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Armenia’s miserable dilemma

227 points by georgecmu 5y ago

sahinyanlik 5y ago
dpq 5y ago
Unfortunately, this post is maddeningly accurate. Keep in mind that Putin signed a military alliance agreement with Azerbaijan the day before he invaded Ukraine. I perceive that this is an unveiled threat to Armenia: do as you are told, or we'll look the other way when you get invaded and (most likely) massacred by our new ally. A widespread opinion is that the 2020 war was enabled/allowed by Russia to punish Armenia for its drift towards the West. Personally I find this scenario reasonably probable.
- throwaway10246 5y ago
  [dead]
- helge9210 5y ago
  > drift towards the West This is a little bit of overstatement. As a result of mass protests prime minister resigned. Emergent leader of the protests won elections and became prime minister. At some point later after vote of no confidence he won elections again. It's not drifting to the West, it's changing government by elections, what made Russia to put pressure to Armenia
  - dpq 5y ago
    The vote of no confidence occured already after the war, if I am not mistaken. Or, rather, he resigned to enable new elections and confirm his legitimacy after the military disaster. The bet paid off, mostly because the other main candidate was a Russian-backed ex-president who is almost universally hated for the corruption during his tenure. I do find that Pashinyan's drift towards France and the U.S. was quite pronounced, by the way.
- skrebbel 5y ago
  > (most likely) massacred by our new ally Why is that likely? (I'm not skeptical, I really don't know and this stuff is hard to google)
  - DrBenCarson 5y ago
    Azerbaijan has lots of oil money and purchases weapons from Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia, the likes of which Armenia cannot afford.
    - skrebbel 5y ago
      , and therefore they will kill all the Armenians? I mean that's means, not motive. "They have weapons, and therefore they will kill everybody" makes no sense to me.
      - DrBenCarson 5y ago
        You don’t understand how deeply ingrained their hatred for Armenia goes. It’s literally what they spend surplus money on. First, Turkey and Azerbaijan are effectively dictatorships flying under the radar using oil money and “west-friendly” trade policies. Second, Armenia has been Christian for as long as Christianity has existed. Turkey and Azerbaijan are Muslim. There are millennia of wars and conflict over forced conversion that have resulted in “Armenia is the devil” propaganda making its way into the Turk cultures. Third, in the Turk and Azeri mind, Armenia is the one threat to their “Turkic manifest destiny.” They believe the Caucus should be theirs in order to create a unified “great” Turkic civilization. So yes, when these countries have the means to buy very efficient weapons, Armenian lives become at risk.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        skrebbel 5y ago
        > You don’t understand how deeply ingrained their hatred for Armenia goes. Correct, that's why I asked!
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  Armenia has already an alliance with Russia as a member of the CSTO (and sent troops to Kazakhstan as part of it in January). That did not prevent Russia from looking the other way in 2020.
  - fmajid 5y ago
    That's because Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) is internationally recognized as being part of Azerbaijan. Even Armenia itself does not officially recognize the independence of Artsakh. Thus from a Russian point of view, Azerbaijani military attacks on Artsakh are an internal matter for the Azerbaijan government and not an act of aggression against Armenia proper which would trigger their mutual defense treaty. During the war, both Armenian and Azerbaijani forces were doing a kind of kabuki dance, provoking the other side into bombarding either Armenia or Iran, to trigger either regional powers' intervention in the conflict. It's a sad reality for the Armenian people that they were never truly independent and sovereign, but always a protectorate of the Iranians, Romans, Byzantines, Turks or Russians. I think everyone in Western leadership circles (or at least those who can actually place Armenia on a map) recognizes that and there is not the antagonism against them that, say, Belarus or to a lesser extent Serbia is experiencing.
    - dpq 5y ago
      Russia looked the other way because it was in the interest of Russia to look the other way. I believe the recent events in Ukraine have demonstrated that international law is held in pretty low regard. If Russia found it in their interest to intervene or prevent the war, they would have certainly done that. Instead, they chose to step away from one of their few allies/hostages.
      - fmajid 5y ago
        Of course, but in this case they were technically in the clear, unlike Ukraine where one of the smartest things the Biden administration did was to preemptively blow the false flag operations that were being planned to justify the invasion. The Azerbaijanis were certainly in close coordination with the Russians to establish what the Russian red lines were, and go right up to them, but no further.
- remind_me_again 5y ago
thathndude 5y ago
In my mind the main takeaway from this article is that these things are so nuanced we need to be very careful in passing judgment on these third parties that are tangentially related to the conflict. It’s relatively easy for us in the West to call balls and strikes for some actors, but much more tricky when it comes to other third parties (like Armenia).
- elliekelly 5y ago
  > It’s relatively easy for us in the West to call balls and strikes for some actors, but much more tricky when it comes to other third parties (like Armenia). Along the same lines I think it’s easy to forget that imposing sanctions and voting against the interests of a major power is, in a way, a privilege because it always has a cost. Even among some of the major European countries like Germany you can see that the economic realities of sanctioning Putin ran the risk of being too burdensome. If a country as wealthy and influential as Germany needs to coordinate among all of their allies (and still be prepared to bear a significant cost at home!) in order to make sanctions against Russia feasible I’m not sure how Russia’s smaller, non-EU neighbors could possibly be expected to do the same.
- mbreese 5y ago
  My take away was to be cognizant the each country (and even each individual) has their own motivations and conditions on the ground to deal with. Sometimes it is a historical or geographical context that isn’t readily apparent from the outside. But in some circumstances, the message sent by abstaining from a vote can be just as loud (and brave) as voting yes or no.
- hunglee2 5y ago
