factor. Obama’s announced order to the Pentagon to ramp up assassination of Nusra leaders comes in the wake of the shock presidential election victory for Donald Trump. Trump’s election last week was an outcome that completely blindsided the White House and the Washington establishment, who thought that Democrat rival Hillary Clinton was a safe bet.x
The abrupt US impetus to neutralize Nusra cadres also comes as the Russian navy flotilla takes up position in the Mediterranean off Syria. The flotilla is led by the aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, along with destroyers equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles. The naval formation has been described as the biggest Russian deployment since the end of the Cold War 25 years ago. It will greatly enhance Russia’s air power which already has over the past year transformed the Syrian war into an eminent defeat for the Western-backed insurgents.
Now that nearly three weeks of Russia’s unilateral cessation in air strikes on terror targets in Syria has elapsed to no avail for a surrender by the insurgents, it is anticipated that Russian air power and Syrian forces on the ground are readying for a final, decisive offensive to vanquish the Western-backed proxy war.
President-elect Trump has stated on several occasions his approval of Russian and Syrian anti-terror efforts, unlike the Obama administration, which has sought to hamper them by accusing Moscow and Damascus of «war crimes» against civilians. Russia has rejected those claims as false. It points to recent initiatives to set up humanitarian corridors in Aleppo as evidence that it is trying to minimize civilian casualties. It is the US-backed militants who have sabotaged the humanitarian efforts.
In any case, Trump’s accession to the White House can be expected to give Russia a freer hand to bring the Syrian war to a close. And as noted, increased Russian military forces appear to be poised for this final push.
This is perhaps where the real significance of the latest Pentagon and British terrorist kill program is evinced. If we accept the plausible and proven premise that the Americans and their NATO allies have been covertly funding, arming and directing jihadi terror proxies, then one can expect that there is plenty of evidence within the terrorist ranks of such state-sponsoring criminal connections.
As Russian and Syrian forces eradicate the terrorist remnants one can anticipate that a trove of highly indicting information will be uncovered that grievously imputes Washington, London, Paris and others in Syria’s dirty war. Among the finds too will be hundreds of Nusra and other terrorist operatives who may be willing to testify as to who their handlers were. A huge can of worms awaits to be prized open.
To pre-empt such devastating evidence of Western culpability in waging a covert criminal war in Syria, the Pentagon and its British partner appear to be dispatching their elite troops to perform a little bit of «house cleaning». That cleaning may involve whacking jihadis who know too much.
No wonder the British official said it could the most important mission for the SAS in its 75-year history. Washington and London’s neck is on the line.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Obama hits Trump tie with Putin, Erdogan on Syria
debka
14/11/2016


Half a dozen long convoys of trucks carrying US arms, hurriedly put together by US military headquarters in Baghdad, have crossed the border in the last three days on their way to the Syrian Kurdish PYD-YPG militia, DEBKAfile military and intelligence sources report exclusively Monday, Nov. 14. The deliveries were expressly ordered by President Barack Obama in a radical turnaround from his five-year refusal to supply Kurdish fighters with American weaponry, least of all anti-air and anti-tank missiles.
More arms convoys are being organized for the same destination.
What caused President Obama’s sudden and belated change of heart about arming the Syrian Kurdish fighters? Our sources report six motives:
1. To get in the way of the deal for Syria that president elect Donald Trump is developing with Presidents Vladimir Putin and Tayyip Erdogan. Obama has chosen Syria as the first arena to disrupt the incoming president’s foreign and security policies.
2. DEBKAfile’s Moscow and Ankara sources report that the accord taking shape between Trump and the Russian and Turkish leaders would have the Turkish army, with Russian air support, mount an offensive to retake Raqqa from ISIS. The Russians and Iranians would meanwhile wind up the battle to defeat the Syrian rebels still holding out in eastern Aleppo.
3. The timeline they have sketched for the conquest of Raqqa is mid-January 2017 in time for Donald Trump’s inauguration as president and well ahead of the defeat of ISIS in Mosul, Iraq. The Trump’s strategic team reckons that the Obama plan to retake Mosul is heading for fiasco, because the Iraqi army after four weeks of fighting is still held back by ISIS resistance from breaking through into the city.
Trump is therefore hoping to steal the march on Obama in the war on ISIS by seizing Raqqa before he steps into the Oval Office. Obama, aware of this, has determined to throw a spanner in his successor’s works.
4. The president elect has posted retired US officers to Kurdish provinces in Syria and Iraq as his emissaries for on-the-spot- reporting.
5. Armed with US heavy weapons, the Syrian Kurdish militia, which numbers 45,000 troops, is capable of upsetting the Turkish army’s role in the conquest of Raqqa - that is if Erdogan decides to divert the military forces he has deployed in Syria and Turkey to the anti-ISIS operation.
He might be dissuaded from this step when he realizes that a Kurdish army, substantially upgraded with US weapons, is sitting in northern Syria just across the Turkish border.
6. Our military sources don’t rule out the possibility of Turkey and Russia, whose spy planes are tracking the arms convoys for the Kurds, deciding to bomb them before they reach their destination. The Trump team of strategist advisers is no doubt in hectic consultation on this course with Moscow and Ankara.

