Violence Begetting Violence: Arms Control Challenges in the Post-Soviet South Caucasus 

Abstract

The decline of the Soviet Union caused a new security and arms control dynamic to unfold in the South Caucasus in the late 1980s. As Soviet oversight dissipated, several inter- and intrastate conflicts erupted and spurred the rampant circulation of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in the region. Persistent Soviet interference prolonged the conflicts and hampered the ability of states in the region to stem the flow of arms in and out of their borders. SALW proliferation continued in the decades following Soviet collapse, creating long-standing security challenges for the region.

Introduction

The South Caucasus is a small, often overlooked region. It is caught between the Black Sea to the west and the Caspian Sea to the east, with Russia looming above it and the Middle East directly below it. Comprising only three states—Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—it is a geopolitically complex region with a long, sordid history of imperial conquest, state competition, and violence. Following decades of Soviet control, the South Caucasus was plunged into war and revolution in the late 1980s, which gave way to the rampant circulation of weapons. The proliferation of weapons, including heavy weapons, materials for weapons of mass destruction, and small arms and light weapons (SALW) in particular, flooded each of the three states in different ways and to different degrees. This dark underbelly of the South Caucasus both enabled and contributed to ethnic tensions, corruption, crime, and armed conflict in the post-Soviet era.

Historical Background

Once cracks in the Soviet Union’s authority began to show in the late 1980s, weapons proliferation, particularly of SALW (pistols, automatic rifles, submachine guns, and ammunition), became endemic to the South Caucasus. Between the early 1920s and the late 1980s, when the Soviets maintained an iron grip on the region, guns hardly had a significant presence. In fact, ‘gun culture’—the normalized possession of, or predilection for, guns within a society or people group—was not necessarily a natural component of life beyond usage for hunting. Even for hunting purposes, legal gun possession was severely limited. Due to the Soviet Union’s strong security apparatus, violent crime rates were low and ethnic tensions were largely suppressed, meaning there was little incentive for civilians to procure their own weapons. Because World War II was never fought in the South Caucasus, citizens never had the opportunity to collect leftover weapons from battlefields. Thus, firearms and weapons were rarely possessed and scarcely desired.

Regional attitudes toward weapons possession changed rapidly in the late 1980s as “the Soviet system was collapsing and much of the region was descending into ethnic conflict.”1 Soviet leadership struggled, and ultimately failed, to keep long-running ethnic tensions under control in the South Caucasian states, all of which were Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs). By the end of the 1980s, it had become abundantly clear that the Soviet Union could no longer guarantee law, order, and protection to its citizens in the South Caucasus. As Armenians, Azeris, and Georgians faced this reality, they took security into their own hands. Citizens began acquiring SALW on a large scale,2 through theft (namely, robbery of Soviet military stores), smuggling, and illegal purchases. This quickly devolved into a large-scale weapons circulation regime that overtook the entire region, exacerbating conflict and intensifying violence.

As the 1980s drew to a close, multiple conflicts were already underway in the South Caucasus. Armenia and Azerbaijan were fighting the First Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-1994), an ethnic and territorial conflict over control of the eponymous oblast. The oblast—a term given to regional territories with autonomous status within SSRs—was located in Azerbaijan but inhabited by ethnic Armenians. Possession of Nagorno-Karabakh had been a subject of dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan for centuries; as soon as the Soviet Union was no longer present to enforce the territorial rules of the oblast, fighting immediately commenced.

Similar events had begun in Georgia by the turn of the decade. Abkhazia, situated on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and formally a part of Georgian territory, had also operated as an autonomous zone under the Soviets. In 1989, Abkhazia began to push for territorial sovereignty, igniting a war with Georgia. South Ossetia, another Soviet oblast in Georgia, similarly declared independence in 1990, sparking a war that pitted the Georgian government and Georgian-backed militias against South Ossetian separatists and Russian forces.

These two territorial conflicts “took place in a context of civil war in Georgia proper.”3 In 1991, post-election violence led to a coup that plunged the state into a full-scale war between the ousted government, the newly elected government, segments of the Georgian National Guard, and numerous paramilitary groups that lasted until 1993.

