Models of cooperation between Azerbaijan and NATO. Member-states cases of Bulgaria and the Czech Republic

The article touches upon peculiarities of interaction of the Republic of Azerbaijan with new NATO members in military sphere by the example of Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. The objective of the work is to show that post-Soviet states, having chosen a successful pattern of cooperation with European countries, are able to gain their place on the international arena even not being a member of a European block. To reach the goal the author of the article gives a review of literature covering different aspects of military policy of Azerbaijan and studies the factors that provoked Baku to advance collaboration with Prague and Sofia in military sphere. Historical and genetical scientific method, decision-making system analysis, case study, institutional, and elements of germenevtic method are applied. The results of the research are the following: after the defeat in the First Karabakh war Azerbaijan focused on modernization of economy and military forces while it continued to conduct negotiations on the conflict settlement under the authority of the OSCE Minsk Group. To achieve this goal Azerbaijan started to collaborate with Ukraine, Belarus, Israel, Russia, Turkey, Pakistan, South Africa and other states in military sphere. The improving of mutually beneficial collaboration with new NATO members was an essential focus area. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan tended to solve both military problems including strengthening the potential of armed forces and political problems aimed at receiving support in the Karabakh settlement. The latter played more important role for Baku than purchasing different arms systems, because by the time Azerbaijan had already had access to weapons markets of Israel, Russia, Ukraine, South Africa, Jordan and Turkey. Thus, two patterns of interaction were constructed – the first case concerns the Czech Republic and full-scale military and political cooperation, the second deals with Bulgaria where the military aspect was an approach to the political integrant. The analysis shows that expertly combining military and diplomatic interaction and military and technical cooperation with new NATO members Baku managed to win the support, even if unofficial, and it became obvious in the Second Karabakh war.

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