Countries must have various tools in their arsenal to counter or weaken their enemies. The most obvious one is the use of force. However, Armenia is unable to do that successfully because of its weak military.
Another possible tool is destabilizing enemy states by creating internal turmoil and inciting their oppressed minorities.
The third tool is to cause a rift between a hostile nation and its allies using the well-known method of dividing and conquering. Armenia is surrounded by Azerbaijan and Turkey, two hostile neighbors that call themselves “one nation, two states.” Therefore, Armenia should try to drive a wedge between them by deepening their disagreements when such opportunities arise.
In the last 30 years, there have been at least three occasions when Armenia’s two enemies were at odds with each other.
The first opportunity was in March 1995, when members of Azerbaijan’s military, supported by some factions in Turkey, attempted to carry out a coup d’état against Pres. Heydar Aliyev. They wanted to return to power former Pres. Abulfaz Elchibey, who was toppled by Aliyev in 1993.
Prime Minister of Turkey Tansu Ciller, whose top aides were involved in the attempted coup, gave the green light to get rid of Pres. Aliyev. The coup was foiled when Turkish Pres. Suleyman Demirel became aware of the plot and alerted Pres. Aliyev. According to Wikipedia, the attempted coup “provoked a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Azerbaijan.”
This was a missed opportunity for the Armenian government in 1995 to take advantage of the attempted coup and the consequent chaos in Azerbaijan to further alienate the two enemies from each other by publicizing and accentuating the rift.
The second crisis between Azerbaijan and Turkey happened in 2009 in the midst of signing the Armenia and Turkey Protocols, which envisioned normalizing relations between the two countries, including establishing formal diplomatic relations, opening the Armenia-Turkey border and forming a joint historical commission to study the Armenian Genocide issue. These protocols were brokered by the United States, Russia and France.
Azerbaijan opposed the protocols, fearing that if Turkey normalized relations with Armenia, it would weaken Azerbaijan’s pressure on Armenia in the Artsakh conflict.
Turkey was caught in the middle of several conflicting interests:
1) Turkey wanted to pursue its self-interest, which was the softening of its antagonistic relations with Armenia to eliminate long-standing Armenian demands for the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide;
2) Turkey was being pressured by the United States, Russia and France to ratify these protocols;
3) Azerbaijan, Turkey’s junior partner, initially applied diplomatic pressure on Turkey and subsequently threatened to cut off the export of gas or increase its price. When that didn’t have the desired effect, Azerbaijan closed several Turkish-funded mosques in Baku and took down Turkish flags. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry declared that improving Armenia-Turkey relations “directly contradicts the national interests of Azerbaijan and overshadows the spirit of brotherly relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey built on deep historical roots.”
Once again, Armenia was merely a spectator in this conflict. Eventually, Turkey succumbed to the Azeri pressures and refused to ratify the protocols.
The third dispute between Ankara and Baku is happening now, after Pres. Erdogan embarrassed Azerbaijan by declaring on July 28: “Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we should do the same with Israel. There is nothing stopping us. We just need to be strong to take this step.”
Azerbaijan’s officials vehemently objected to Erdogan’s statement, because it exposed the Azeri myth that they won the Artsakh War without any outside help. The fact is that Azerbaijan was supported in the 2020 war by the Turkish military and commanders, as well as the thousands of jihadist mercenaries that Turkey brought to Azerbaijan from Syria to fight against Armenians.
Despite the Azeri denials, Erdogan continued to repeat his statement about the Turkish military’s involvement in the Artsakh conflict. On August 1, he said: “In Azerbaijan’s Karabakh, together with our Azerbaijani brothers, we completely eliminated the enemy forces.”
Azerbaijan’s official Gazette responded in an editorial: “Our people, army and commander view with disappointment and deep sorrow the attempts to claim and take ownership of our rightful victory. Azerbaijan’s victory is for the entire Turkic world, but Turkey is not its architect. The architects of the Karabakh victory are Commander-in-Chief Aliyev and the Azerbaijani Army.” The Gazette described Erdogan’s words as “a heavy moral blow.”
Baku pursued its disagreement with Turkey through diplomatic channels. On July 29, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Turkey Rashad Mammadov met with Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Mehmet Kemal Bozay to complain about Erdogan’s statement. Amb. Mammadov then paid a visit to Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Berris Ekinci the following day to complain for the second time about Erdogan’s statement.
