The transverse of the Church of All Saviors is achromatic against a airy wintertime sky. Inside, betwixt pinkish chromatic walls, a young clergyman swings frankincense successful a metallic thurible. Fragrant curls of fume emergence done shards of sunlight arsenic Father Mesrop performs the liturgy successful his affluent baritone, joined by eleven worshippers—eight adults and 3 tiny children. The icons connected the walls are simple, and determination is nary of the accustomed gilded splendor of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Since it was built successful 2000, occupying the highest spot successful the colony of Musa Ler, the Church of All Saviors has mostly stayed locked. It was lone erstwhile Father Mesrop and his congregation arrived successful precocious 2023 that its doorway was opened, and ineffable euphony filled its precocious roof.
Before, they would stitchery successful Artsakh (known internationally arsenic Nagorno-Karabakh), a scrap of territory successful the Caucasus that has been astatine the halfway of a centuries-long tug-of-war betwixt Armenia and Azerbaijan. For astir of the twentieth period it was ruled from Moscow, falling wrong the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan.
Nagorno-Karabakh had a mixed colonisation of Christian Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis, who were shunted successful and retired of the portion arsenic the empire’s leaders tinkered with demographics connected the fringes. The 2 groups turned connected each different erstwhile the Soviet Union splintered, making 1 successful a bid of conflicts that erupted arsenic taste and spiritual feuds resurfaced. The warfare successful Nagorno-Karabakh bubbled up successful the precocious 1980s and raged betwixt 1992 and 1994; by the end, much than 25,000 radical had been killed, a cardinal much had fled their homes and the full country was nether the power of an taste Armenian administration.
Towns connected the region’s fertile lowlands, erstwhile inhabited by Azerbaijani farmers and traders, were abandoned, past they were looted, landmined and turned into subject buffer zones. Up successful the mountains, the Artsakh Armenians formed a quasi-state, connected to Armenia due by a azygous upland roadworthy and surrounded connected each different sides by frontlines with hostile Azerbaijan. Artsakh’s colonisation hovered astir 150,000, divided betwixt the cities of Shusha and Stepanakert and the villages dotted between. It was recognized arsenic a sovereign authorities by nobody, not adjacent Armenia itself, though it utilized the parent state arsenic its nexus to the extracurricular world, and its radical were entitled to Armenian nationality. According to the United Nations and the remainder of the world, Artsakh was Nagorno-Karabakh, the occupied territory of Azerbaijan.
Small nations connected the edges of Europe are erstwhile again aligning themselves with the large powers….History tells america that the tiny tremors successful these places are the archetypal rumblings of thing overmuch bigger.
To Father Mesrop, it was simply home. He was calved successful the colony of Astghashen connected the lowlands, successful 1964, erstwhile it was nether the Soviet Union and religion was banned. But helium watched his parent praying successful concealed each evening, and asked her who she was speaking to.
“Don’t disturb me!” she told the young boy.
When his parent fell sick with bosom problems, Mesrop decided helium should speech to the invisible person, too.
“I don’t cognize who you are, but delight help,” helium said to the sky.
It worked and his parent survived. Then helium began seeing vivid dreams of angels, and years later, 1 successful which helium looked successful a reflector and saw himself arsenic a priest. He had ne'er adjacent seen a clergyman until then, helium said. Now, helium knew what his calling was.
There was a spiritual revival erstwhile the Soviet Union collapsed. The Armenian Church established an Artsakh diocese and held its archetypal work successful the thirteenth-century Gandzasar monastery, a analyzable built from Armenia’s celebrated pink-red chromatic and perched connected a verdant hilltop. The past clip the liturgy was heard wrong its walls was successful 1930, conscionable earlier Joseph Stalin unopen down each the empire’s churches. Now they were opening up again, adjacent arsenic Armenia’s warfare with Azerbaijan gathered pace.
In 1992 Father Mesrop was posted to Shusha, which the Armenian forces had conscionable captured. The past upland metropolis is ineffable to some Armenians and Azerbaijanis; neither broadside recognizes the other’s claims connected its stones and soil. Shusha’s colonisation had been bulk Azerbaijani astatine the extremity of the Soviet epoch but present each the Azerbaijanis had fled. Its mosques were near abandoned portion its churches were rebooted. Father Mesrop became the custodian of the eighteenth-century St. John the Baptist, besides known arsenic the Green Church for the colored domes that erstwhile adorned its roof.
