France's decision to arm Armenia ultimately buried its mediation in peace process

ANALYTICS  13 May 2023 - 11:38

Caliber.Az reported earlier on Paris' appointment of a new military attache in Yerevan, who will be in charge of French arms supplies to Armenia. Although, in due time, France joined the tacit embargo of European states on arms supply to the South Caucasus, the guarantor of which is the European Union. And now it is important to understand how real for the region are the threats posed by Paris this time, whether they are declarative or real.

Traditionally, France like to position itself in geopolitics as a force that maintains the balance and prevents the preponderance of influence in favor of any particular party. In relation to Azerbaijan during the occupation, it strangely meant the tacit and criminal support of France as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group for the aggressor country. Not surprisingly, after Azerbaijan's glorious victory in the 44-day war, Paris began urgently to reset "balancing" measures. For example, in November 2020, the Senate passed a resolution recommending that the government recognise the "NKR". The government did not listen to the senators, hastening, however, to put forward a kind of unofficial ultimatum to Azerbaijan, which was very elegant: Foreign Minister Le Drian motivated his refusal to recognise the separatists by the incompatibility of this decision with the role of co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group. Not out of respect for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and international law, but for a purely political reason - the mediator must be neutral. The ultimatum actually read as follows: "Give back the mandate of trust to the Minsk Group or recognise us as mediators in any other format, otherwise we will recognize the independence of the 'NKR'".

So there is nothing strange that Baku was not satisfied with such a biased position of Paris, and the Azerbaijani side firmly rejected the French mediation proposal.

Meanwhile, the French government is in no hurry to recognise the "NKR". First of all, because that would be an extremely foolish decision. Realising that it will not be possible to pressure Azerbaijan on the diplomatic field, Paris is now trying to act through military cooperation with Armenia. Its possible goal is to threaten to arm Armenia and squeeze itself back into the negotiating seat, or to unilaterally extend an umbrella over Armenia, guaranteeing its security despite its intransigence in the negotiation process. The ultimate goal in any scenario is to prevent Azerbaijan from becoming a regional power.

But Paris is a bit late. Its problem is that our country has already become a regional power. Delaying peace will not do us much harm, unlike Armenia.

However, France has another motive. The attempts of Paris to conduct an active foreign policy autonomous from the US with the expansion of its defense products have suffered a powerful fiasco. Suffice it to recall Australia's recent rejection of a French contract to build submarines in favor of the United States. Having taken such a powerful knock, Paris is now frantically looking for another place to practice its geopolitical fervor. It probably considers the South Caucasus to be such a place. Why not, it thinks. Fortunately, Moscow is busy with the war in Ukraine, and Armenia, a member of Francophonie, by the way, is looking on pleadingly and hopefully. Why not do something? But it's not all smooth sailing here, either. It would have liked to take a leading role in the EU mission, but the eagle-eyed Americans put a zealous German at its head and, as a bonus, added a fair number of Poles and Balts, Paris' headache in the matter of European integration. And then Paris probably decided to go it alone. It is interesting that from this perspective, Armenia's armament does not set an obvious goal of aggression against Azerbaijan, because it is clearly hopeless - for every barrel provided to Armenia, we will acquire five. The ratio of military expenditures will always be in favor of Azerbaijan. Demographics too. It seems more likely that by arming Armenia, Paris is preparing to replace Russia's military presence with its own. If the Kremlin suddenly evacuates a military base from Gyumri in the future, Paris wants to be in the right place at the right time.

However, the French might be in for some unpleasant surprises here as well. Given the unpredictability of the Armenian prime minister, it is quite probable that the latter will refuse French arms at the last minute. That would be an embarrassment!

Finally, there is another important detail: money. France, although a superpower, is a country with strong social spending, saving every eurocent. Armenia will not be able to buy large quantities of modern arms, and donating them would mean cutting other items of the French budget, which may result, to put it mildly, in the discontent of the recipients of these parts of the budget.

Thus, there are reasons to suppose that even if French weapons arrive in the region, they will not pose a serious threat to Azerbaijan. But they could cause serious problems in Armenia itself since the Russian military is still there.

Caliber.Az