[HN Gopher] Armenia's miserable dilemma
___________________________________________________________________
Armenia's miserable dilemma
Author : georgecmu
Score : 215 points
Date : 2022-03-03 11:10 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mailchi.mp)
(TXT) w3m dump (mailchi.mp)
| derekzhouzhen wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Thank you for calling whole regions where a lot of people live
| and read HN from shit.
| derekzhouzhen wrote:
| 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.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| 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."
| elchin wrote:
| It was not an ethnic Armenian majority before the first
| Karabakh war.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| 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/Armeni
| a#/media/File:Arshakuni_...
| bonzini wrote:
| It was 90% Armenian in the 1920s; the Azerbaijan SSR promoted
| immigration of Azerbaijani in the region between then and the
| 1980s, but it never went below 75%.
| dmix wrote:
| And it wasn't much of a war. It was just Armenia getting
| relentlessly hammered by Turkish-manufacturered drones.
| 1-more wrote:
| That and a bunch of Syrian mercenaries who had a curiously
| easy time getting from Syria to Artsakh. Huh. Weird. Probably
| nothing.
| diminish wrote:
| And Russian wagner mercenaries and Russian troops in 1990
| killing AZ who wanted independence from Soviets together
| with Baltics.
| remind_me_again wrote:
| Lamad123 wrote:
| Syria also has kinda become a Russian shpolokhoblast (totally
| made up word that means a suzerainty)
| austincheney wrote:
| For historical context see:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nagorno-Karabakh
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Nagorno-Karabakh_War
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| 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.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| and, lest we forget, Baikonur.
| onemanstartup wrote:
| vbezhenar wrote:
| 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.
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| Heh, my ancestors also come from Ukraine. Some Russians
| seem to have problems with everybody no matter where they
| are located.
|
| > gradual reducing of Russian language usage
|
| I'm guessing you're from Almaty? The situation may be
| somewhat different there due to completely different
| demographics, although my Russian friends from the south
| never had any complaints.
|
| I am a bit closer to the Russian border, which worries me
| immensely now.
|
| > what heavy propaganda
|
| The Russian news was filled with this bullshit for a couple
| a weeks. Back then I thought they were gathering political
| points before the coming election, but now I'm not really
| sure.
|
| https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/08/12/vam-russkim-
| iazy...
|
| https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/12/24/terpi-kazakh
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I'm from Nur-Sultan. I missed that incident indeed,
| thanks for links, it was really weird.
| philistine wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Yep, I probably had a brain fart. Should be fixed now.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Didn't Russian military just suppress an uprising in Kazakhstan
| in January? Of course there wouldn't be a peep from Kazakh
| government against Russia after they just saved their asses.
| But as we all see, deals with Russia never come without strings
| attached, so Kazakh government should ponder when is their turn
| to be "reunited" and "reabsorbed" into Putin's Empire. And
| yeah, getting out is a good idea if love for Putin is not the
| only thing you seek in life. Because in Putin's Empire there
| wouldn't be many other options left.
| overtomanu wrote:
| 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_...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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 wrote:
| 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?
| patates wrote:
| 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.
| Ataturk, 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.
| ocschwar wrote:
| 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.
| diminish wrote:
| A bit of counter-historical facts.
|
| 1. Russia wants to eliminate Ukraine, and Armenia is the sole
| explicit supporter
|
| 2. Russia did the same in 1915, arming Armenian Dashnaks to
| kill 500K to 1million of their neighbors; Turkish or Kurdish
| civilians unprotected due to Ottoman war against Russia.
|
| 3. Russia in 1990 punished Azerbaidjan protests in Baku and
| used Armenia as a puppet which occupied not only Karabagh but
| an additional 20% of Azerbaijan land and killed and displayed
| 100K to 1million people.
|
| 4. Ataturk's presence and war against occupants from Italy,
| England, Greece, France starts in 1919 long after the world war
| 1. So your interpretation is wrong.
|
| Finally yes I'm sad for the deaths, like everyone in Turkey.
| But we're sick of people who omit 5 million Turkish deaths in
| Balkans and Caucasus.
|
| 5. My several best mates in Turkey are Armenians. I love their
| everyhing. But I think Armenian nationalist heritage of Russia
| supported aggresiveness hurts all neighbors including Georgia
| too.
