Yerevan vacillates between Russia and West But will have to live between Azerbaijan and Türkiye

On September 30, Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan once again voiced complaints against the CSTO, which allegedly does not fulfill its "allied obligations". To put it simply, it does not enter into war with Azerbaijan, with which Yerevan is in no hurry to negotiate.

Obviously, the CSTO will not go to war with Azerbaijan. And it is equally obvious that the current Armenian leadership is not only likely to withdraw from the CSTO, but has long been betting on rapprochement with the West, above all the United States. In recent months these plans have become a leading component of Yerevan's foreign policy. Pashinyan has one answer to his seven woes, a hasty turn to the West. Thus, he repeats the maneuver that has been tested many times in Armenian history. And as a result, he can step on the same rake - looking for a stronger protector across the mountains and oceans, while neglecting the relations with his neighbours. In such a situation, it is hard to count on a positive outcome.

What kind of Armenia do its current leaders want?

Pashinyan and his colleagues are alluding to their discontent that Moscow and the CSTO are not inclined to go to war with Azerbaijan over lands seized by Armenian radical nationalists during the break-up of the USSR. Speaking at the UN, the Armenian premier said one of the main reasons for the continued escalation of tensions on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border is "the inadequate response of regional security structures [i.e. the CSTO] to the situation, which has raised serious questions in Armenian society."

This dissatisfaction is rather feigned, he deliberately mentions CSTO in the UN. In fact, there would probably be nothing more awful for Pashinyan than if the CSTO and Moscow suddenly got on board for him (let us imagine this fantastic scenario for a moment). As a result, the most important, one might say sacred, not only for Pashinyan but also for all post-Soviet liberal nationalists, the goal would be under threat. And this is not viable statehood and independence, but accession to the Euro-Atlantic community.

To do this, it is possible to risk not only the old loot in the form of Karabakh and adjacent lands captured in the early 1990s. Even the security of Armenia's own border regions could be risked - indeed, the Republic of Armenia itself as a viable state would be on the line for this purpose. After all, why would post-Soviet liberal nationalists need an independent state if it is not a member of the Euro-Atlantic community and has no foreign troops in it? After all, in the beginning, they talk about independence, neutrality, and withdrawal of foreign troops. And then these same people come to power and replace dependence on Moscow with dependence on the West - and without trying to live their lives for the sake of their own people, which also implies peace with their neighbours.

Here, the Armenian leader openly called for the deployment of an "international force" in the border region. Apparently, the talk is about the Americans and the French. And to finally get foreign troops into Armenia (let us call things by their proper names), some politicians in Yerevan are even ready to continue the skirmishes in the border area, where blood (Armenian and Azerbaijani, but certainly not those responsible for this policy) is spilled.

And this is all quite logical here. Pictures of bloodshed in Karabakh will no longer work in the West, but the border battles are precisely what will draw the attention of the outside world. Speaking at the UN last week, Pashinyan described the events of September 13-14 as follows: "This was not a border conflict, it was a direct, indisputable attack on Armenia's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Territorial claims: imaginary and real

The Armenian leadership insists that a peace treaty and demarcation of the borders with Azerbaijan, as well as the unblocking of communications, is impossible since Baku is allegedly making territorial claims against Armenia, even demanding that Yerevan be given away. Apparently, this is a misinterpretation of Azerbaijani officials' reminder that for centuries Azerbaijanis (and other peoples) lived in the South Caucasus, Yerevan happened to be not only the capital of the Armenian Republic, but also the Iravan Khanate, and even Sevan was called Gyoycha, and Syunik - Zangazur.

Azerbaijani authorities did not say a word about their desire to seize Armenian lands, but rather that ethnic Azeris forcibly expelled from the country in the late 1980s should be allowed to return to Armenia. And this was not a unilateral demand - at the same time Baku stressed the right of Azerbaijani citizens of Armenian ethnicity (who were citizens of Azerbaijan at the time Karabakh was torn away by Armenian armed groups) to live unhindered in their homeland once Azerbaijani sovereignty over the relevant areas is restored.