With four conflicts raging, the South Caucasus became a seedbed for the theft, smuggling, and circulation of arms by government-affiliated forces, black market dealers, and common citizens. The specific arms procurement sources, motivations, and issues for each of the three South Caucasian states will be examined in the following sections, as each state possesses its own singularities. However, similar themes hold true for all three. The region as a whole was affected by “forces of destructive nationalism, intolerance towards diversity, belief in violence as a way to resolve problems, vulnerability to external influences … [and] an excessive accumulation of armaments.”4 These forces were magnified by a growing belief among South Caucasians that, in the immediate post-Soviet era, a lack of weapons meant a lack of safety.5

As a result, illegal arms transfers rose steeply at the peak of the conflicts in the mid-1990s. Most transfers occurred on the black market and “moved through unofficial channels, but with sanction or approval by some government agencies.”6 When conflicts dissipated in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and South Caucasian states finally had a chance to solidify their burgeoning autonomy and governmental authority, they attempted to curb the unfettered weapons trade within their borders. Yet the South Caucasus remained an outsider to the international arms control establishment.

All three states possessed “virtually no viable mechanisms to control or limit the main types of conventional weapons,”7 and there was little definitive information on the amount and varieties of weapons in circulation. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia all became state-parties to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which limits conventional weapons and military forces deployed in the region, though there have been ongoing issues with their treaty compliance.8 Only Georgia became a signatory to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which restricts or bans weapons that can cause indiscriminate harm to civilians, such as anti-personnel mines or blinding lasers. Failure to embrace arms control was due to a combination of factors, including competition and grievances between regional powers, the normalization of weapons ownership, state corruption, and “fears of renewed conflict and general insecurity.”9

Case Studies

Georgia

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, unchecked SALW trafficking became an especially dire issue in Georgia. Because the Abkhazia war, the South Ossetia war, and the Georgian Civil War all began as soon as Georgia became an independent state, its still-developing security and institutional apparatuses were incapable of controlling SALW proliferation. As the state failed to “maintain monopoly control over either law-enforcement and security agencies,”10 the emergence of numerous armed paramilitary groups involved in the three conflicts exacerbated illegal SALW circulation. As a result of the state’s engulfment in armed conflict, the growth of an illegal arms circulation network, and the sharp increase in SALW possession by both civilians and paramilitaries, Georgia quickly found itself with a “‘war economy’—a phenomenon typical of weak, war-torn societies plagued with illegal activities.”11

Georgia’s ‘war economy’ was a direct result of rampant SALW circulation, which, in turn, “promoted further proliferation.”12 Weapons entered Georgia from a variety of sources. The most common was Russian military stockpiles, which were known to provide weapons to Georgians through five different avenues: “free distribution, seizure/theft, sale, regional trading … [and] external procurement.”13 Reported thefts of Russian stockpiles were often, in fact, coordinated illegal transfers. From these stockpiles, Georgians procured a considerable amount of weaponry, including grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, landmines, and small mortars.14

Russia indirectly supported Abkhazia and anti-government factions in the Georgian Civil War, and directly supported South Ossetian separatists through political influence and weapons transfers. Primarily, Russia provided arms out of a national interest in destabilizing Georgia as a newly independent state and undermining the growth of anti-Russian attitudes and policies. However, Russia was not Georgia’s only source for weapons. Paramilitary groups and non-state actors also procured SALW from Romania, the Czech Republic, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine.15 Georgian paramilitaries also “benefited from Russian-abetted small arms proliferation in neighboring Azerbaijan and Armenia,”16 particularly as the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh left a surplus of weapons available for purchase through non-state intermediaries.

From the early to mid-1990s, Georgia remained in a perilous situation of widespread illegal arms circulation. Between 1989 and 1993, SALW circulation in Georgia had the following effects:

“[It] catalysed the militarization of politics, leading to the political dominance of armed militias and paramilitary groups; augmented the scale and lethality of armed violence in the South Ossetian, Abkhaz, and Georgian conflicts; facilitated Russian attempts to alter the balance of power between belligerents; and caused widespread loss of civilian life and the breakdown of law and order.”17

However, after 1993, Georgia managed to largely resolve all three of its conflicts for the time being. Georgia had a growing interest in integrating into the international community, particularly European alliances and Atlantic security arrangements. To become a more appealing international partner, the state attempted to reform its institutions and curb SALW proliferation.

