Armenia Is an Orphaned Client State
palladiummag.com
palladiummag.com
“Karabakh is an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, and Armenia is seen to have occupied the territory for over 30 years.”
In other words, it appears the whole territory is Azerbaijan’s, and the whole planet, EU, US and the UN confirms that this is so. Turns out, Armenia had an 30-plus year invasion force holding Azerbaijani territory.
That’s the kind of thing they should have put front and centre, because it completely changes the narrative.
After the USSR dissolved Azerbaijan held pogroms in Baku (1990), pushed all the Armenians to NK (at which point the NK population was 98% Armenians) and started eradicating their culture. Armenia started occupying Nagorno-Karabakh in 1991 after these things happened.
Add to this that Azeris are ethnically and historically related to the Turkish, who are responsible for genocide of Armenians in the early 20th century and have been denying it since, and you can see why Armenian occupation of NK deserves little more than a footnote.
Does it? I think that the heuristics about an occupier being bad are less useful than usual. The territory was occupied just after both countries gained independence from the USSR, because the arbitrarily drawn borders did not reflect the ethnic composition of the countries and there were worries among the Armenians about ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan.
Obviously, it's important historical context, but there's a huge amount of important historical context, such as the Armenian genocide, atrocities committed by both sides in the 1990s etc., which they also don't put front and centre, because it's simply not an article about the historical context.
If China invaded and occupied Taiwan, would you discount an article writing about the situation in Taiwan, just because it did not focus on the fact that officially Taiwan is not an independent country?
It's a reminder that while we're so busy with the pandemic and daily struggles, people in a place like Armenia struggle with the reality of war every day.
https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/removing-coordinated-inaut...
It doesn't even make sense to mention a single massacre against a history of genocide against armenians that counts more than 1.5 million dead and countless atrocities that continue to this day.
I most vividly took away an image of the region and effects of Russian influence when I had read this article about how pro-Russia Crimeans should not be so quick to welcome Russian influence: https://archive.is/iZDJb ("If History Is a Guide, Crimeans’ Celebration May Be Short-Lived")
People only need look to past examples of broken promises and more political posturing than real economic and governmental progress when being absorbed under the Russian umbrella.
Just because a story is one sided doesn't mean it is propaganda. It's very clear from this story that the situation in the Caucasus is very complex and that there are no straightforward solutions.
Disclaimer: I am Azeri and yes, I was triggered by the article. My judgement is indeed biased, but hopefully not that much. I've been living in Finland for 12 years now, and in the past studied with armenian students at the same class room. We had good relationships and deep conversations about how our region is cursed and the only way to survive - is to live together in peace.
Back to the article - an excellent piece of post-truth era text. It is filled with statements, juggled, shuffled and left incomplete, so that the reader has to fill the missing pieces. The missing information is brilliant in its absence. The resulting picture a reader sees is "Poor christian democratic ancient Armenia is surrounded by rich aggressive muslim dictatorship countries, and it is doomed.
I want to explain myself being triggered, literally from the top of this "article".
"The war was fought over the disputed mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh and several surrounding territories." OH REALLY? Somewhere at the bottom the article elaborates, that the "several surrounding territories" are 7 regions claimed by Armenia as "security belt". It never says though, that six hundred thousand (that is 600, 000!) souls from those regions have been displaced and were never able to return to their homes in all these 30 years. These have never been "disputed territories".
"...Karabakh is an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, and Armenia is seen to have occupied the territory for over 30 years." - Except that Armenia has also *never* recognized the so-called "Republic of Artsakh" officially.
"...A smaller number of videos depicting Armenian war crimes also circle around Azerbaijan, but they pale in comparison in both quantity and ruthlessness to the Azerbaijani videos." - How about mentioning Armenian night-time ballistic missile attacks on the city of Ganja, which is located 50 km (30 mi) from the war zone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Ganja_missile_attacks "Private Telegram channel video" huh?
...who increasingly see each other’s annihilation as indispensable to their own survival. ...while Azerbaijan’s appetite for Armenian land seems boundless.
Somehow azeris and armenians are able to live in piece all around the world. In Russia, in Georgia, in Europe, in US. As long as they remember being human, not ape-alike, as long as their brain takes control of their instincts. Azerbaijan does not give a damn for Armenian land officially or unofficially. In this war, not a single Azeri stepped on Armenian land. Azerbaijan and its people want to be able to freely walk on their own lands.
This conflict could have been resolved a decade ago or even earlier. My only wish and hope that our people would stop fighting each other and start learning to live together.
https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/13628-italian-court-sentences...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramil_Safarov
https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/12442/azerbaija...
