By Azerbaijan.US Editorial Board
According to Azerbaijani political analyst Ilgar Mammadov, history follows rules far more rigid than those written in international treaties. Human-made legal frameworks may shift with time and political convenience, he argues, but underlying economic and historical laws operate relentlessly – and always prevail in the end.
Mammadov’s core argument is simple yet uncomfortable: countries that lose the economic race eventually face political and territorial consequences, regardless of how strong their legal claims may appear on paper. International law, in this view, is not a shield against decline, but a set of etiquette rules that function only while power balances remain intact.
He illustrates this logic through a familiar principle from dialectics – the transition from quantity to quality. Gradual change accumulates silently until a critical threshold is reached, after which transformation happens abruptly. Just as metal remains solid at one temperature and melts at the next, societies can appear stable until economic erosion suddenly produces irreversible outcomes.
From this perspective, discussions about Greenland potentially entering the U.S. sphere should not come as a shock. Mammadov argues that when an economy weakens over decades, territory eventually follows influence. This is not an anomaly of modern geopolitics, but a recurring historical pattern.
Europe, he suggests, offers a cautionary example. By prioritizing ideologically driven agendas at the expense of economic competitiveness, even traditionally strong economies have exposed themselves to strategic vulnerability. When economic foundations erode, legal arguments alone rarely hold.
Mammadov extends this warning closer to home. Azerbaijan, he notes, has in recent years lagged behind regional neighbors in economic growth rates. While such figures may seem abstract or detached from daily concerns, history shows that long-term economic underperformance plants the seeds for future geopolitical pressure.
He recalls making a similar argument two decades ago, when predictions based on economic trajectories were dismissed as theoretical or alarmist. Time, he believes, has demonstrated otherwise. Economic momentum, not rhetoric, ultimately shapes outcomes.
The message is not one of immediate alarm, but of strategic awareness. Territorial stability, in Mammadov’s analysis, is not secured by declarations or diplomatic language, but by sustained economic strength. When growth stalls and competitiveness fades, vulnerabilities emerge – sometimes years later, but often suddenly.
International law matters, but only within the boundaries set by power and performance. Countries that ignore this reality risk discovering, too late, that legal norms offer little protection once economic gravity shifts.
The lesson, as Mammadov frames it, is clear: economic policy is not merely about prosperity. It is about long-term security, sovereignty, and historical positioning. Decline may be slow and almost invisible – until it is not.