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Just look at this a hole.
US President Barack Obama and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras discussed the need to maintain sanctions against Russia, Obama said at a joint news conference in Athens on Tuesday.WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Obama is in Greece as part of his final foreign trip, which also includes stops in Germany and Peru.

"We also discussed…the importance of keeping sanctions, including EU sanctions, in place until Russia has fully implemented the Minsk agreement along with Ukraine," Obama told reporters. The United States, the European Union and some of their allies have imposed several rounds of sanctions against Moscow over Crimea’s reunification with Russia and Moscow's alleged involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, which started as Kiev launched a military operation in the country's eastern regions in April 2014. © RIA Novosti. Alexei BogdanovskyObama Expected to Demand Greece Close its Ports to Russian WarshipsIn response, Moscow imposed a year-long food embargo on the countries that had sanctioned it, which was later prolonged as the sanctions were extended. Greek officials has repeatedly called for the lifting of sanctions against Russia that have damaged European businesses. Obama vowed to continue to urge Greece’s international creditors to forgive some of its debts. "As Greece continues reform, the IMF [International Monetary Fund] has said that debt relief is crucial," Obama said. "I will continue to urge creditors to take the steps needed to put Greece on a path towards a durable economic recovery."...

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/politics/201...ctions-russia/

[londontsi]

Re: Regional geopolitics

ISIS brainwashed 400,000 kids in Mosul to fight, carry out suicide attacks

https://www.rt.com/news/367089-mosul-children-isis-brainwashed/

.

[Azad]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Texas Oil and Gas ‘Largest’ deposit in History. Let us hope the actual size is as large as they say.

"Feds Call West Texas Deposit ‘Largest’ in History
A western Texas oil and natural gas shale formation was labeled the “largest” of its kind by the U.S. Geological Survey on Tuesday.
20 billion barrels of crude oil, 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas"

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/11/15/big-oil-feds-call-west-texas-deposit-largest-history/

In perspective to the azeri deposits
7 billion to 13 billion barrels crude oil, 1.37 trillion cubic metres natural gas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Azerbaijan

If all of this is true azeri future. Most likely oil prices will be in the $30s per barrel forever. Remember the apes need around $70 per barrel to survive.

Almost double of oil and gas of the azeris

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Texas Oil and Gas ‘Largest’ deposit in History. Let us hope the actual size is as large as they say.

"Feds Call West Texas Deposit ‘Largest’ in History
A western Texas oil and natural gas shale formation was labeled the “largest” of its kind by the U.S. Geological Survey on Tuesday.
20 billion barrels of crude oil, 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas"

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/11/15/big-oil-feds-call-west-texas-deposit-largest-history/

In perspective to the azeri deposits
7 billion to 13 billion barrels crude oil, 1.37 trillion cubic metres natural gas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Azerbaijan

If all of this is true azeri future. Most likely oil prices will be in the $30s per barrel forever. Remember the apes need around $70 per barrel to survive.