In 1994, Georgia adopted a series of laws concerning SALW possession and “launched several schemes to collect SALW from the civilian population.”18 The state also sought to limit the reach of paramilitaries and for-hire security personnel. In all, these domestic measures aimed to limit the open availability of weapons and reduce black market arms networks. On the international level, Georgia received technical and institutional arms control support from Western partners, including North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states. Georgia became party to major arms control agreements, including the CFE Treaty and the CCW. However, in the Georgian context, these international measures did little to help domestic arms control issues, as they were “too limited to cover paramilitary groups and irregular forces.”19

Moreover, Abkhazia and South Ossetia’s semi-autonomous status impeded government-led arms control and verification measures. As a result, Georgia’s measures were “either non-existent or too vague to allow for a meaningful observation of the security situation.”20 Despite making valid attempts at arms control, Georgia remained plagued by corruption, weakness in its democratic institutions, black market crime (including a prominent shadow economy21), privatized security, and deeply embedded norms around ‘gun culture.’ The enduring availability and proliferation of SALW contributed to Georgia’s struggles with law and order, political stability, social cleavages, and post-conflict tensions with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.22

Armenia & Azerbaijan

Similar to Georgia, SALW availability in Armenia and Azerbaijan was low during the decades of Soviet control, as it was strictly regulated and largely limited to hunting purposes. However, as the Soviet regime lost authority over the South Caucasus in the late 1980s, weapons proliferation increased. For Armenia and Azerbaijan, the motivation behind a large-scale weapons proliferation regime was the outbreak of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the oblast became an epicenter of large-scale war between the two states following decades of ethnic tension. 

In 1988, citizens in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh began protesting for the oblast’s reunification with the Armenian state. However, these protests were met with a heavy-handed response from Azerbaijan. Azeri forces—supported by the Soviets—killed some Armenians in Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh, and attempted to forcefully expel the remaining ethnic Armenian population from the oblast.23 As the Soviets tried and failed to keep the violence at bay, Armenians quickly “became convinced that it was necessary to acquire weapons simply to ensure their physical survival.”24 The period from 1988 to the establishment of Armenia’s sovereignty in 1991 was “characterized by a chaotic and practically uncontrolled inflow of arms into the country,”25 many of which were transported into Nagorno-Karabakh to support the war effort.

Weapons were typically supplied by the Armenian Union of Hunters and stolen from government storage facilities in Armenia, armed security personnel, and Soviet military stores (these ‘robberies’, again, were often staged transfers).26 Paramilitary groups and armed non-state groups multiplied, as did handmade SALW and ammunition. When the Armenian government was established, it directed its Defence Committee to purchase SALW, often through illicit Soviet sales. The Armenian state was entirely focused on weapons acquisition for national defense and to accomplish its goal of retaking Nagorno-Karabakh. However, this also left the state vulnerable to unfettered arms circulation. As a result, it is unknown how many, and what kinds, of SALW were transported into Armenia.27

As the Armenian state and public dove into rampant arms circulation, Azerbaijanis were stifled by both their own authorities and the authorities in Moscow. Azerbaijani officials attempted to convince citizens of their safety even as the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh escalated, and Soviet officials tried to prevent citizens from acquiring their own arms. Authorities confiscated hundreds of weapons from the Azerbaijani population in Nagorno-Karabakh and the neighboring Agdam region.28 Simultaneously, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh became heavily armed, leaving Azerbaijanis vulnerable to the increasing violence. 

