The Typology of Relations between Israel and the Republic of Azerbaijan: Strategic or Tactical

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Israel with the aim of getting out of its regional and international isolation has been trying to expand its relations at different levels with the South Caucasus and Central Asian countries in the framework of peripheral doctrine. In this regard, it has been successful in expanding relations with some regional countries including Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. A variety of literature has been created in the field of Israel's main and strategic goals for cooperation with the Republic of Azerbaijan in recent years, however, no successful research has been done regarding the nature of the relations between these two actors. Therefore, this feature of the selected topic distinguishes it from previous studies that have been done before. In order to understand the dimensions and depth of relations between Israel and the Republic of Azerbaijan, the important indicators of strategic relations have been adopted in connection with the important axes of cooperation between the two actors in different fields to understand whether their relations can be called strategic alliance or technical cooperation.

Which of the concepts of Strategic Alliance or tactical cooperation is more effective to show the interaction between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Israel?Research Hypothesis: Studies show that the cooperation of two actors lacks the majority of strategic alliance indicators including the uniqueness of relations, the depth of relations, convergent strategic goals, institutionalization, and the precise definition of enemy concepts, the threat and presence of competitors, excluding the friendly atmosphere in bilateral relations and to some extent long-term cooperation. As a result, compared to the concept of strategic alliance, tactical cooperation has more explanatory power to understand and model the relationship between the two actors.

In order to explain the main idea of the research, this article uses the Qualitative method of structural and interpretive modeling which has been used in this article and has tried to use the collected data in order to obtain a suitable model for the analysis of relations between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Israel. The review of various research indicates the fact that for the analysis of relations between Israel and the Republic of Azerbaijan, conceptual frameworks can be more productive than theoretical frameworks. Therefore, strategic concept has been chosen to explain the typology of the two actor’s relations. It seems that the following components constitute the most important indicators of strategic relations that have been applied in Israel-Azerbaijan relations to determine its typology.The existence of converging strategic goals, which can be considered as the starting point of strategic cooperation based on which players receive the initial understanding that they can achieve their goals through mutual efforts.The existence of long-term, authentic and deep cooperation between the two players, different from the temporary alliance that is created to achieve specific goals at a specific time or to deal with specific events.The incomparability of relations which includes the expansion of high-level official meetings between the two actors, the increase in mutual economic cooperation, the creation of a common market by addressing tariff and non-tariff issues and the deepening of military cooperation.Institutionalizing cooperation in which the two actors are expected to be members of an efficient regional or intra-regional organization.The existence of a friendly atmosphere in bilateral cooperation that has been influenced by the historical and cultural backgrounds and the appropriate path to solve problems.Having a common threat or enemy that forces the actors to work together and come up with strategies to deal with it.

Israel's view of the Republic of Azerbaijan can be interpreted and analyzed in the form of three approaches: the containment strategy, the Greater Middle East plan and the peripheral doctrine, based on which it has tried to use Azerbaijan's capabilities against Iran. On the other hand, the goals and security plans of Azerbaijan, including the solution of the Karabakh crisis, instability in the South Caucasus region, tension with other regional and extra-regional countries, has caused Azerbaijan to adjust its policy towards Israel to use Jewish lobbies in the US Congress for fulfilling the military requirements of this country. In addition, it has been shown that the axes of cooperation between the two actors, such as trade and energy, have not been deepened compared to their cooperation with other partners and more recently, the increasing growth of military deals has been fueled by growing regional instabilities.The beginning of the cooperation between the two actors dates back to 1991 and after that their cooperation began in various technical, economic, infrastructural and agricultural dimensions, however the depth of relations between the two sides has not expanded and Israeli competitors, including Turkish, Russian and European companies have been most successful in concluding economic cooperation agreements with Azerbaijan. Also, despite the fact that Azerbaijan is a member of numerous organizations such as ECO, Commonwealth of Independent States, it does not cooperate with Israel in any joint organization and their relations are not institutionalized, so much so that Ilham Aliyev used the word iceberg in 2009 to describe the nature of their relations which are mostly secret and informal.

Statistical analysis and relational experiences show that the concept of technical cooperation is more useful and constructive than strategic alliance to understand the relationship between the two actors. Due to the lack of depth and varieties in economic cooperation, weak institutionalization, distinct strategic goals and having a different driving force of foreign policy, their relationship cannot be classified as a strategic alliance. Another significant point that should be noted is that there is a positive correlation between the increase in instability in the South Caucasus and the increase in cooperation between Israel and the Republic of Azerbaijan.