Armenia's Turn to the West

https://www.euractiv.com/news/armenia-to-start-eu-bid-in-near-future/    

The struggle over Armenia and the Caucasus continues. The region has been caught in geopolitical wranglings since the fall of the Soviet Union thirty-five years ago.

For years, Armenia remained in a close alliance with Moscow and Tehran. Common Orthodox heritage as well as the threat of Pan-Turkism created a situation in which Yerevan's interests were in alignment with Russia and Iran.

Armenia is a nation dismembered, a people traumatised by their history. The tiny Transcaucasian republic is but a shell of its former glory. Most of what is today Eastern Türkiye was historically part of Armenia - itself a confused history of different kingdoms and polities.

With the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Armenians insisted the region of Nagorno-Karabakh was theirs even though it had been assigned (by the Soviets) to the Turkish nation of Azerbaijan. A war was fought in the 1990's and Armenia gained a de facto control over the region but it was never secure and never resolved.

Armenia has struggled economically even while Azerbaijan has flourished due to Western investment and its oil economy. It also received a great deal of attention from the United States and Israel as it sits in a very strategic location, south of Russia, North of Iran, and on the shore of the Caspian Sea - a potential gateway and pipeline transit route to Central Asia.

The war in Nagorno-Karabakh flared up in 2020 and to the dismay of Armenians, the Russians did not offer much in the way of aid - a move that broke with precedent as Russia has always (apart from the Soviet epoch) seen itself as the Third Rome and defender of Oriental Orthodoxy. Moscow let them down and when the war resumed in 2023 and Armenia faced total defeat, Russia (in the midst of the Ukraine War) was of no help, despite having a base on Armenian soil at Gyumri.

The defeat and loss of Nagorno-Karabakh created a social crisis and exasperated extant tensions. Armenian society is now polarized like never before and under Pashinyan's premiership, the tiny nation has taken a decided turn toward the West and away from Moscow.

Pashinyan wants the Russian base to be closed. He's allowed the Americans to come in and participate in joint military exercises. He's diversified Armenia's gas supply which has led Putin to cut them off from Russian stores.

Now Pashinyan has signalled he wants to join the European Union. But to do so, he will have to give up territorial claims to Nagorno-Karabakh. The EU will not allow members with disputed borders - although in the post-Ukraine period, there may be allowances made. Even the recent Brussels-Ottawa rapprochement signals the EU may be evolving its categories of membership.

Pashinyan has already signalled he's willing to abandon these territorial claims and yet that's not good enough for Baku. Azerbaijan has insisted that the Armenian constitution be changed - which makes a legal claim to the territory, which Armenian nationalists refer to as Artsakh. Pashinyan has responded by suggesting not just a modified constitution but an entirely new one - the formation of a Fourth Republic.

Pashinyan is opposed by various nationalist factions who don't want EU membership, or to abandon Artsakh. And they certainly don't want Western Liberalism and its anti-traditional values.

Pashinyan is perceived by these elements (including the leadership of the Armenian Orthodox Church) as subverting Armenian identity and values - the core elements that kept Armenian identity alive during centuries of occupation, suppression, and genocide.

And they view him and those who back him as hypocrites as Pashinyan has resorted to authoritarian and draconian measure to bring about his pro-Western programme. Opposition politicians have been placed under arrest, and he has put legal pressures on ecclesiastical leaders, clashing with the Patriarch and pushing for secularisation.

It is also in Putin's interest to sow discord and to agitate Ankara-Yerevan tensions. A new war with Azerbaijan may result in the fall of Armenia and yet many believe that Baku does not move without backing from Erdogan in Türkiye. Putin would rather see a divided and even broken Armenia over one tied to Western power structures.

Ironically these moves entail the very kind encirclement scenario that led to his Ukraine interventions and invasion. Putin knows that if Armenia joins the EU, NATO membership will be next. He knows the West seeks to topple his regime and to subjugate and partition Russia - akin to what happened to Prussia in 1947. Let us hope he doesn't become so desperate as to resort to nuclear weapons. But he also knows there are Western strategists and military thinkers that are salivating at the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons - they're simply waiting for an excuse.

Though it's not often talked about, these moves in the Caucasus are just a preview or preamble to rekindled goals of American strategists in Central Asia - hopes that were largely derailed by the catastrophes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But at that point, China will come directly into play. These conflicts are all setting the stage for a global Cold War at the very least, and global conflagration at the worst.

See also:

https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2020/11/russia-protector-of-oriental.html

https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2024/09/more-signals-from-armenia.html

https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2025/08/an-american-military-presence-in.html

https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-wooing-of-armenia.html

https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2023/07/armenias-sacral-claims.html

https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2024/09/armenias-shift-to-west.html