Around the same time, Azerbaijani and Soviet authorities banned the formation of paramilitaries, exacerbating the power imbalance between Armenia and Azerbaijan. By 1989, it became abundantly clear that “there was an acute shortage of weapons and ammunition on the Azerbaijani side.”29 In response, citizens built homemade firearms and explosive devices and sold their livestock and personal possessions to illegally purchase rifles, pistols, and machine guns, mostly from Soviet/Russian stockpiles, while the government returned previously confiscated weapons to citizens.30

The Azerbaijani and Soviet decision to limit weapons acquisition and ban paramilitaries put Azerbaijan at a significant disadvantage in the war, but prevented widespread arms circulation for a time. However, this began to change in the early 1990s. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, large quantities of SALW and heavy weapons were funneled into Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh. As weapons circulation increased, public trust in the governments waned, political turbulence intensified, crime rates rose, and fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh reached its peak. The war resulted in thirty thousand casualties, hundreds of thousands of refugees, and full Armenian control of the oblast.31

When the war was formally over, both states attempted to disarm citizens, demobilize paramilitaries, and retain control of SALW circulation. Armenian government ministries were tasked with tracking illegal arms transfers, confiscating weapons, and prosecuting those involved. However, Armenia only managed to account for “40-50 percent of weapons trafficked to Armenia”32 during wartime, leaving it unclear where the remaining portion ended up. In the long term, these measures underpinned a gradual disarmament campaign that positively impacted arms control and succeeded in reducing unregistered weapons in civilian possession.33 Armenia was more successful in demobilizing armed groups, which did not have any significant public presence after the war, and in maintaining relatively low levels of armed crime.

Although the SALW trade in Armenia and Azerbaijan was not eliminated, substantial progress was made in the post-war period. In the immediate post-war years, crime rates in Azerbaijan exponentially worsened due to the high rates of illegal firearm possession throughout the state,34 and weapons circulation went unabated. However, from the late 1990s into the early 2000s, Azerbaijan successfully limited the presence of armed non-state groups and the circulation of SALW. This was partially due to the influence of Russia, as well as the more autocratic nature of the Azerbaijani regime, which proved effective in seizing “control of the arms procurement process”35 and collecting illegally possessed SALW. 

Despite this progress, Armenia and Azerbaijan still failed to meaningfully engage in international arms control following the war. Neither state became a party to any SALW-related arms control measures, including the CCW, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. This was largely a result of the persistent threat of conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh (which occurred in 2020 and again in 2023), and a general “insecurity dynamic sustained by a lack of trust”36 between the two states. Though Yerevan and Baku made significant progress in SALW control within their borders, they were generally uninterested in limiting their capability to use force abroad. Ultimately, the two states were unwilling to make any “compromises that [were] guaranteed to be politically costly and difficult,37 even if it would have improved regional stability.

Conclusion

When the Soviets lost effective control over the South Caucasus in the late 1980s, it opened a Pandora’s box of ethnic wars and weapons proliferation in the region. Weapons originally spread as a response to armed conflict and the need for self-protection among citizens, but transformed into something else altogether. The presence of weapons and the “persistence of unresolved conflicts … started to create secondary security effects,”38 including criminality, violence, and an illegal arms trade. These issues were not endemic to one state, but to all in the region, and were exacerbated by institutional corruption, the militarization of ethnic groups, and foreign influences.39

Due to its geographic positioning between the Balkans, Eurasia, and the Middle East, the South Caucasus became a vital throughway for trade and transportation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. With the concurrent expansion of the black market for weapons, the South Caucasus likewise became a corridor for the illegal transfer of firearms40 and was left vulnerable to political and criminal interference from these neighboring regions, namely the Soviet Union. Arms transfers peaked across the South Caucasus in the 1990s, with all three states engaging in rampant weapons acquisition to aid their separate campaigns in armed conflicts. 

Both during and after this peak, the newly independent South Caucasian states did not embrace international arms control mechanisms. They also failed to engage in meaningful regionally-led arms control efforts. External influences and the region’s general disinterest in arms control contributed to residual state instability and ethnic strife, which left the South Caucasus “at the very beginning of a tortuous path”41 toward reining in SALW proliferation. These factors compounded regional insecurity from the immediate post-Soviet era into the early 2000s, and limited both the interest and abilities of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to engage in effective arms control. 