The same applies to the distortion of Ilham Aliyev's words about his intention to achieve at all costs the restoration of communications between the main part of the country and Nakhchivan through the construction of the Zangazur corridor. It is about restoring the historical communications and unity of the region - all destroyed as a result of the expansionist plans of the Armenian radical nationalists.

Yerevan misrepresents Baku's position even on these rather unambiguous statements. Even more dubious are the accusations of territorial seizure - as evidence, Yerevan hastens to point to the September border skirmishes on some of the disputed parts of the two countries' borders. At the same time, Pashinyan takes the time to add that the Armenian side itself has still not returned entire occupied districts to Azerbaijan, although it has pledged to do so in November 2020.

This week the Armenian Prime Minister has already made no secret of what he considers the solution to the current situation - and that is not peace negotiations. According to him, "the Azerbaijani invasion must be condemned and stopped. The withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops and the deployment of an international observer mission in the Armenian territories affected by the occupation is an absolute necessity".

The fact that the situation in general is a natural result of Yerevan's policy aimed at maintaining strategic uncertainty and delaying normalization after 2020 is not mentioned. Meanwhile, as early as the beginning of 2021, the Armenian leadership has begun increasingly explicit attempts to freeze the Karabakh issue, which has in principle already been resolved, at a new level - in a shrunken form.

The idea of achieving a refreeze had existed before - to this end, Pashinyan even swallowed the bitterest pill after the defeat in the war and agreed to the deployment of a Russian contingent in Karabakh. Azerbaijan then again did not conform to racist stereotypes told about it by some of its detractors. On the contrary, it proposed the peaceful withdrawal of Armenian troops from the zone of temporary responsibility of Russian peacekeepers in the Karabakh region and the elimination of the consequences of colonization. With the subsequent cooperation of all countries in the region and neighbouring states in the interests of all peoples of the South Caucasus.

But having first agreed to this option, Pashinyan then began to procrastinate. Of course, he needed time to convince a significant part of the population, deceived by decades of chauvinist propaganda about "eternal enmity" and "ancient greatness". But it seems to have been more than that. Peace with Azerbaijan (and a settlement with Türkiye) would enable Pashinyan to take Armenia out of isolation and lead it towards prosperity, together with the other states of the region. And even, perhaps, to then abandon the presence of the Russian military and reduce dependence on integration structures linked to Moscow - something the current Armenian leadership seems to have always wanted. Quite a logical programme for building an adequate nation-state, isn't it?

But as we have said, why would post-Soviet liberal nationalists need a nation-state if it does not participate in Euro-Atlantic structures and has no Western military in it? Therefore, a peace treaty with Azerbaijan - from the point of view of such politicians - probably looks like a much worse option than maintaining and even increasing tensions, which would allow them to build a springboard to jump towards the West.

That is why they are not only in no hurry to complete the strategically hopeless project of the so-called "NKR", but are also in no hurry to deal with the borders. The risky game of the current Armenian leadership is understandable: escalation on the notional Armenian border will allow the Yerevan authorities to involve Western support in their confrontation with Azerbaijan in an almost hopeless situation. After all, it is far more important for the West itself to establish relations with Azerbaijan, which can help not only by supplying badly needed oil and gas from its fields but also by ensuring similar supplies from Central Asia, primarily Kazakhstan.

The boomerang of geopolitics

In other words, the current plan of the Armenian leadership to involve external forces in the region is surprising in its disproportionate capabilities and grandiosity of Yerevan. Indeed, at first glance, it is merely a question of the withdrawal "to the West" of a small state, which had lost the war, has minimal military capabilities, and is compelled to surrender its sovereignty. If we take a closer look, it becomes clear that the withdrawal leads to the breakdown of the entire regional security architecture, conditioned by the invitation of extra-regional forces to the South Caucasus. In other words, it is not only about Armenia and Azerbaijan.

It should be reminded that some prominent Armenian figures have already taken such steps in the past. For example, it was the marginalised Armenian feudal elites who brought the Russian Empire into the region - as we remember, the Russian Empire conquered the South Caucasus before it had conquered the North! Examples could go on - the forces involved have changed, but the essence remains the same, and these plans, which amount to neglecting the neighbours, and relying on a distant all-powerful patron, have produced questionable results for the region and for the Armenians themselves.