One of the archetypal radical to articulation his congregation was Gayana Albayan, who had learned astir God done inference and overheard prayer. Her grandma kept an icon of the Virgin Mary connected apical of her wardrobe, taking it down each Sunday to pray. But during the week, astatine school, Albayan’s teacher would archer her that determination is nary God. She ran to her grandma for an explanation. “Your teacher is simply a believer too,” her grandma told her, “but the strategy forces her to archer you otherwise.” Sure enough, erstwhile the churches reopened, Albayan’s teacher was successful the beforehand enactment of the archetypal congregation.
During the warfare years of the 1990s, Albayan’s colony fell connected the frontline. When Grad rockets started falling she moved to Stepanakert, and past connected to Shusha.
“Everything collapsed. But astatine the aforesaid clip determination was a spiritual revival,” she said. And erstwhile the warfare ended successful 1994, successful triumph for the Armenian side, what Albayan called the “great period” began.
On the representation it looked unpromising. Artsakh was a grey zone, a non-existent place, much celebrated for its in-between presumption than its monuments, earthy quality oregon history. An full procreation grew up successful that presumption quo, known proudly among themselves arsenic “the procreation calved into freedom.”
David Sarkisyan, the young clergyman swinging the incense beside Father Mesrop successful Musa Ler, was calved successful 1997, 3 years aft the warfare ended, and ne'er knew the clip erstwhile religion was banned and Artsakh did not exist. When helium turned eighteen helium was conscripted into the Artsakh service for 2 years, an work for each young man. There, helium guarded the borders, sometimes exchanging cookware shots with the Azerbaijanis. There were exchanges of occurrence astir each time and landmines littered no-man’s-land. Albayan’s husband, Norik, was killed erstwhile a landmine exploded underneath him successful 2014. It was connected a state way that helium had walked galore times before. “But this clip helium was going down it connected his horse,” she said. “The other value indispensable person acceptable it off.”
Life was different parochial and peaceful. But by 2020 Artsakh’s presumption quo was shifting. Azerbaijan, already oil-rich, discovered state nether the Caspian Sea successful the 1990s and the petrodollars pumped up its coffers. The erstwhile grimy boulevards of Baku, its seafront capital, were polished to a gleaming sparkle, and luxury brands replaced the bleak, half-stocked Soviet markets that erstwhile lined the seafront. Oil workers spent their abdominous wage cheques connected the institution of escorts who came to Baku from the little fortunate post-Soviet states. The petro-cash propped up the authorities of Heydar Aliyev, a erstwhile Soviet apparatchik who was installed arsenic Azerbaijan’s president successful 1993, aft a coup toppled Abulfaz Elchibey, the country’s first—and truthful acold only—democratically elected leader.
Aliyev reassembled the Soviet-style constabulary state, and erstwhile helium died a decennary later, powerfulness passed to his son, Ilham. The nonaccomplishment of Artsakh became the instauration of Azerbaijan’s post-Soviet nationalist story, on with the committedness that it would 1 time beryllium returned. Most of the refugees from the portion fended for themselves successful shanty towns astir Baku, despised by the urbanites adjacent arsenic their plight was weaponized. Ilham Aliyev continued his father’s dictatorial legacy, imprisoning his critics and enriching his household and cronies, portion polishing his country’s representation by hosting Formula One events and the Eurovision Song Contest.
On September 27, 2020, having replenished its arsenal with modern weaponry, Azerbaijan launched its archetypal violative connected Artsakh. David Sarkisyan, similar each different men of warring age, was called up to the frontlines. Shusha was nether bombardment. Father Mesrop took members of his congregation down to the heavy basements of the Green Church, which had been designated an authoritative shelter. It was intolerable to permission the city. The Azerbaijanis utilized their caller missiles and drones to onslaught from the sky, from greeting until night. When determination were breaks successful the onslaught, anyone who could determination rushed retired to find food. Supplies ran low. With each the young men distant astatine the frontlines, astir of the bakeries stopped producing. Shusha’s landmark Ghazanchetsots Cathedral—known arsenic the White Church for its gleaming limestone walls—was struck by Azerbaijani missiles.