  exactly this. We need to move away from the bimodal moralising and recognise the geopolitical realties that many of these countries have.
jdrc 5y ago
Armenia lost 0.17% of its population in that war, mostly young conscripts. And tbh it was a war that could be stopped rather easily by threatening to sanction AZB. Instead there was more talk about how effective drones are at killing armenians. And the alignments in the region are all over the place. Georgia is invaded, AZB is tied to turkey but also to russia, iran is in russia's axis. Probably one of the worse positions on the map right now.
- mclightning 5y ago
  Armenia invaded the said land for some time. You may be unaware but West (NATO) has been on Azerbaijan's side on the disputed land, at least officially on paper.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > You may be unaware but West (NATO) has been on Azerbaijan's side on the disputed land, at least officially on paper. In Germany, that may have been motivated by corruption - there has been a huge scandal involving a bunch of Conservative politicians [1]. [1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aserbaidschan-Aff%C3%A4re https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aserbaidschan-Aff%C3%A4re
    - georgeecollins 5y ago
      The point is that the land that was fought over was part of Azerbaijan that Armenia took in a war after the fall of the Soviet Union. You can say that the border should have been something else, but that's the same argument to made for Crimea. I don't think the rest of NATO took Azerbaijani's side because of corruption, you are just cherry picking an incident in Germany and ignoring the fact that the occupation was not supported. It's very sad and I agree that the second war was also terrible, unjustified and the whole thing would best be solved by negotiations.
      - bonzini 5y ago
        It's a bit more complicated than that. Azerbaijan expelled or downright massacred the Armenian population living in Baku in the 1988 and 1990 pogroms. Nagorno-Karabakh population also used to be a large majority of Armenians until the government promoted relocation of Azeri people in the region, causing the Armenian population to be heavily discriminated.
fatihpense 5y ago
I agree it is not fair to make accusations at this point. The world is a complex place. I don't think any regular person who sees the reality will support starting war. I think another interesting dilemma is that the Armenian diaspora is living in large numbers in two world powers. I feel like they can get more powerful economically and politically than the regular Armenian folks living in Armenia. Thus there is a foreign(?) influence in their democracy. (I'm not an expert...) Lastly, maybe I'm optimistic, but I think there is an opportunity for peace in the region. I support recent forward-thinking and peaceful messages from Turkey and Azerbaijan. As a Turk, I want to see peace, friendship, and economy flourish between the nations. This will only give more options and prosperity to all of us who live here, and take options from others.
- throwaway_4ever 5y ago
  > I feel like they can get more powerful economically and politically than the regular Armenian folks living in Armenia. Definitely. Unfortunately that meant that an ethnic Armenian became head of RT, Russian's premier state propaganda vehicle, who is currently supporting the war on Ukraine.
fleddr 5y ago
These kind of stories reveal how brutal geopolitics are. Nation states are organized by power laws. Out of the 200+ countries, more than 150 are effectively "irrelevant". These small "sovereign" countries are geographically outside the main power blocks (US/Canada, EU, SE Asia, Russia) and thus have fragile security. Which means they're not really sovereign. They're forced to align with a power block (in a rare case multiple ones) to get access to trade in exchange for security. Sounds like a mob deal really. Give me access to your commodities (most of these countries are commodity producers, not advanced economies) or you get no aid in security. Some countries are so irrelevant that despite trading commodities, they still get no security when the need is there. Not worth defending. Or, the aggressor is too big to take on, so we stand by and do nothing. Altogether it's a geographic lottery of arbitrary nation-states.
- jdrc 5y ago
  There is also an obsession in that part of the world with Geopolitics. It's no coincidence that some of the most popular youtube geopolitics channels are from that region. I think it's more a remnant of soviet mentality and the fact that (absent the ideology of communism) territorial gains/losses seems to be the only motivator. China for all its rhetoric has not changed its borders in many decades, yet russia/ turkey are using militarism and territorial conquest as an end rather as means to prosperity.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    I've travelled a lot and if there's one thing I learned it's that we're all the same. We all share the same ideology: to live a dignified life in peace, in good health and in reasonable wealth. It's what we all desire and have in common. It's not even an ideology, they are common sense motivators for any living thing in general. Everything else is learned behavior: nationalism, culture, religion. False ideologies that divide instead of unite.
  - throwaway_4ever 5y ago
    > It's no coincidence that some of the most popular youtube geopolitics channels are from that region. Interesting, I hadn't considered that. Caspian Report is a big one, from an Azeri.
KingOfCoders 5y ago
Context from Wikipedia (because the article doesn't have it): "The main combatants were Azerbaijan, with support from Turkey and foreign mercenary groups on one side; and the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh and Armenia, on the other. It was the latest escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, which was annexed to Azerbaijan during the Soviet era and internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but partially governed by Artsakh, a breakaway state with an Armenian ethnic majority."
- dmix 5y ago
  And it wasn’t much of a war. It was just Armenia getting relentlessly hammered by Turkish-manufacturered drones.
  - 1-more 5y ago
    That and a bunch of Syrian mercenaries who had a curiously easy time getting from Syria to Artsakh. Huh. Weird. Probably nothing.
    - remind_me_again 5y ago
    - diminish 5y ago
      And Russian wagner mercenaries and Russian troops in 1990 killing AZ who wanted independence from Soviets together with Baltics.
- elchin 5y ago
  It was not an ethnic Armenian majority before the first Karabakh war.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    Yes, which happened 30 years ago, so there's an entire generation that grew up with the borders we have today. We don't want to go back to the borders of historic Armenia for the same reason we don't want to go back to the 1988 borders — it's history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia#/media/File:Arshakuni_Armenia_150-en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia#/media/File:Arshakuni_...