Now Yerevan is risking again, and it is not just because of the overall imbalance in the South Caucasus. Almost all the countries in the region, even if for different reasons, will be unhappy with the move. For Baku and Ankara, it looks both like another last-minute attempt to replay the preliminary settlement agreements and a claim to form a new regional order, centred on Armenia's hypothetical future alliance with the West (the US and EU).

But Pashinyan's new course would particularly displease Russia and Iran, on which Armenia has repeatedly relied in its confrontation with Azerbaijan and Türkiye. Moscow will clearly dislike Yerevan's idea of expanding its Western influence and especially its military presence in the Caucasus. The same may be said about Tehran, in addition, the latter, since 1979, has proclaimed as one of its priorities in all areas of its foreign policy that the problems of the regions in question must be solved by the countries of those regions, rather than external players.

In other words, having a minimum reserve of diplomatic, economic, and military sustainability and even elementary survivability, Pashinyan's government began a sharp U-turn. And it is hardly a matter of some cunning calculation. Rather, it is a matter of ignoring the objectively existing realities. The same geopolitics and geo-economics, which are carefully studied and taken into account in key Western capitals, but which the rest of us are invited to ignore - saying that you do not need it.

Already when he came to power, Pashinyan clearly demonstrated that in this respect he was a typical representative of the post-Soviet liberal-nationalist establishment. At the time he declared that the protest movement that brought him to power had no geopolitical dimension. At first, this seemed like rhetoric to appease the Kremlin, which was worried about a "new Maidan". But it soon became clear that the new government was indeed ignoring geopolitical reality, leading to a clash with Baku over hopelessly failed positions in Karabakh. By the end of the 2010s, it was clear to everyone that Azerbaijan could defeat Armenian forces three times in Karabakh, but Yerevan was not going to talk to Baku.

The effectiveness of this ideological approach with its adventurous dreams of securing its own expansion at the expense of an alliance with a distant and powerful ally (once Russia, then Entente, today the collective West led by the US) is measured even arithmetically by the size of the territory controlled by Armenian state formations. The other day, Armenian nationalists were joyfully retelling on their TV channels the demonstration of the map of the "Armenian kingdom" (the notorious "Great Armenia") of two thousand years ago in one of the TV games on the Russian TV channel. Let's assume everything was as drawn, but how come the territory shrank from 312,000 square kilometres to less than 30,000 (in today's Armenia)? Clearly, this did not happen overnight, it is clear that enemies are to blame - although everyone has them, so that is not an explanation. But it is a fact that the territories inhabited by the Armenians (majority or minority) have greatly shrunk since the rise of Armenian nationalism in the 19th century, and the more it reared its head, the faster these territories shrank. Of course, it can be argued that it was the other way round - Armenians were losing territories and falling into nationalism, but here it does not even matter what caused what - the fact is that ethnic isolationist nationalism did not work. Even now, Armenians are in no hurry to go where the ideals of Armenian ethnic nationalism (sometimes with overtly racist motives "a la Nzhdeh") take over - how did things go there with luring the diaspora into the lands seized from Azerbaijan? And what is the situation with migration processes in Armenia? The questions are rhetorical and the essence of the problem is obvious - it is impossible to build a successful state by pretending that there are simply no neighbours, and periods of uplift in the history of the Armenian people and culture have taken place in close contact with other peoples, rather within the country.

In conclusion, this time the boomerang of geopolitics may hit Pashinyan's government even faster than it has hit Armenian leaders in the past. Having risked everything for the sake of relations with the West, Armenia has little to offer the West - even if Yerevan makes exceptional concessions and conditions. And even the pressure of the Armenian diaspora on the states of residence will not be able to reverse the objective reality in which the West is certainly not against bringing a former Russian ally into its camp, but the US will not aggravate relations with Azerbaijan, just as Russia will not do it with the CSTO.

And then the Armenian leadership will have to return to the need to sign the same peace treaty and agree on cooperation with Azerbaijan. The documents will still be the same, but the atmosphere for building good neighbourly relations will be badly spoilt, time will be lost and Armenia's own position and international position will again deteriorate. It is in the interests of the people of the whole region to make sure that this does not happen since problems in the neighbourhood undermine the prospects for a better future for everyone around.