The Green Church escaped unscathed, but the Artsakh service was outnumbered. After forty-four days, Artsakh’s governmental leaders signed a ceasefire woody that handed Shusha to Azerbaijan. The remaining civilians were told to permission the metropolis immediately. They grabbed what they could and left, immoderate to Stepanakert and others to Armenia proper. Father Mesrop did not person clip to cod thing from the religion wherever helium had served for astir 30 years. When Sarkisyan was discharged from the frontlines, helium had nary location metropolis to instrumentality to.
As good arsenic Shusha, Azerbaijan had recaptured the full lowlands, 7 districts that had been crumbling undisturbed for 3 decades. The country was riddled with landmines that would instrumentality years to defuse, but for Aliyev this was a storming win.
For the radical of Artsakh, it was a catastrophe. After leaving his religion Father Mesrop went to Stepanakert, wherever helium stayed successful his son’s house, past helium was reposted to the religion successful Askeran, a upland colony adjacent to the borderline with Azerbaijan. Russian peacekeepers came to show the ceasefire deal, and Father Mesrop was definite that Azerbaijan would not beforehand further. He was wrong.
In December 2022, Baku began ramping up the unit again, blockading Stepanakert by cutting disconnected its sole roadworthy to Armenia, and cutting its state pipelines and energy cables. Over the pursuing months the metropolis dilatory starved.
In Askeran Father Mesrop planted vegetables successful the church’s courtyard, thanking God that helium was extracurricular the city. But connected September 18, 2023, Azerbaijan launched different violative connected the remaining stump of Artsakh, and the Russian peacekeepers did thing to forestall it. This time, the warfare lasted conscionable 2 days earlier the Artsakh authorities surrendered the remainder of its state and dissolved itself. Three erstwhile Artsakh presidents and respective different high-level officials were arrested and stay successful Azerbaijani jails. More than 100,000 people, the full population, fled.
Now, arsenic a refugee, Father Mesrop is rebuilding his congregation successful the Church of All Saviors successful Musa Ler, a sleepy colony fractional an hour’s thrust from the capital, Yerevan, with a wide presumption of the triangular highest and snowfall headdress of the ineffable Mount Ararat successful the distance.
The worshippers who travel to Father Mesrop’s services each Sunday are the aforesaid radical helium ministered to successful Shusha and Askeran; the colony locals are not truthful interested, helium says. David Sarkisyan is backmost by his broadside and Gayana Albayan’s dependable fills this tiny abstraction arsenic it ne'er could backmost successful Shusha. Not that determination is simply a Green Church to worship successful now; outer images amusement that it has been destroyed by its caller custodians, wiped from the representation similar Artsakh itself.
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This is simply a publication astir geopolitics, but it is besides a publication astir radical and the mode that planetary events signifier their lives. What unfolded successful Nagorno-Karabakh betwixt 2020 and 2023 was, connected the surface, the latest section successful a long-running struggle betwixt 2 tiny countries; a clash rooted successful taste and spiritual differences, playing retired successful a spot that fewer radical could spot connected the map. But underlying that warfare are broader planetary powerfulness shifts that person pulled Europe into a continent-wide conflict.
For the archetypal clip since the extremity of the Soviet Union, 2 wide planetary alliances, 1 centered astir Russia, and the different astir the much nebulous “West,” are clashing successful a accepted warfare successful Europe—and the frontlines present are little wide than they were during the Cold War. Countries similar Hungary and Turkey are members of Western alliances, yet they are sliding into autocracy and support ties with Russia. There is nary Iron Curtain dividing them, but a web of caller militarized borders is spreading astir the borderline of the EU, successful Greece, Poland and Hungary. There are besides progressively wide ideological camps, some nationalist and intra-national. One campy is clinging desperately to wide values: state of speech, the close to protest, just elections and respect for pluralism, portion the different is tending towards strongman autocracy and a nostalgia for blimpish and spiritual values.
What’s happening contiguous successful immoderate mode resembles the play earlier the First World War, with unit gathering astatine the responsibility lines betwixt the large powers’ spheres of influence. These places person ever been taxable to imperial tugs-of-war. Cyprus was an plus traded betwixt the Ottomans and British; the Balkans was the fractured portion wherever the First World War kicked off; and Nagorno-Karabakh has agelong been a territory tortured by its presumption connected the fringes.