austincheney 5y ago
For historical context see: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nagorno-Karabakh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nagorno-Karabakh * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Nagorno-Karabakh_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Nagorno-Karabakh_War * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war
5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
Add Kazakhstan to the list. Our diplomats abstained in the vote and refused to send any troops to Ukraine for exactly the same reasons. We share the longest land border with Russia. There's a large Russian diaspora here. Last year there was a heavy propaganda campaign in Russia where they were trying to spin up a story as if the Russian-speaking population was heavily discriminated against here. As a native Russian speaker, I assure you this is completely made up. But now I know why they were doing it and I'm afraid we're next. It's a pretty difficult situation and it will be interesting to see how the government is going to work around it. Personally, I am looking for a way out before it's too late. There aren't very many of them with my citizenship, though.
- philistine 5y ago
  Not to diminish anything you said, but your word order might imply something you don’t wish to imply. Kazakhs have the longest border with Russia, while the longest land border is the US-Canada border.
  - 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
    Yep, I probably had a brain fart. Should be fixed now.
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  and, lest we forget, Baikonur.
- onemanstartup 5y ago
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    I'm of Russian-Ukrainian ethnicity, I was born in Kazakhstan and I'm living here for 35 years. I wasn't discriminated, not once. I'm not a very chatty person, and, of course, can't answer for other people experiences, consider it my anecdote. The only thing that I felt some discrimination is gradual reducing of Russian language usage. For example in hospitals there are often only Kazakh labels without Russian translations. I don't like it, but that's not a big issue and it's not wide-spread. That said, I don't exactly remember what heavy propaganda campaign 5e92cb50239222b talks about. I must have missed it, I guess.
patates 5y ago
Ottoman Empire had the same dilemma that Russia has been facing. It's economy was struggling, parts of it was turning into nation-states and it was involved in long wars in which it had no clear dedication. Russia (or Putin, to be frank) chose to try restoring the empire. Ottoman Sultans were trying to do the same as well, and failing. Atatürk, saw this and decided to create a Turkish identity, which was far from the main identity of the Ottomans. Some minorities were also integrated into this identity, using the language or religion. The Armenians however, being one of the oldest settlers in Anatolia, shared none of these. As well as the Kurds and the Greek. Many were displaced (and yes, it was a genocide, I'm not dancing around the word) and suffered a lot more than it's imaginable today. So I understand why they are afraid of their neighbor, and therefore skeptical towards NATO. Most of the Turkish (the minority I'm in, being the exception) don't want to accept any stain on their saviors history, so they deny any wrongdoing with passion. Their (well, our) whole identity is created through that process, you have to understand the sensitivity. Many like me are coming to terms with what actually happened, but it's hard. The religious barrier is also not making things easier for many others. I really wish eventually Turkey will recognize what happened, and some signs of diplomacy will start to show. Until then, I totally understand the Armenian position. I'm living in another country now, and my favorite restaurant has Armenian owners. We are good friends. They do support Ukraine in this war, but still show sympathy to the Russian ambitions. These things are hard to change and are ingrained in our brains when we are growing up, and we should be okay with it. This is how being respectful to other peoples opinions work. Disclosure: I consider myself of Turkish origin, not that I don't have my identity crises every now and then.
- svaha1728 5y ago
  Awesome. As part of the diaspora, I have met a ton of open-minded Turkish people. Especially in the US, if they have an artistic or educated leaning, we tend to have a lot in common. The more people who can see beyond national pride and try to know other groups of people, the better.
- ocschwar 5y ago
  I think it will take another generation, but Turks will take that step vis a vis the Armenians because in this world countries have to follow the German example of self-criticism to be seen as mature and responsible.
derekzhouzhen 5y ago
Hear hear. Ukraine, as bad the situation is, is nothing compared to the Caucasus. The Caucasus is on the same level of shittiness as the Balkan or the Palestine if you zoom out in time.
- ssijak 5y ago
  Thank you for calling whole regions where a lot of people live and read HN from shit.
  - derekzhouzhen 5y ago
    I mean no offense. They are all important sites in the history of humanity, with multiple people having legitimate claims to the same land. And they hate each other with passion.
  - JAlexoid 5y ago
    Your intentional reading of that comment in bad light, is literally the reason why the situation there is so bad. You shouldn't immediately assume ill intent.
overtomanu 5y ago
India also has similar dilemma. Russia is long term ally even when US was against india. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_74#Soviet_response_and_standoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_74#Soviet_response_...
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > India also has similar dilemma This one’s closer to Stockholm syndrome. Russia sells weapons to Pakistan; it’s devolving into a Chinese vassal. India notices this, hence its purchases of e.g. French fighters, but it’s less a dilemma than a bad position.
- 131012 5y ago
  If I remember well, they also have a long tradition of not aligning on either side (Russia or America). Isn't that doctrine the root of the "third world" idea, even if somewhat sadly it devolved to a sadder meaning of underdeveloped country?
derekzhouzhen 5y ago
By the way, if the author is here: Please use a real blogging platform and not this un-indexable, privacy invading mailchimp crap. Hell, even medium is better.
enaaem 5y ago