Fortunately, Armenia’s prime minister reacted to this latest Azerbaijan-Turkey dispute when answering a reporter’s question during his August 31 press conference: “During the 44-day war [in 2020], in many locations, our military, our explorers saw Turkish flags, Turkish soldiers, Turkish Special Squadrons and Turkish high-ranking officers. Let’s not forget that prior to the 44-day war, there were large-scale military exercises between Azerbaijan and Turkey. And during the entire war, F-16 jets belonging to Turkey were literally in the air, and drones belonging to Turkey were maintained by Turkish personnel.”
Modern wars are not fought just with weapons. Nations also use psychological warfare, spread disinformation, instigate internal turmoil in hostile countries and engage in divide and conquer tactics. Armenia needs to use all of these tools to undermine its enemies and defend its national interests.
If Armenia lacks the expertise in such specialized operations, there are consulting firms that Armenia can hire, for a fraction of the millions spent on weapons, to weaken the enemy from within.
Harut Sassounian
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I would add to your fourth argument the Azerbaijani leadership’s silence on Israeli destruction of Gaza and the killings of 40,000 Palestinian civilians for they consider Israel a very important ally today replacing Russia for deadly arms deliveries to Azerbaijan, in return for cheap oil and consenting to the establishment of Israeli military bases on occupied Armenian territories right next door to Iran to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, WHILE their so-called “big brother” Turkish leadership calls Israeli leaders terrorist war criminals and publically announces intention to invade Israel. This alone would expose their “two states, one nation” fallacy which is nothing more than a euphemism for the destruction of the Armenian statehood. Two traditional terrorist enemies of the Armenian nation coming together under a manufactured slogan to complete what their predecessors started a century ago. An excuse for terrorist Turkey to use its NATO power to poke its nose in a conflict in which it doesn’t belong to secure a desired outcome of the conflict on militarily incompetent Azerbaijan’s behalf without any provocations whatsoever from Armenia towards Turkey.
Armenians should also use this opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of the state of Israel and the moral bankruptcy of Israel’s leadership. While they never miss an opportunity to preach to the world about and against genocide, they armed the terrorist Azerbaijani cesspool to commit ethnic-cleansing and genocide against the indigenous Armenians. That they, the Israelis, play political Ping-Pong with Armenian Genocide issue when it suits them and keep quiet and bury and shelf this issue otherwise. An example of this is when their relations sour with Turkey, they immediately make references to Armenian Genocide when Turkish terrorist-in-chief Erdogan hurls insults at them equating their leaders with WWII German henchmen.
We need very aggressive reporters who will do these things and give the unsuspecting and gullible world audience a true perspective of what is actually happening. There are many occasions when, as they say, a pen is mightier than the sword.
If Armenia makes statements supporting one position or another when there’s discordance between Turkey and Azerbaijan it would be a kiss of death for the position it expressed support for as it would embarrass those who it implied support for and be excellent propaganda for the opposite position. Letting the issue speak for itself works well. Currently and with global issues featuring the close relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan has its pressures namely the decline in relations between Israel and Turkey who is effectively the gatekeeper in their friendship and Azerbaijan own closeness with Russia seen as going beyond practical necessities and the pariah status of Russia thus making it more difficult for Israel to vouch for them. Gone are what was the happy days of the 2020 for Azerbaijan, Israel, Russia and Turkey when even Ukraine was in cahoots with what was a calamity for Armenia.
Thank you, Ararat. I fully agree.
after WW2 Japan and Germany lost the war.
They told USA will do anything to make America happy and be allied and they did and look at it now their GDP and their country in top 10 in the world
Armenia is same lost the war they have to find super strong country to merge and stay safe and focus on economy
when Azerbaijan lost the war to Armenian with 7 territory surrounding Nagoro karabagh that was the time Armenians should have started negotiations when they have upper hand Azerbaijan were weak and desperate before the oil pipes running making them money
Armenian could have settled By giving them 7 territory back secure Karaganda self independence plus move the oil pipes through Armenia to turkey Instead of Georgia
Armenia did not lose to Azerbaijan. This was not a war like the one in 1990 when the two sides fought their own war. Unlike then, half dozen terrorist states and entities, Turkey-Azerbaijan-Northern Syrian ISIS-Pakistan-Belarus-Israel, led by Turkey collaborated together ganging up on Armenia to fight Azerbaijan’s war. The last time prior to 2020 Azerbaijan fought its own disastrous war was in April of 2016 which lasted only 4 days and ended in ceasefire. After militarizing for over a decade with annual military budget more than the entire Armenia’s annual state budget they only lasted less than a week instead of putting their money where their racist warmongering mouths were and go all the way and finish the job. They even boasted that it would take them 24 hours to do militarily what they could not diplomatically. Why did they fail once again despite all those investments and warmongering rhetoric? Well, because they were and had always been militarily incompetent and we had leaders unlike incompetent traitor Pashinyan and that’s why they got terrorist Turkey involved in the war directly and militarily. Azerbaijan neither had a government nor an army for 44 days. They were both handed over to Turkey’s terrorist defense ministry.
