Experts see Armenia's reliance on India as wishful thinking
Opinions on Caliber.Az

INTERVIEWS  20 April 2023 - 12:40

Russia and the West have left us. Our hope is India. Armenian Ambassador to New Delhi Yuri Babakhanyan expressed himself in this spirit. He stated that the main military task facing Armenia at the moment is the construction of defence infrastructure along the border with Azerbaijan, stretching more than 500 kilometres.

Babakhanyan recalled that Armenia has established military-technical cooperation with India by signing agreements on the purchase of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons from this country, including Pinaka multiple-launch rocket systems. And he said that a military attache will be appointed to the Armenian embassy in India in the near future.

In his speech, the Armenian ambassador said that the United States and Europe remain important regional actors, but their influence is gradually weakening. According to Babakhanyan, Armenia feels abandoned by Russia and the West. The ambassador, in particular, noted that "the Trump administration's attempts to stop the fighting during the 44-day war in the fall of 2020 were indecisive and slow."

So, under the current leadership, Armenia is trying to abandon military-technical cooperation with Russia and has high hopes for India in this sense. And the goal, as it is clear from the diplomat's statements, is to load the entire border line with Azerbaijan with foreign military equipment. And it is not very clear why they need so much. There is even suspicion that offensive actions [may take place] in the future. It would seem that Yerevan needs to think about reaching a peace agreement with Azerbaijan, the document has not yet been signed, as well as about the settlement of relations with Türkiye. And instead, some new round of militarisation is now in the Indian direction. How can we assess these aspirations of Yerevan? How true is their bet on India? What is all this leading to?

Foreign analysts shared their thoughts about this with Caliber.Az.

According to Doctor of Military and Political Sciences Vakhtang Maisaya (Georgia), today the Armenian public has developed pessimistic moods regarding the factor of Russia and even the West in the context of the settlement of relations with Azerbaijan and Türkiye.

"It is difficult to judge how ready India is to become a faithful conductor of Armenia's interests. After all, India adheres to the policy of non-alignment. It is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement. And by the way, Azerbaijan is also a member of this organisation. So, India has absolutely different aspirations in general, and furthermore, it does not have any special interests in the South Caucasus," the expert says.

In his opinion, most likely, India views relations with Armenia, including within the framework of cooperation in the military-industrial complex, from a purely commercial point of view. And it may also be in the context of the fact that Armenia is the main, key factor for the implementation of Russia’s North-South geo-economic project, which should connect St Petersburg with Mumbai (Bombay) in India.

"But I believe that India will try to adhere to a more balanced policy towards Armenia and Azerbaijan. That is, Armenia's desire to somehow record India as its strategic ally, I think, will not come true," Maisaya said.

In turn, Russian political scientist and professor at St Petersburg State University Stanislav Tkachenko believes that it is not easy to give an unambiguous assessment of Armenia's current foreign policy aspirations.

"On the one hand, this country’s diplomacy is woven into a complex system of bilateral and multilateral international relations, has allies, strategic partners, as well as friendly and hostile states. At any given time, only a part of these diplomatic ties has an impact on those who make major foreign policy and military-strategic decisions in Yerevan.

Taking into account the above, it should be concluded that part of the Armenian foreign policy leadership is dissatisfied with the power balance that has developed around their state, it seeks to change this balance for the better for itself. In this sense, the recent statements of Armenian Ambassador to India Yuri Babakhanyan are extremely revealing. The ambassador as an official has no right to a 'personal' or 'subjective' opinion, the power he represents speaks through his mouth," the professor noted.

From his point of view, the Armenian ambassador’s statement about the orientation towards India in the process of Yerevan solving the tasks of military construction and changing the situation within the framework of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is opportunistic.

"It reflects the difficult discussions going on in Yerevan about ways out of the crisis on some favourable conditions for Armenia. A simple way out of the conflict by signing a peace agreement that will fix the border of the two states and confirm the status of Karabakh as part of the Republic of Azerbaijan is not favourable for the current generation of Armenian leaders. Russia has been pushing Armenia toward such a decision for many years. Since the urgency of the problem of peaceful settlement is more acute today than ever, Yerevan can no longer dismiss Moscow's recommendations. But there is no political will to follow the only possible path to peace.

Hence, such unusual ideas as reliance on India in the process of strengthening Armenia's military positions in the South Caucasus arise. But logical in theory, this position seems extremely distant in practical terms. We will highlight only two problems that hinder the implementation of the plans outlined by the diplomat.

First of all, India annually exports weapons for a small amount (about $ 1.5 billion), while for many years it has been the world's largest arms importer. Armenia's plans for large-scale purchases of Indian weapons will inevitably run into difficulties with the implementation of Delhi's export contracts. As military tensions persist in South Asia, primarily between India and China, as well as India and Pakistan, the likelihood of expanding the scale of arms exports from this country decreases to insignificant values.

Secondly, India in recent years has been pursuing a well-balanced and cautious policy aimed at creating conditions in which its economy will develop rapidly during the current painful socio-economic reforms. Such a strategy is contradicted by the prospect of being on the side of one of the opponents in a conflict that only recently, in the fall of 2020, resulted in a large-scale war in the South Caucasus," Tkachenko believes.

As a result, the remarks of the Armenian ambassador to India should be assessed as an information operation not based on real processes "on the ground", he noted.

"That is, we are witnessing an attempt at wishful thinking. Experts from around the world are increasingly convinced that the current generation of Armenian leaders, particularly Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, no longer represents the interests of the majority of the country's citizens and must leave the political stage sooner or later. Then the prospects for peace in the South Caucasus will become clearer," concluded the Russian political scientist.

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