The thing with authoritarian regimes is that they all look stable, but there is a lot of hidden fragility. Eventually all authoritarian leaders will make catastrophic mistakes. Mainly due to the high amount of corruption, the lack of push back and barriers, and the lack of transparency. I believe the war with Ukraine is Putins catastrophic mistake. The danger is that he will drag down his neighbours or maybe the world with him.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hunglee2 5y ago
When I had the honour of visiting your country a few years ago, my friend said to me that if he could only wish one thing for Armenia that it would be relocate the country away from its current geographical position. I hope that people in the outside world will understand the dilemma Armenia is in, sitting as it does between hostile neighbours Turkey to the West and Azerbaijan to the East. National security is not an abstract concern here, it is an everyday reality. I hope one day it will be different for you and your people
Lamad123 5y ago
Syria also has kinda become a Russian shpolokhoblast (totally made up word that means a suzerainty)
akshaybhalotia 5y ago
I'm from India, and we are in a soup too. The geopolitics governing our decision to abstain at every UN vote and prioritization of interests over principles is quite nuanced. Here is a soft paywalled explanation. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-anatomy-of-indias-ukraine-dilemma/article65090424.ece https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-anatomy-of-indias-...
- tradertef 5y ago
  Thanks. I was wondering what is wrong with India (saw a bunch of social media posts by Indians). "Interest over principles" explains it.
alexryndin 5y ago
> The West was unable to stop the war. > But Russia did stop it. No matter what. Such a surprise for me.
- throwaway_4ever 5y ago
  This is simply because Armenia and Azerbaijan have weak de facto sovereignty, just like Ukraine, by being neighbors with Russian sphere of influence. Russia can tell these countries to knock it off or there will be Ukrainian invasion level of consequences. The west has no hard power or appetite for it in this region. It's only because Putin is a warmonger.
  - alexryndin 5y ago
    Why is Puitn is a warmonger here? Because his troops controls Armenia-Azerbaijan border to prevent further clashes? Or he is a warmonger when he asked NATO for a formal guarantee to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO? Or maybe Putin is a warmonger when NATO breaks their promise not to expand eastward? https://then24.com/2022/02/18/der-spiegel-discovers-natos-eastward-expansion-is-a-broken-promise-after-all/ https://then24.com/2022/02/18/der-spiegel-discovers-natos-ea... https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nato-osterweiterung-aktenfund-stuetzt-russische-version-a-1613d467-bd72-4f02-8e16-2cd6d3285295 https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nato-osterweiterung-aktenfund...
    - throwaway_4ever 5y ago
      I hope you don't think I've only just heard of these Putin propaganda 101 remarks... It's not because he's a warmonger he's controlling the Armenia-Azerbaijan issue. He controls the Armenia-Azerbaijan issue because he's a warmonger and they're scared of the Ukrainian invasion level of shit he will do to them if they don't comply. Surely this Russian invasion has dispelled all doubt on the NATO argument here. Every country like Poland and the Baltics that requested to join NATO got to live in peace free from Russian invasion. Ukraine wasn't able to and was thus invaded. 5,000+ are dead because of this. A country being in NATO is unacceptable to Putin because it then means they can't be threatened and invaded. From the ashes of the USSR, Poland and the Baltics have been prospering into great standards of living, while the kleptocrats that control Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia have pilfered their people's country enriching themselves. Every country has requested to join the alliance. While Russia invades multiple countries who aren't. It's pretty simple and clear what's going on. Discussions between Baker and Gorbachev, that were rebuffed by diplomats as infeasible when checking if it could be put in a treaty, and which Gorbachev and other Soviet diplomats did not care to put in the treaty, are no way to conduct global diplomacy. Every treaty will start with countries' diplomats discussing things and seeing what deal they can work it. You can't bind people to everything they say in first talks. Insane. Meanwhile, Russia breaks multiple signed treaties, like the ones respecting Ukraine's territory for giving up nuclear weapons and invading when there's the Minsk Protocol. These are legally binding agreements, and yet you're hung up on something that was briefly approached 30 years ago. Also insane. PS. You should know that Russia will be closing the borders soon and you will be stuck in a place where criticizing your government will land you 15 years in a gulag. Feel free to join the 100 other countries where you can talk shit about any government any day of the week on the news. Obviously it is a scary and huge undertaking. However the standards of living offered by western countries will be unparalleled by the currently crumbling Russian economy. I'm talking about 30,000,000 ruble/yr compensation in the US and we'd love to have you contribute.
SergeAx 5y ago
> The West was unable to stop the war. But Russia did stop it. I don't understand. Azerbaijan took Nagorny Karabakh by force. What exactly Russia stopped there? Advance of Azerbaijan deeper, into undisputed Armenian territory? I don't think so.
- throwaway_4ever 5y ago
  They took some of Nagorno-Karabakh by force, not all. There are Russian troops there to act as the authority preventing escalation from either side. Yes, this is something Russia was able to accomplish better than other western countries, but only because they have immense control over their neighbors (see Ukrainian invasion), so there's little to commend them on. Also, from the Azeri POV and internationally recognized borders, they are securing their own territory, like Ukraine would if the government was able to enter separatist held Donbas. With that said, while the issues here are complicated, I will almost always side with the people's being aggressed upon. The matter of fact is that there was peace for many years until Azerbaijan sent military troops into Nagorno Karabakh, starting the conflict and many deaths, and that is inexcusable.
  - JAlexoid 5y ago
    There wasn't peace there. Skirmishes happened all the time.
specproc 5y ago
Seeing as this post is getting on HN, as a long term Caucasus resident, I'll take a moment to give some love for the publisher. OC Media are a fantastic outlet, that provide a home for top-notch journalists in a region where the wrong sort of reporting can get you into big trouble. Worth a follow, or a donation if you're feeling flush.