The idea of the so-called seven surrounding regions is a fallacy. The Artsakh “karabakh” of 1921 when it was stolen from the Armenians and given to the Azerbaijan-SSR enemy was much bigger in area than it was in 1988 when the Artsakh Liberation Movement began. Most of those seven surrounding regions used to be a part of Artsakh in totality before it became an autonomous region to appease the Armenians. From the time of handover to becoming autonomous, many parts of Artsakh were chipped away and integrated into Azerbaijan-SSR. By looking at the map, of those surrounding regions, the most important was Karvachar “kelbajar” because by handing it over to the enemy by incompetent and traitor Pashinyan without even firing a shot brought the enemy forces hundreds of kilometers closer to the Armenian border. That should never have happened.
Azerbaijan would never have negotiated a way out of their disastrous and humiliating defeat in 1994 by giving up territory to Armenia and end the war right there and then. That is why they negotiated a ceasefire instead to freeze the war to save themselves from further humiliation to fight another day. What Armenians should have done was to reject any ceasefire agreement and force the enemy into capitulation freeing Artsakh and uniting it with Armenia right away. They had the ability and the power to do so and should have done it because the Azerbaijani army was practically wiped out and Armenian forces would have faced very little, if any, resistance if they decided to advance further and liberate even more territory. Also, if they had done that and Artsakh had been united with Armenia, the Armenian security treaty with Russia would have extended to Artsakh as well. I don’t know how Russia would have reacted and why our victorious leaders did not do that when they had the opportunity. There could have been many reasons such as Russian meddling because a stronger Armenia would have been a liability for Russia and they had to preserve Azerbaijan which was their own creation in the first place. Other reasons could have been because they were war-weary or they simply were short-sighted and content with their accomplishments and not thinking too deep into the future at the time and that not realizing that future foreign investments in Caspian oil & gas exploration, discovery and infrastructure to pump that precious oil & gas into energy-hungry Europe would start having adverse effect on the balance of power in the region and that foreign energy companies wanting to protect their multi-billion dollar assets would sell us out and work against us.
Allowing Azerbaijani oil & gas pipelines to pass through Armenia to Turkey instead of Georgia would effectively have meant fattening the Azerbaijani and Turkish treasuries at the expense of giving up our decades-long demands from Turkey because they would have demanded that and in particular the Armenian Genocide recognition, reparation and territorial claims as a direct result of the genocide. In so many ways doing so would have meant turning our backs on our past victims.
It’s a bit like Russia Vs Ukraine who is massively backed by NATO cold comfort for the Russians but that is the reality of events. Likewise in Gaza, Hamas has some backing from Iran and Israel has massive backing from the USA. In the Yugoslav wars, Yugoslavia ( Serbia) was hobbled by US instigated UN sanctions and “peacekeepers” and latterly US led NATO unanswered airstrikes hence manipulated from beginning to end. Few wars are “fair” hence the it wasn’t just Azerbaijan but a plethora of supporters they had but once again that is the reality of these things.
As for the aftermath of the 1994 and various what ifs? If Armenia hadn’t accepted a ceasefire it’s likely the UN which was indifferent to the conflict much more focused on Yugoslavia at the time would have put sanctions on Armenia, regardless Armenia was despite the advantage quite exhausted from the war with severe hardship from it all, notably very little oil and gas and the nuclear power station being shut down and a cold winter affect hydroelectric power too, although morale was high Armenia was struggling within. It’s clear that after the ceasefire Armenia became schlerotic and lost imitative. As for pipelines the terrain through Georgia from Azerbaijan is more conducive regardless of politics. It’s likely that Russia wanted Armenia under its thumb even if it meant a weaker ally and vulnerable and dependent on its munificence of which it betrayed and failed upon and went on to show it’s shortcomings with its invasion of Ukraine. The USA seems to prefer stronger together principle even if they can’t be so controlled by the USA.