Almost double of oil and gas of the azeris

Actually total collapse of oil prices for many years will benefit the whole Middle East and Caucasus too. The rat bazar will be over and oil kings may be gone with their scams and warring.
Nations will divert to their natural conditions. Smart and progressive ones living better and backward societies like third world countries they actually are.
How can a medieval country like soudy Arabia course so much trouble in the world...
It should be that OPEC's cuts or anything would not affect low price of oil.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

How Will Donald Trump Handle the Caucasus?
November 9, 2016,
by Giorgi Lomsadze

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/81231

On the cusp of what appears a new era of unpredictability in international affairs, countries in the Caucasus, that sensitive borderland between East and West, are wondering what to expect from Donald Trump, the United States’ choice for president.

In what many see as schadenfreude, Moscow is the only place in the larger region where politicians unabashedly hail Trump. The State Duma, in fact, met the news of Trump’s victory with a standing ovation.

“Man to man, I don’t envy Bill Clinton because his old lady, for whom he trailed around all the states like a threadbare backpack, will be going through the roof over losing,” predicted Sergei Mironov, leader of the social-democratic Fair Russia.

“Our dear Trump, congratulations on your victory,” chimed in the Liberal Democratic Party’s Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an ultranationalist known for his ebullient pre-election endorsement of Trump. “Babushka Hillary should go have a rest,” he advised.

For his part, President Vladimir Putin refrained from gloating and said he looks forward to working with Trump to end the crisis in US-Russian relations. One Facebook spoofer, however, could not resist depicting him signing a decree naming Trump head of the “North-American federal district [округ].”

While Russian officials could well be rubbing their hands at the sight of a divided and weakened US, many Russians think they get Trump because they know the type. He has been compared to the “new Russians” of the 1990s; a breed of new-money philistines often sporting tracksuits and gold chains.

Andrei Kolesnikov, an analyst with the Moscow chapter of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that for the average Russian, Trump cuts a familiar political figure. “A politician of that type has been a constant in Russia for the past 25 years,” he wrote.

South of Russia, across the Caucasus mountain range, where Washington is often seen as a much-needed counterbalance to Moscow, reactions have been less enthusiastic.

The leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia made sure to send in the requisite pleasantries to the US president-elect, too.

In what appeared to be a fill-in-the-name statement, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan hailed Trump’s “experience” and “vision,” and expressed confidence that “the Armenia-US close partnership... [will be] expanding and reaching new heights in diverse areas.”

With similarly general words, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev kept the focus on resolving the conflict with Armenia over breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh, expressing hope that “the U.S. . . .will contribute to a fair settlement of this conflict.”
.
Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili used more direct speech, saying that the world expects responsible leadership from a US president. “Humanity faces new challenges, growing and interconnected threats, which puts a great responsibility on us to protect universal values, such as freedom, democracy and peace,” Margvelashvili said.

But local analysts seem fairly confident that all three countries had been rooting for Hillary Clinton.

Washington plays a mediating role in the Karabakh conflict, and both counties would have benefited from a US president who is aware of it, the thinking goes.

“The election of Clinton, who is knowledgeable about Caucasus affairs from her time as secretary of state, would have meant Washington’s more active role on a few questions of vital importance for Azerbaijan, with the number one being the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” said Azerbaijani political analyst Zaur Shiriyev.

Arguably, some might say, particularly so given that Azerbaijan’s US embassy uses a lobbying firm, the Podesta Group, run by the brother, Tony Podesta, of Clinton’s campaign chairperson, John Podesta.

But Clinton ranks as more of a known quantity for Armenia, too. “Obviously, Hillary is more predictable, [including] when it comes to Armenia and [the] South Caucasus,” said Mikayel Zolyan, a policy analyst with the Regional Studies Center, a Yerevan-based think-tank.