227 points by georgecmu 5y ago

dpq 5y ago

Unfortunately, this post is maddeningly accurate. Keep in mind that Putin signed a military alliance agreement with Azerbaijan the day before he invaded Ukraine. I perceive that this is an unveiled threat to Armenia: do as you are told, or we'll look the other way when you get invaded and (most likely) massacred by our new ally. A widespread opinion is that the 2020 war was enabled/allowed by Russia to punish Armenia for its drift towards the West. Personally I find this scenario reasonably probable.

throwaway10246 5y ago
[dead]
helge9210 5y ago
> drift towards the West This is a little bit of overstatement. As a result of mass protests prime minister resigned. Emergent leader of the protests won elections and became prime minister. At some point later after vote of no confidence he won elections again. It's not drifting to the West, it's changing government by elections, what made Russia to put pressure to Armenia
- dpq 5y ago
  The vote of no confidence occured already after the war, if I am not mistaken. Or, rather, he resigned to enable new elections and confirm his legitimacy after the military disaster. The bet paid off, mostly because the other main candidate was a Russian-backed ex-president who is almost universally hated for the corruption during his tenure. I do find that Pashinyan's drift towards France and the U.S. was quite pronounced, by the way.
skrebbel 5y ago
> (most likely) massacred by our new ally Why is that likely? (I'm not skeptical, I really don't know and this stuff is hard to google)
- DrBenCarson 5y ago
  Azerbaijan has lots of oil money and purchases weapons from Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia, the likes of which Armenia cannot afford.
  - skrebbel 5y ago
    , and therefore they will kill all the Armenians? I mean that's means, not motive. "They have weapons, and therefore they will kill everybody" makes no sense to me.
    - DrBenCarson 5y ago
      You don’t understand how deeply ingrained their hatred for Armenia goes. It’s literally what they spend surplus money on. First, Turkey and Azerbaijan are effectively dictatorships flying under the radar using oil money and “west-friendly” trade policies. Second, Armenia has been Christian for as long as Christianity has existed. Turkey and Azerbaijan are Muslim. There are millennia of wars and conflict over forced conversion that have resulted in “Armenia is the devil” propaganda making its way into the Turk cultures. Third, in the Turk and Azeri mind, Armenia is the one threat to their “Turkic manifest destiny.” They believe the Caucus should be theirs in order to create a unified “great” Turkic civilization. So yes, when these countries have the means to buy very efficient weapons, Armenian lives become at risk.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - skrebbel 5y ago
        > You don’t understand how deeply ingrained their hatred for Armenia goes. Correct, that's why I asked!
mytailorisrich 5y ago
Armenia has already an alliance with Russia as a member of the CSTO (and sent troops to Kazakhstan as part of it in January). That did not prevent Russia from looking the other way in 2020.
- fmajid 5y ago
  That's because Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) is internationally recognized as being part of Azerbaijan. Even Armenia itself does not officially recognize the independence of Artsakh. Thus from a Russian point of view, Azerbaijani military attacks on Artsakh are an internal matter for the Azerbaijan government and not an act of aggression against Armenia proper which would trigger their mutual defense treaty. During the war, both Armenian and Azerbaijani forces were doing a kind of kabuki dance, provoking the other side into bombarding either Armenia or Iran, to trigger either regional powers' intervention in the conflict. It's a sad reality for the Armenian people that they were never truly independent and sovereign, but always a protectorate of the Iranians, Romans, Byzantines, Turks or Russians. I think everyone in Western leadership circles (or at least those who can actually place Armenia on a map) recognizes that and there is not the antagonism against them that, say, Belarus or to a lesser extent Serbia is experiencing.
  - dpq 5y ago
    Russia looked the other way because it was in the interest of Russia to look the other way. I believe the recent events in Ukraine have demonstrated that international law is held in pretty low regard. If Russia found it in their interest to intervene or prevent the war, they would have certainly done that. Instead, they chose to step away from one of their few allies/hostages.
    - fmajid 5y ago
      Of course, but in this case they were technically in the clear, unlike Ukraine where one of the smartest things the Biden administration did was to preemptively blow the false flag operations that were being planned to justify the invasion. The Azerbaijanis were certainly in close coordination with the Russians to establish what the Russian red lines were, and go right up to them, but no further.
remind_me_again 5y ago

thathndude 5y ago

In my mind the main takeaway from this article is that these things are so nuanced we need to be very careful in passing judgment on these third parties that are tangentially related to the conflict. It’s relatively easy for us in the West to call balls and strikes for some actors, but much more tricky when it comes to other third parties (like Armenia).

elliekelly 5y ago
> It’s relatively easy for us in the West to call balls and strikes for some actors, but much more tricky when it comes to other third parties (like Armenia). Along the same lines I think it’s easy to forget that imposing sanctions and voting against the interests of a major power is, in a way, a privilege because it always has a cost. Even among some of the major European countries like Germany you can see that the economic realities of sanctioning Putin ran the risk of being too burdensome. If a country as wealthy and influential as Germany needs to coordinate among all of their allies (and still be prepared to bear a significant cost at home!) in order to make sanctions against Russia feasible I’m not sure how Russia’s smaller, non-EU neighbors could possibly be expected to do the same.
mbreese 5y ago
My take away was to be cognizant the each country (and even each individual) has their own motivations and conditions on the ground to deal with. Sometimes it is a historical or geographical context that isn’t readily apparent from the outside. But in some circumstances, the message sent by abstaining from a vote can be just as loud (and brave) as voting yes or no.
hunglee2 5y ago
exactly this. We need to move away from the bimodal moralising and recognise the geopolitical realties that many of these countries have.