I think Armenia's best bet for future is its brainpower - it should invest in education, technology and become an economic powerhouse - like a Taiwan or Singapore of the caucasus. I know it's easier said than done, but knowing the Armenian mind, it is feasible and perhaps its best bet given the complex geopolitics over there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkZHOlQtYO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFA7a6OtJvE
It looks disingenuous, and from that it is definitely propaganda.
Of course, it is. My answer below is an attempt to explain why it is an orphaned state. It has been so since its formation.
During WWI, Armenian separatists in the Ottoman empire were tools used by Nicholas II to open an Eastern from to keep the Ottoman forces busy there so the British and their allies could take the straits and İstanbul and keep him in power. During the initial stages of the war, incompetence had already caused close to 100,000 Ottoman soldiers to be lost on the Eastern front[1]. The strategy of mobilizing a rebellion behind the lines was a smart one and Nicholas II employed it. The Ottoman Empire had been in decline for over 200 years at that time, and the western reaches of the empire had been shrinking through revolutions and rebellions.
Just like the Greeks and others, there were Armenians who had been wanting to break from the Ottoman Empire and had been working towards establishing their own state for many years. E.g., see Arshak Gavafian[2]:
> The battle of Sarikamish, which the British press boomed as an enormous Russian success, was absolutely won by the courage and determination of the Armenian soldiers in the Russian army, and by the military genius of Arshak Gavafian (familiarly known as Keri), whose gallant life was lost in the battle of Rowanduz, where he inflicted another heavy defeat on the Turks and saved the situation. If it were not for Keri and Armenian soldiers, the Sarikamish battle would have been lost, and the Turkish army would have reached Tiflis. - Diana Abgar,
Despite the smartness of the strategy, the Allies failed at get through Gallipoli and reach İstanbul. The Russian empire fell to the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks were not fond of any friends of the Tsar.
Sure, later the Ottoman Empire fell as well[3]. But, then a group of Turks organized and fought a war of independence and changed the terms of the Sevres treaty[4]. During that war, the USSR was friendly with the revolutionaries. That meant the Armenians who were now in de facto Soviet territory did not have an ally to help them take land what they had thought they had been granted to them in Sevres[5]. They did not enjoy great support with the Soviet regime as they had been allied with the countries who had been trying to help Nicholas II stay in power and crush the Bolsheviks.
The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was their chosen tool of control. Their interest was in preventing rebellions.
The ASSR controlled nothing strategic. While Turkish presence in Anatolia had always been an obstacle on the path of the Russian Empire.
After WWII, Stalin considered using the Armenians to fell the Turkish Republic to ensure Soviet dominance in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. However, until 2008, U.S. administrations put priority on containing Soviet expansion, decided to "support" Turkey as a roadblock to Soviet expansion. As one of the consequences, ASSR remained a backwater, not having access to or controlling anything strategic. In Turkey, anything that harms the Armenian state is considered "good policy" regardless of political affiliation.
After the fall of the USSR, they tried to change this with the Karabağ campaign. The problem is, in a world with "big" uncertainties, no major players are interested in the details of one's cause. There doesn't seem to be anyone who is interested in the consequences of a strong Armenian state. Therefore, for the near future, their efforts on the battlefield are unlikely to succeed.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sarikamish
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_(fedayi)
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_S%C3%A8vres
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lausanne
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union%E2%80%93Turkey_re...
Gurgen Margaryan was killed by an Azeri in Hungary. Once he was extradited to Azerbaijan he was released, promoted and got a big pay. Now he's a hero there.
So Armenia would risk provoking it’s neighbors, with no way of defending it self.
So, yeah, the EU would need to grow a massive set of balls and build an army large enough to keep Russia away, and station troops in all EU friendly states bordering Russia. I’d call that a 2050 plan at best.
It's not for the EU to be scared. They just need to setup camp in Armenia, then others will not dare attack.
The problem is to indeed grow a pair and show some backbone instead of always being scared and weak. Again, the EU is (or can be) a massive power that others, including Russia, will not cross.
That should be the case but is not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre
Specifically, show me one country in the EU whose internal politics could sustain losing significant numbers of personnel in a proxy war with the second largest military in NATO.
As a friend of mine suggested, one of the better routes the EU could take is to look to Switzerland and estabilish a confederation, with a single military, forereign policy and currency, but leave everything to the member states.
The big powers in the region are Russia, Turkey and Iran. If you must argue that Armenia should pick a big power to cosy up to, those are the options. Turkey is likely committed to Azerbaijan, but Iran and Russia are willing to play both sides.
Pursuing closer links with Europe and the EU is a fourth option. As the article points out, Armenia has historic links to Europe (although in the same paragraph it concedes that the strongest of those are to Russia, not the Western countries...) and this would be more attractive to Armenians. Unfortunately, it doesn't have much to offer the EU. It's poor and geographically isolated and the EU, which doesn't have unified armed forces, isn't interested in projecting military power overseas.