To Flip Armenia and the Fall of Nagorno-Karabakh

https://eurasianet.org/as-azerbaijan-takes-over-karabakh-armenian-russian-ties-reach-new-nadir

As I have related in the past, the Armenian lobby in the United States has been faced with an impossible situation, a position divorced from the realities of US foreign policy. Since the fall of the USSR, Armenia has been allied with Russia and indirectly with Iran. America has, since the formation of NATO been an ally of the Turks, and with the break-up of the Soviet Union this relationship extended to the Turkish regime in Azerbaijan. The latter country was particularly attractive given its oil resources and geo-strategic position on the Caspian Sea which connects it to Central Asia.

Given that the relationship with Türkiye has significantly eroded in recent years, the US and Israel have moved even closer to Azerbaijan. Armenian lobbyists in the United States have long been frustrated in their efforts to tilt Armenia to the West. America is friendly enough but because of its relationship with Türkiye, it was unwilling to advocate Armenia's causes. The US president Joe Biden only tepidly acknowledged the 1915 genocide a couple of years ago – when things had really soured with Ankara.

The Christian Right has as of late allied itself with Armenian lobby and tried to argue on the basis of their ethno-Christianity and supposed Christian nationhood.

And then in 2020 everything took a new turn as Armenia was militarily defeated by Azerbaijan – a crisis that emboldened the American-Armenian lobby. Yerevan once had the superiority vis-à-vis Baku, but clearly this situation has ended and now in 2023 – the still languishing Republic of Armenia failed to even come to the aid of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave which was assaulted and defeated by Azerbaijan in September. The thirty-plus year standoff (which included two wars) has now effectively ended with an Azeri victory. It's rather stunning to think this long-standing low-grade war has at last come to an end – and a disastrous one for the Armenians. As one who has followed it for all these years, I must say this recent turn has been genuinely surprising.

Armenian politics are in turmoil. There are great financial stresses, allegations of corruption and outside influence. Like neighbouring Georgia, there are pro-West and pro-Russian elements at work.

The current government in Armenia headed by Nikol Pashinyan is perceived as being somewhat hostile to Russia and now public anger has grown as the historical Orthodox ally in Moscow has failed to come through and Armenia is defeated and humiliated. This will likely lead to a new government and one even more hostile to Moscow – a kind of dream come true for Washington. Armenia is (perhaps) on the verge of being flipped into the Western column and at this point Moscow's ability to curtail this is limited.

But for the Armenians, an appeal to Western legal frameworks and a case for reparations, aid, or intervention with regard to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) will go nowhere. They have no case. It was Azeri territory. Their real grievance is with Stalin as it was he who carved up the Caucasus into Soviet Republics which in turn became independent countries when the USSR collapsed in 1991. History which had been on hold for decades was revitalized at that moment and it led to war – but some of the problems cannot be solved. We're seeing something similar in Ukraine but in that case Khrushchev also played a part in that he peeled the historically Russian Crimea off of the Russian Soviet Republic and attached it to Ukraine.

Of course Western outlets are doing all they can to spin the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and make Russia look bad – they're bad peacekeepers, or Russia is playing some kind of game and the like in order to distract from what has really happened and its implications.

The West will generously back a new government that will consider permanently leaving the CSTO – the Russian dominated military alliance. Western coverage has also tried to suggest that Baku has cozied up to Russia in recent years. The truth is more complicated. The Aliyev regime tries to play off the great powers to some extent and wants to leverage its unique geopolitical position. Russia is a neighbour that's not going away and yet in order to avoid domination, Baku has worked with the Americans and Israel. As with all things in the Caucasus, it's complicated and I find most of the coverage to be rather biased – all the Western coverage (as expected) taking an anti-Russia angle.

The Armenians feel betrayed and collectively are outraged and humiliated. Many believe that Russia was actively involved in conspiring against them – a rather ridiculous assertion.

It would in all actuality be a prime moment for a nation like France or the greater EU to step in – but you can be sure the Americans will aggressively pursue this angle, hoping to lock Russia out of Trans-Caucasia once and for all. Armenia will never be able to join NATO as long as Türkiye remains part of the alliance – and such a move would again provoke Moscow into action. Nevertheless, Armenia can be brought into various trade, financial, and military frameworks and you can be sure these plans are already in the advanced stages.