jdrc 5y ago

Armenia lost 0.17% of its population in that war, mostly young conscripts. And tbh it was a war that could be stopped rather easily by threatening to sanction AZB. Instead there was more talk about how effective drones are at killing armenians. And the alignments in the region are all over the place. Georgia is invaded, AZB is tied to turkey but also to russia, iran is in russia's axis. Probably one of the worse positions on the map right now.

mclightning 5y ago
Armenia invaded the said land for some time. You may be unaware but West (NATO) has been on Azerbaijan's side on the disputed land, at least officially on paper.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > You may be unaware but West (NATO) has been on Azerbaijan's side on the disputed land, at least officially on paper. In Germany, that may have been motivated by corruption - there has been a huge scandal involving a bunch of Conservative politicians [1]. [1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aserbaidschan-Aff%C3%A4re https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aserbaidschan-Aff%C3%A4re
  - georgeecollins 5y ago
    The point is that the land that was fought over was part of Azerbaijan that Armenia took in a war after the fall of the Soviet Union. You can say that the border should have been something else, but that's the same argument to made for Crimea. I don't think the rest of NATO took Azerbaijani's side because of corruption, you are just cherry picking an incident in Germany and ignoring the fact that the occupation was not supported. It's very sad and I agree that the second war was also terrible, unjustified and the whole thing would best be solved by negotiations.
    - bonzini 5y ago
      It's a bit more complicated than that. Azerbaijan expelled or downright massacred the Armenian population living in Baku in the 1988 and 1990 pogroms. Nagorno-Karabakh population also used to be a large majority of Armenians until the government promoted relocation of Azeri people in the region, causing the Armenian population to be heavily discriminated.

fatihpense 5y ago

I agree it is not fair to make accusations at this point. The world is a complex place. I don't think any regular person who sees the reality will support starting war. I think another interesting dilemma is that the Armenian diaspora is living in large numbers in two world powers. I feel like they can get more powerful economically and politically than the regular Armenian folks living in Armenia. Thus there is a foreign(?) influence in their democracy. (I'm not an expert...) Lastly, maybe I'm optimistic, but I think there is an opportunity for peace in the region. I support recent forward-thinking and peaceful messages from Turkey and Azerbaijan. As a Turk, I want to see peace, friendship, and economy flourish between the nations. This will only give more options and prosperity to all of us who live here, and take options from others.

throwaway_4ever 5y ago
> I feel like they can get more powerful economically and politically than the regular Armenian folks living in Armenia. Definitely. Unfortunately that meant that an ethnic Armenian became head of RT, Russian's premier state propaganda vehicle, who is currently supporting the war on Ukraine.

fleddr 5y ago

These kind of stories reveal how brutal geopolitics are. Nation states are organized by power laws. Out of the 200+ countries, more than 150 are effectively "irrelevant". These small "sovereign" countries are geographically outside the main power blocks (US/Canada, EU, SE Asia, Russia) and thus have fragile security. Which means they're not really sovereign. They're forced to align with a power block (in a rare case multiple ones) to get access to trade in exchange for security. Sounds like a mob deal really. Give me access to your commodities (most of these countries are commodity producers, not advanced economies) or you get no aid in security. Some countries are so irrelevant that despite trading commodities, they still get no security when the need is there. Not worth defending. Or, the aggressor is too big to take on, so we stand by and do nothing. Altogether it's a geographic lottery of arbitrary nation-states.

jdrc 5y ago
There is also an obsession in that part of the world with Geopolitics. It's no coincidence that some of the most popular youtube geopolitics channels are from that region. I think it's more a remnant of soviet mentality and the fact that (absent the ideology of communism) territorial gains/losses seems to be the only motivator. China for all its rhetoric has not changed its borders in many decades, yet russia/ turkey are using militarism and territorial conquest as an end rather as means to prosperity.
- fleddr 5y ago
  I've travelled a lot and if there's one thing I learned it's that we're all the same. We all share the same ideology: to live a dignified life in peace, in good health and in reasonable wealth. It's what we all desire and have in common. It's not even an ideology, they are common sense motivators for any living thing in general. Everything else is learned behavior: nationalism, culture, religion. False ideologies that divide instead of unite.
- throwaway_4ever 5y ago
  > It's no coincidence that some of the most popular youtube geopolitics channels are from that region. Interesting, I hadn't considered that. Caspian Report is a big one, from an Azeri.

KingOfCoders 5y ago

Context from Wikipedia (because the article doesn't have it): "The main combatants were Azerbaijan, with support from Turkey and foreign mercenary groups on one side; and the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh and Armenia, on the other. It was the latest escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, which was annexed to Azerbaijan during the Soviet era and internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but partially governed by Artsakh, a breakaway state with an Armenian ethnic majority."

dmix 5y ago
And it wasn’t much of a war. It was just Armenia getting relentlessly hammered by Turkish-manufacturered drones.
- 1-more 5y ago
  That and a bunch of Syrian mercenaries who had a curiously easy time getting from Syria to Artsakh. Huh. Weird. Probably nothing.
  - remind_me_again 5y ago
  - diminish 5y ago
    And Russian wagner mercenaries and Russian troops in 1990 killing AZ who wanted independence from Soviets together with Baltics.
elchin 5y ago
It was not an ethnic Armenian majority before the first Karabakh war.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  Yes, which happened 30 years ago, so there's an entire generation that grew up with the borders we have today. We don't want to go back to the borders of historic Armenia for the same reason we don't want to go back to the 1988 borders — it's history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia#/media/File:Arshakuni_Armenia_150-en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia#/media/File:Arshakuni_...