Small nations connected the edges of Europe are erstwhile again aligning themselves with the large powers. Borders and identities tin beryllium changed with brute force, but geopolitical unit is besides applied successful much subtle ways: done section strongmen, co-opted by almighty patrons; the operation of caller mosques and churches, arsenic markers of spiritual nationalism; crackdowns connected LGBT and women’s rights; and economical sweeteners and punishments. History tells america that the tiny tremors successful these places are the archetypal rumblings of thing overmuch bigger.
Having been underfunded for decades, NATO is applicable again. It present has a borderline with Russia that could crook blistery astatine immoderate time, stretching from the Arctic and done the Baltic, on the occidental borderline of Belarus to the Black Sea. It besides has a little tangible frontline successful places similar the Balkans, wherever mixed populations look to antithetic patrons according to their ethnicity.
In immoderate ways, NATO is stronger than during the Cold War. It has doubly the members, and the newest thin to beryllium astir enthusiastic astir defence spending. At conferences, successful interviews and adjacent disconnected the record, NATO officials importune that immoderate governmental disputes determination whitethorn beryllium betwixt members, astatine the subject level each are united. But the enactment lacks thing important compared to Russia: a beardown thought of itself. Part of the occupation for the West is that Russia, astatine slightest from the outside, is simply a cohesive unit—oppressive and economically dysfunctional, but mostly agreed nether the figurehead of Putin. The countries of the caller West, meanwhile, are often arsenic acrophobic with their interior divisions implicit migration and civilization wars arsenic they are with the cleavages splitting the continent.
The EU, meanwhile, is crumbling from within. The accumulated pressures of the 2008 economical crisis, followed by an influx of refugees and Brexit, has reduced it to a reactionary unit warring fires, alternatively than the visionary enactment the continent needs. The UK’s exit, arsenic shambolic arsenic it was, has emboldened Eurosceptics successful France, Poland and Austria. Brussels, distracted by interior crises, is toothless to combat back, arsenic subordinate states diverge from its antiauthoritarian norms oregon reimpose sovereign borderline controls.
Although brushed powerfulness forgoes the usage of nonstop convulsive force, it tin divided societies, foment unit and spark wars.
All of this is manna for autocratic leaders, who basal overmuch of their home propaganda connected claims of Western weakness and hypocrisy. In the crises of Western institutions they spot an accidental to grow their ain countries’ influence. They’re taking that accidental successful places similar Nagorno-Karabakh, 1 of respective caller Cold War skirmishes that I sojourn successful this book.
The latest wars successful Nagorno-Karabakh were some an aftershock of the illness of the Soviet Union, and a manifestation of the rising ambitions of modern Europe’s 2 defining strongmen: the Russian president Vladimir Putin, and the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The similarities betwixt them are striking. They are possibly the purest examples of twenty-first-century autocrats: leaders who regularisation done a substance of genuine popularity, electoral and organization meddling and outright oppression. Both men came to powerfulness astatine the crook of the century—literally successful the lawsuit of Putin, who was appointed acting president of the Russian Federation connected December 31, 1999 and afloat inaugurated 5 months later. Erdoğan became Turkey’s premier curate connected March 15, 2003, having already spent respective years arsenic the charismatic and arguable politician of Istanbul. They are present among the longest-serving existent heads of state. In the hubristic days aft Assad fled Syria successful December 2024, Erdoğan declared that helium and Putin were present the “only 2 leaders successful the world.”
Both men inherited economical handbasket cases. In Turkey, a decennary of monetary mismanagement climaxed successful 2001 with a banal marketplace clang and monolithic currency devaluation. Russia experienced near-total economical illness aft the extremity of communism, arsenic state-owned companies were gobbled up by the men who would go the oligarchs. The employment that those companies had erstwhile provided evaporated. Russia, similar Turkey, suffered from hyperinflation successful the 1990s and overmuch of its colonisation plunged into poverty. But successful the archetypal decennary of the caller century, these 2 leaders oversaw recoveries, and past booms. And some men, contempt misgivings among parts of their ain populations astir their corrupt and authoritarian tendencies, were mostly welcomed successful the West arsenic reformers and promising economical partners.
Turkey, already a NATO member, seemed to beryllium poised connected the doorstep of the European Union. Russia established relations with NATO successful 1991, and galvanized them successful 2002 with the mounting up of the NATO-Russia Council. Around the aged Soviet Empire’s occidental fringes, recently autarkic and democratizing federation states joined NATO and the EU.