There was some hope in Armenia that Clinton would have given the failed 2009 attempt to reconcile Armenia with its old foe, Turkey, another try. Zolyan, though, is skeptical.

“I tend to agree with those who say that she would not want to touch something [that] she got burn[ed] with,” he told Tamada Tales. Still, Zolyan believes Clinton would have played an active role in the region, a geographical area she has visited and knows. By contrast, he said, Trump has little knowledge of or interest in this part of the world.

“I tend to think that he will probably not be interested in the South Caucasus” and all region-related decisions will simply be left to State Department officials to make, Zolyan said.

In 2012, Trump visited the Georgian port-city of Batumi, then the prospective site of another hotel bearing his name, and his daughter, Ivanka, has made it to Baku to check in on another Trump hotel project. But neither hotel has been built.

Nonetheless, a commentator for Azerbaijan’s pro-government Trend news service expressed hope that Baku’s own construction project would bring the entrepreneurial Trump to their energy-rich country.

One Georgian observer expressed a similar hope. “Perhaps Trump comes here and completes the [Trump] tower,” Vasil Kacharava, director of Tbilisi State University’s American Studies Center, speculated to Rustavi2.

Trump has scared off many Georgians by wafting kisses at Putin, Georgia’s biggest bęte noire. A sense exists that a Trump administration would care less about protecting Georgia from Russia’s imperial ambitions.

But Georgia may reap one unexpected benefit from a Trump presidency: the country features among The Telegraph’s 15 best places in the world for emigration by Americans who can’t stand having Trump for president.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

With Donald Trump's Election, Georgia Dusts Off Plans for a Trump Tower
November 16, 2016 ,
by Elizabeth Owen

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/81326

A real-estate development company in the South Caucasus state of Georgia, a close US ally, has announced plans to proceed with a long-stalled Trump-Tower project; a claim that, if realized, could raise further sticky questions about the dividing line between business and government under a Trump administration.

Plans for a Trump Tower in the popular Black-Sea casino mecca of Batumi, a town of about 130,000 people, have existed since 2010. The Trump name was expected to appear on both a 47-storey Batumi skyscraper complex and, eventually, a residence in the capital, Tbilisi.

But little or no word has been made about these grandiose plans since Donald Trump’s 2012 visit to Georgia to kick off the Batumi project.

Now, just over a week after Trump's election as US president, the Batumi skyscraper-to-be appears back on the table.

In a November 16 interview with the Georgian news agency Interpressnews, a senior executive at the Silk Road Group, the Trump Organization's original partner in the deal, stated that the company plans to proceed with the project.

“We have six years of stable relations with the Trump Organization. Together we are looking into the situation,” said Giorgi Marr, who oversees the Group's real-estate operations.

The nature of this partnership is unclear. In 2011, Trump's special counsel, Michael Cohen, told EurasiaNet.org that the two hold a licensing agreement, but neither the Silk Road Group nor he would elaborate about a closer association.

The actual price of the Batumi project – long assumed to be a stumbling block – also has been open to speculation, with some initial estimates soaring into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

How the Silk Road will manage the financing this time around is unclear.

While tourism recently has surged in both Batumi and Tbilisi -- particularly among Russians, already established as regular Trump customers -- neither city could be called a top-tier real-estate market. Georgia's annual per-capita income stood at just $3,767 in 2015.

But Marr's optimism appears steady. Real-estate prices have improved and Georgia, he claimed, has an “advantageous investment environment."

What he described as “unexpected opposition” to the Trump project from the former government of Achara, the region of which Batumi is the seat, also no longer stands in the way, he said.

“[I]n the near future, we’re planning to continue this ambitious project. Precisely this attitude gives us the foundation to execute the original idea and build a Trump Towers in Batumi.”

The Achara regional government could not be reached for comment about its current views on hosting a Trump Tower.