austincheney 5y ago

For historical context see: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nagorno-Karabakh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nagorno-Karabakh * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Nagorno-Karabakh_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Nagorno-Karabakh_War * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war

5e92cb50239222b 5y ago

Add Kazakhstan to the list. Our diplomats abstained in the vote and refused to send any troops to Ukraine for exactly the same reasons. We share the longest land border with Russia. There's a large Russian diaspora here. Last year there was a heavy propaganda campaign in Russia where they were trying to spin up a story as if the Russian-speaking population was heavily discriminated against here. As a native Russian speaker, I assure you this is completely made up. But now I know why they were doing it and I'm afraid we're next. It's a pretty difficult situation and it will be interesting to see how the government is going to work around it. Personally, I am looking for a way out before it's too late. There aren't very many of them with my citizenship, though.

philistine 5y ago
Not to diminish anything you said, but your word order might imply something you don’t wish to imply. Kazakhs have the longest border with Russia, while the longest land border is the US-Canada border.
- 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
  Yep, I probably had a brain fart. Should be fixed now.
hprotagonist 5y ago
and, lest we forget, Baikonur.
onemanstartup 5y ago
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  I'm of Russian-Ukrainian ethnicity, I was born in Kazakhstan and I'm living here for 35 years. I wasn't discriminated, not once. I'm not a very chatty person, and, of course, can't answer for other people experiences, consider it my anecdote. The only thing that I felt some discrimination is gradual reducing of Russian language usage. For example in hospitals there are often only Kazakh labels without Russian translations. I don't like it, but that's not a big issue and it's not wide-spread. That said, I don't exactly remember what heavy propaganda campaign 5e92cb50239222b talks about. I must have missed it, I guess.

patates 5y ago

Ottoman Empire had the same dilemma that Russia has been facing. It's economy was struggling, parts of it was turning into nation-states and it was involved in long wars in which it had no clear dedication. Russia (or Putin, to be frank) chose to try restoring the empire. Ottoman Sultans were trying to do the same as well, and failing. Atatürk, saw this and decided to create a Turkish identity, which was far from the main identity of the Ottomans. Some minorities were also integrated into this identity, using the language or religion. The Armenians however, being one of the oldest settlers in Anatolia, shared none of these. As well as the Kurds and the Greek. Many were displaced (and yes, it was a genocide, I'm not dancing around the word) and suffered a lot more than it's imaginable today. So I understand why they are afraid of their neighbor, and therefore skeptical towards NATO. Most of the Turkish (the minority I'm in, being the exception) don't want to accept any stain on their saviors history, so they deny any wrongdoing with passion. Their (well, our) whole identity is created through that process, you have to understand the sensitivity. Many like me are coming to terms with what actually happened, but it's hard. The religious barrier is also not making things easier for many others. I really wish eventually Turkey will recognize what happened, and some signs of diplomacy will start to show. Until then, I totally understand the Armenian position. I'm living in another country now, and my favorite restaurant has Armenian owners. We are good friends. They do support Ukraine in this war, but still show sympathy to the Russian ambitions. These things are hard to change and are ingrained in our brains when we are growing up, and we should be okay with it. This is how being respectful to other peoples opinions work. Disclosure: I consider myself of Turkish origin, not that I don't have my identity crises every now and then.

svaha1728 5y ago
Awesome. As part of the diaspora, I have met a ton of open-minded Turkish people. Especially in the US, if they have an artistic or educated leaning, we tend to have a lot in common. The more people who can see beyond national pride and try to know other groups of people, the better.
ocschwar 5y ago
I think it will take another generation, but Turks will take that step vis a vis the Armenians because in this world countries have to follow the German example of self-criticism to be seen as mature and responsible.

derekzhouzhen 5y ago

Hear hear. Ukraine, as bad the situation is, is nothing compared to the Caucasus. The Caucasus is on the same level of shittiness as the Balkan or the Palestine if you zoom out in time.

ssijak 5y ago
Thank you for calling whole regions where a lot of people live and read HN from shit.
- derekzhouzhen 5y ago
  I mean no offense. They are all important sites in the history of humanity, with multiple people having legitimate claims to the same land. And they hate each other with passion.
- JAlexoid 5y ago
  Your intentional reading of that comment in bad light, is literally the reason why the situation there is so bad. You shouldn't immediately assume ill intent.

overtomanu 5y ago

India also has similar dilemma. Russia is long term ally even when US was against india. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_74#Soviet_response_and_standoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_74#Soviet_response_...

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> India also has similar dilemma This one’s closer to Stockholm syndrome. Russia sells weapons to Pakistan; it’s devolving into a Chinese vassal. India notices this, hence its purchases of e.g. French fighters, but it’s less a dilemma than a bad position.
131012 5y ago
If I remember well, they also have a long tradition of not aligning on either side (Russia or America). Isn't that doctrine the root of the "third world" idea, even if somewhat sadly it devolved to a sadder meaning of underdeveloped country?

derekzhouzhen 5y ago

By the way, if the author is here: Please use a real blogging platform and not this un-indexable, privacy invading mailchimp crap. Hell, even medium is better.

enaaem 5y ago

The thing with authoritarian regimes is that they all look stable, but there is a lot of hidden fragility. Eventually all authoritarian leaders will make catastrophic mistakes. Mainly due to the high amount of corruption, the lack of push back and barriers, and the lack of transparency. I believe the war with Ukraine is Putins catastrophic mistake. The danger is that he will drag down his neighbours or maybe the world with him.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hunglee2 5y ago