Then things started going backwards. Putin began a neo-imperialist onshore grab, seizing territory astir Russia’s hinterlands. He annexed Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia successful 2008, and six years aboriginal helium annexed Crimea and parts of eastbound Ukraine. Meanwhile, the outbreak of protests against Arab dictatorships successful precocious 2010 reopened aged Cold War divides successful the Middle East, peculiarly successful Syria, wherever Putin threw his afloat value down Bashar al-Assad. From the opening of the struggle Moscow consistently utilized its spot connected the UN Security Council to veto Western resolutions condemning Assad.
From 2015, Russian jets carpet-bombed cities and their civilians crossed Syria to enactment Assad—a motion that Putin was nary longer acrophobic astir the regularisation of instrumentality oregon his planetary image. Turkey, meanwhile, backed the Syrian opposition, initially alongside Western countries including the UK, US and France. Some successful the West spoke of Turkey arsenic a exemplary of “Islamic Democracy” for the emerging caller Middle East, but Erdoğan’s motivations were much personal. He saw himself arsenic the motivation person of the conservative, sometimes fundamentalist Islamist movements that came to predominate the Arab Spring absorption factions.
Putin and Erdoğan person thing other successful common: they some nurture ambitions to crook their countries into large powers with the quality to acceptable the people of planetary events, and to extremity the epoch of American hegemony. Donald Trump successful his 2nd word is opening the mode wide unfastened for them. In precocious February 2025 I attended a luncheon hosted by a European diplomat. He was forthright astir the caller world Europe faced.
“If Russia were to invade the Baltics tomorrow, determination is not a happening that Europe could do. Article 5 is dead,” helium said.
We stared, open-mouthed.
“So what’s near of NATO?” I asked.
“Nothing. There is thing left,” helium replied.
The diplomat’s words confirmed what had been evident for a while: that the menace of large warfare spreading crossed the continent had been accelerated by Trump’s re-election. The US president’s deposition of the Venezuelan person Nicolás Maduro successful the opening days of 2026, swiftly followed by his threats to intervene successful Iran and annex Greenland, lone confirmed this. Really, though, the caller planetary warfare has been underway for years.
While Putin’s Russia is simply a wide force for Europe, Erdoğan’s Turkey is much ambiguous. It is simply a NATO subordinate and an EU candidate, and its presumption astatine the eastbound fringe of Europe and arsenic the custodian of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits hands it immense clout wrong some organizations. Erdoğan has undoubtedly turned into a full-blooded authoritarian, cracking down connected his absorption astatine location portion waging dubious wars overseas. Yet helium has besides fine-tuned the benignant of pragmatic, retail authorities that has go the modular successful the caller West. He unashamedly uses Turkey’s presumption arsenic the world’s biggest big of refugees to leverage wealth and governmental concessions from Europe, and helium times his astir egregious acts astatine location to coincide with moments of determination turmoil, erstwhile Europe relies connected his cooperation. Furthermore, helium is blessed with fantabulous diplomats who screen his robust fist with an urbane, English-speaking velvet glove.
Both Erdoğan and Putin are skilful soft-power players, who people the precise places wherever the Ottoman, Russian and Soviet empires erstwhile rubbed up. Turkey’s soft-power paper is religion, and its erstwhile presumption arsenic the halfway of the Sunni Caliphate. Russia’s is connection and the Soviet legacy; Russian is the communal lingua that inactive unites radical from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. Putin uses Russia’s vigor reserves to sweeten alliances and bully dependents, and nurtures relationships with Europe’s strongmen, penetrating his power into the EU done Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and different Russia-friendly leaders, and creating angst wrong NATO done his continuing bromance with Erdoğan.
Although brushed powerfulness forgoes the usage of nonstop convulsive force, it tin divided societies, foment unit and spark wars. Putin and Erdoğan’s concealed campaigns are being fought nether the radar, successful places that are torn betwixt rival federation states and their conflicting understandings of the past and future. They are the West’s anemic spots, the places wherever the planetary warfare is fueled with money-laundering and weapons stockpiles and wherever caller tiny wars are ever connected the brink, the disputed territories dotted astir the continent’s fringes wherever Russia, Turkey and the caller West collide.
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Excerpted from Hinterlands: The New Cold War Brewing astatine the Peripheries of the West by Hannah Lucinda Smith. Copyright © 2026 by Hannah Lucinda Smith. Used with support of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a part of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
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