About the Author

Isabel Silagy is a recent graduate from the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies with an M.A. in International Affairs and a specialization in Security Studies. Her research focuses on the role of international institutions in preventing armed conflict and human rights violations, and her areas of expertise include human security, mass atrocities, and South Caucasus politics. Isabel co-authored a chapter in the newly published Oxford Handbook of Norms Research in International Relations, and she seeks to support the evolution of national and global security planning by integrating holistic approaches that reduce human risk.

Endnotes

  1. Matveeva, A. “Arms and security in the Caucasus” in The Caucasus: Armed and Divided – Small arms and light weapons proliferation and humanitarian consequences in the Caucasus, p. 1-11. London: Saferworld, 2003.
  2. “Executive summary” in The Caucasus: Armed and Divided – Small arms and light weapons proliferation and humanitarian consequences in the Caucasus, p. 1-5. London: Saferworld, 2003.
  3. Demetriou, S. (2002). Politics From The Barrel of a Gun: Small Arms Proliferation and Conflict in the Republic of Georgia (1989-2001). Small Arms Survey: Occasional Paper 6, p. 1-70.
  4. Matveeva, p. 2.
  5. Matveeva, p. 11.
  6. Minasian, p. 37.
  7. Minasian, p. 41.
  8. U.S. Department of State. “Executive Summary of Findings on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments.” April 2020, p. 1-16. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tab-1.-EXECUTIVE-SUMMARY-OF-2020-CR-FINDINGS-04.14.2020-003-003.pdf.
  9. Cornell, S.E. “The growing threat of transnational crime” in The South Caucasus: a challenge for the EU, p. 23-37. Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2003.
  10. Darchiashvili, D. “Georgia: A hostage to arms” in The Caucasus: Armed and Divided – Small arms and light weapons proliferation and humanitarian consequences in the Caucasus, p. 1-33. London: Saferworld, 2003.
  11. Darchiashvili, p. 2.
  12. Darchiashvili, p. 3.
  13. Demetriou, p. 10.
  14. Demetriou, p. 16.
  15. Darchiashvili, p. 24.
  16. Demetriou, p. 1.
  17. Demetriou, p. 1.
  18. Darchiashvili, p. 29.
  19. Kapanadze, S., Kühn, U., Richter, W., and Zellner, W. (2017). “Status-Neutral Security, Confidence-Building and Arms Control Measures in the Georgia Context.” The Centre for OSCE Research, CORE Working Paper 28, p. 1-50.
  20. Kapanadze, p. 25.
  21. Darchiashvili, D. “Georgian security problems and policies” in The South Caucasus: a challenge for the EU, p. 107-128. Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2003.
  22. Wood, D. (2006). “Taking stock: Small arms and human security in Georgia.” Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development and Saferworld, p. 1-135.
  23. Avagyan, G. “Armenia: Forcing the peace” in The Caucasus: Armed and Divided – Small arms and light weapons proliferation and humanitarian consequences in the Caucasus, p. 1-12. London: Saferworld, 2003.
  24. Avagyan, p. 2.
  25. Avagyan, p. 3.
  26. Avagyan, p. 3.
  27. Avagyan, p. 4.
  28. Yunusov, A. “Azerbaijan: The burden of history — waiting for change” in The Caucasus: Armed and Divided – Small arms and light weapons proliferation and humanitarian consequences in the Caucasus, p. 1-19. London: Saferworld, 2003.
  29. Yunusov, p. 4.
  30. Yunosov, p. 4.
  31. Center for Preventive Action. “Tensions Between Armenia and Azerbaijan.” Council on Foreign Relations, 12 August 2025. https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/nagorno-karabakh-conflict.
  32. Avagyan, p. 7.
  33. Avagyan, p. 10.
  34. Yunusov, p. 13.
  35. Yunusov, p. 18.
  36. Lynch, D. “A regional insecurity dynamic” in The South Caucasus: a challenge for the EU, p. 9-20. Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2003.
  37. Grigorian, A. “The EU and the Karabakh conflict” in The South Caucasus: a challenge for the EU, p. 129-142. Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2003.
  38. Matveeva, p. 6.
  39. “Executive summary,” p. 1.
  40. Minasian, S. (2004). “Arms Control in the Southern Caucasus.” Central Asia and the Caucasus 6(30), p. 33-43.
  41. Minasian, p. 43.

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