When I had the honour of visiting your country a few years ago, my friend said to me that if he could only wish one thing for Armenia that it would be relocate the country away from its current geographical position. I hope that people in the outside world will understand the dilemma Armenia is in, sitting as it does between hostile neighbours Turkey to the West and Azerbaijan to the East. National security is not an abstract concern here, it is an everyday reality. I hope one day it will be different for you and your people

Lamad123 5y ago

Syria also has kinda become a Russian shpolokhoblast (totally made up word that means a suzerainty)

akshaybhalotia 5y ago

I'm from India, and we are in a soup too. The geopolitics governing our decision to abstain at every UN vote and prioritization of interests over principles is quite nuanced. Here is a soft paywalled explanation. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-anatomy-of-indias-ukraine-dilemma/article65090424.ece https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-anatomy-of-indias-...

tradertef 5y ago
Thanks. I was wondering what is wrong with India (saw a bunch of social media posts by Indians). "Interest over principles" explains it.

alexryndin 5y ago

> The West was unable to stop the war. > But Russia did stop it. No matter what. Such a surprise for me.

throwaway_4ever 5y ago
This is simply because Armenia and Azerbaijan have weak de facto sovereignty, just like Ukraine, by being neighbors with Russian sphere of influence. Russia can tell these countries to knock it off or there will be Ukrainian invasion level of consequences. The west has no hard power or appetite for it in this region. It's only because Putin is a warmonger.
- alexryndin 5y ago
  Why is Puitn is a warmonger here? Because his troops controls Armenia-Azerbaijan border to prevent further clashes? Or he is a warmonger when he asked NATO for a formal guarantee to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO? Or maybe Putin is a warmonger when NATO breaks their promise not to expand eastward? https://then24.com/2022/02/18/der-spiegel-discovers-natos-eastward-expansion-is-a-broken-promise-after-all/ https://then24.com/2022/02/18/der-spiegel-discovers-natos-ea... https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nato-osterweiterung-aktenfund-stuetzt-russische-version-a-1613d467-bd72-4f02-8e16-2cd6d3285295 https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nato-osterweiterung-aktenfund...
  - throwaway_4ever 5y ago
    I hope you don't think I've only just heard of these Putin propaganda 101 remarks... It's not because he's a warmonger he's controlling the Armenia-Azerbaijan issue. He controls the Armenia-Azerbaijan issue because he's a warmonger and they're scared of the Ukrainian invasion level of shit he will do to them if they don't comply. Surely this Russian invasion has dispelled all doubt on the NATO argument here. Every country like Poland and the Baltics that requested to join NATO got to live in peace free from Russian invasion. Ukraine wasn't able to and was thus invaded. 5,000+ are dead because of this. A country being in NATO is unacceptable to Putin because it then means they can't be threatened and invaded. From the ashes of the USSR, Poland and the Baltics have been prospering into great standards of living, while the kleptocrats that control Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia have pilfered their people's country enriching themselves. Every country has requested to join the alliance. While Russia invades multiple countries who aren't. It's pretty simple and clear what's going on. Discussions between Baker and Gorbachev, that were rebuffed by diplomats as infeasible when checking if it could be put in a treaty, and which Gorbachev and other Soviet diplomats did not care to put in the treaty, are no way to conduct global diplomacy. Every treaty will start with countries' diplomats discussing things and seeing what deal they can work it. You can't bind people to everything they say in first talks. Insane. Meanwhile, Russia breaks multiple signed treaties, like the ones respecting Ukraine's territory for giving up nuclear weapons and invading when there's the Minsk Protocol. These are legally binding agreements, and yet you're hung up on something that was briefly approached 30 years ago. Also insane. PS. You should know that Russia will be closing the borders soon and you will be stuck in a place where criticizing your government will land you 15 years in a gulag. Feel free to join the 100 other countries where you can talk shit about any government any day of the week on the news. Obviously it is a scary and huge undertaking. However the standards of living offered by western countries will be unparalleled by the currently crumbling Russian economy. I'm talking about 30,000,000 ruble/yr compensation in the US and we'd love to have you contribute.

SergeAx 5y ago

> The West was unable to stop the war. But Russia did stop it. I don't understand. Azerbaijan took Nagorny Karabakh by force. What exactly Russia stopped there? Advance of Azerbaijan deeper, into undisputed Armenian territory? I don't think so.

throwaway_4ever 5y ago
They took some of Nagorno-Karabakh by force, not all. There are Russian troops there to act as the authority preventing escalation from either side. Yes, this is something Russia was able to accomplish better than other western countries, but only because they have immense control over their neighbors (see Ukrainian invasion), so there's little to commend them on. Also, from the Azeri POV and internationally recognized borders, they are securing their own territory, like Ukraine would if the government was able to enter separatist held Donbas. With that said, while the issues here are complicated, I will almost always side with the people's being aggressed upon. The matter of fact is that there was peace for many years until Azerbaijan sent military troops into Nagorno Karabakh, starting the conflict and many deaths, and that is inexcusable.
- JAlexoid 5y ago
  There wasn't peace there. Skirmishes happened all the time.

specproc 5y ago

Seeing as this post is getting on HN, as a long term Caucasus resident, I'll take a moment to give some love for the publisher. OC Media are a fantastic outlet, that provide a home for top-notch journalists in a region where the wrong sort of reporting can get you into big trouble. Worth a follow, or a donation if you're feeling flush.