Batumi, however, is not the only Caucasus site that has grabbed the president-elect's attention. Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, contains a would-be Trump International Hotel and Tower, a joint project with Garant Holding, a company run by Anar Mammadov, son of Azerbaijan’s longtime transportation minister, Ziya Mammadov.

Work on the building reportedly has stopped, but an image of the hotel still holds price of place on the Garant Holding website. In his candidate financial-disclosure forms, Trump claimed to have earned nearly $3 million on the hotel-project between summer 2014 and spring 2016, The Washington Post reported.

How the Trump Organization will pursue such ventures during a Trump presidency has become the object of intense public debate in the US. The president-elect plans to let his three oldest children – Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump – look after his business interests, but some US media outlets have charged that this arrangement will involve the chief of state in unprecedented conflicts of interest.

In Georgia, where allegations about elected officials double-dipping into business are routine, no public attention has focused on these concerns.

What matters primarily to many is Georgia's relationship with the United States, seen as the world's top power, and its ability, as a small country, to hold on to Washington's attention.

Georgia's success on that score is uneven. But, now, if it can’t get US President-Elect Donald Trump’s attention any other way, it just might be able to try mentioning its Trump Tower.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Is Azerbaijan Buying Israel's Iron Dome?
November 15, 2016,
by Joshua Kucera


The Iron Dome air defense system in action in Israel. (photo: Israeli Defense Forces)
Azerbaijani officials and several media sources have reported that Baku is working on a deal with Israel to buy the "Iron Dome" air defense system. The deal would be a blockbuster, as the legendary Iron Dome is a state-of-the-art system that has dramatically reduced the number of rocket attacks on Israel but has yet to be exported anywhere else.

In spite of the widespread reports, Azerbaijan is highly unlikely to actually purchase the Iron Dome, a very costly system that is technically incapable of meeting Azerbaijan's needs. The prevalance of the reports, however, seems to speak to a continuing concern within Azerbaijan that its foe, Armenia, may have gained a step on it in the arms race.

Last month, Azerbaijani member of parliament Yedva Abramov reported that the Iron Dome was "ready for delivery" to Azerbaijan. Abramov said that the system would render ineffective the Iskander missiles that Armenia recently acquired from Russia. "This system will not allow the Iskander rockets to hit the ground," Abramov said.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Baku in December, and Israeli media, citing unnamed sources, backed up Abramov's assertion that an Iron Dome deal would be on the agenda. That news was picked up then by a number of relatively respectable outlets including the Times of Israel; the Russian think tank, Center for Analysis of the World Arms Trade; and the U.S. trade publication Defense Industry Daily.

So why is this unlikely? For one, the cost: a single battery (consisting of two launchers, a radar and control center) runs an estimated $50 million. Israel, a quarter of the area of Azerbaijan, has an estimated ten batteries. A single rocket for the system costs $100,000. This while oil prices have crashed and Azerbaijan is cutting its budget, including zeroing out the special line item it had used for weapons procurement. Azerbaijan might be able to afford this, but it would be an extravagance that would require it to make many other budget sacrifices.

Secondly, the Iron Dome is not capable of countering Armenia's Iskanders. It has a maximum range of 70 kilometers, which makes it fine for the rockets, such as Katyushas, that Palestinian militants fire into Israel. But the Iskanders that Armenia has have a range of 300 kilometers. "This system is useless for Azerbaijan," said Zaur Shiriyev, a Baku-based associate at the British think tank Chatham House, in an email interview with The Bug Pit.

Shiriyev attributes the spread of the Iron Dome rumors to concern about the Iskanders. "Especially after Armenia acquired the Iskander missiles, the media and public in Azerbaijan have been hungry for such news," he said.

(It should also be noted that Abramov has a record of excitedly promoting Azerbaijan-Israel defense cooperation; earlier this month he claimed that Israel's Mossad special forces foiled an Iranian attack on the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku.)

Azerbaijan is definitely looking at something to improve its air defense capabilities in light of the Iskander purchase, whether from France or elsewhere. But the Iron Dome is pretty unlikely.