|
| Armenia's sole friends are Russia and Iran - and that is not a
| coincidence.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Not sure if this is still the case today, but Yerevan's US
| Embassy compound is the second largest in the world (couldn't
| find a more authoritative source in a quick google, but
| https://pickvisa.com/blog/biggest-embassy-buildings-
| around-t... and https://pickvisa.com/blog/biggest-embassy-
| buildings-around-t... roughly say the same things). It seems
| odd they'd let USA build such a massive operation in a
| country with the same population as Arkansas if US wasn't a
| friend.
|
| Of course, such a large embassy isn't being used only for
| visas, conducting local diplomacy, and USAID operations :)
| svaha1728 wrote:
| 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.
| thathndude wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| exactly this. We need to move away from the bimodal moralising
| and recognise the geopolitical realties that many of these
| countries have.
| mbreese wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| derekzhouzhen wrote:
| 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.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| 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
| SergeAx wrote:
| > 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.
| jdrc wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| There are a lot of regions in the world with disputed land
| and unless there are truly horrible acute humanitarian
| reasons to intervene, an invasion and a new never reduces the
| overall suffering. There are better ways to solve problems.
| stickfigure wrote:
| To be brutally honest, I don't think the West has given it
| much thought. It's one of those places that maybe 2% of
| Americans could find on a map, and even fewer could spell
| correctly. Turkey obviously has a strong opinion, but they're
| sort of the odd duck in NATO.
| whatshisface wrote:
| There's an enormous difference between what a US voter can
| find on a map / wants to invade (almost nowhere, absolutely
| nowhere) and where the State Department can find on a map /
| wants to invade (absolutely anywhere, almost anywhere).
| sokoloff wrote:
| 2% is an extremely generous estimate.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > 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
| georgeecollins wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| jmstfv wrote:
| > Azerbaijan expelled the Armenian population from Baku
| in the 90s pogroms
|
| Armenians started assaulting and expelling Azerbaijanis
| back in 1987 (Kapan/Kafan). This happened before
| Sumgait/Baku pogroms.
| bonzini wrote:
| True. Though the number was at least an order of
| magnitude smaller than Sumgait/Baku.
| nonesuchluck wrote:
| This mini-thread accidentally explains why the West
| don't, won't, and can't care about Azerbaijan/Armenia
| violence: it's fucking incomprehensible. Tribes killing
| each other for generations, for complicated reasons that
| no one without a relevant PhD will understand. It seems
| intractable, so we throw up our hands and focus
| elsewhere, somewhere with a simpler narrative.
|
| Everyone gets uptight about the word "uncivilized," but
| this kind of generational tribal conflict _is_ a failure
| of civilization. I don't know what causes civilization
| (it sure ain't skin tone), but without clear
| villain/victim narratives, and heroes to root for (brave
| Ukrainians fighting for their own liberation), no one
| will care. And that's tragic, too, but it's not a
| commentary on the underlying tragedy of human suffering
| and death, that people in every nation hurt the same.
| tumanian wrote:
| You defer to the tv ratings and PR campaigns to define
| 'civilization'.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| That is not actually correct.
|
| The land in question consists of two parts. The former
| Nagorno-Karabach Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) and a region
| which is de jure part of Azerbaijan, which was captured
| in a war that resulted from Azerbaijan's invasion of the
| NKAO.
|
| The NKAO is not a de jure part of Azerbaijan, as can be
| seen from the Soviet secession law of 1991, which is the
| law which permitted Azerbaijan's secession from the
| Soviet Union. The law itself can be found in English
| translation on
| http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1991-2/shevarnadze-
| resigns/shev... , but basically, autonomous oblasts vote
| separately from Soviet Republics, and do not
| automatically secede with their republics unless they
| hold a separate vote to do so.
|
| When Azerbaijan seceded from the Soviet Union no such
| vote was held in Nagorno-Karabach. In my view the correct
| legal interpretation is thus that they remained part of
| Soviet Union until it was dissolved, at which point they
| became an independent state.
|
| This is very important, because Azerbaijan has been
| shooting people in the NKAO for no reason whatsoever, and
| I assume that's it's purely a matter of killing
| Armenians, so it can't be part of Azerbaijan: this makes
| the legal situation very convenient-- countries like
| Spain, which does not want to accept a separate
| Catalonia, or Basque country would not make themselves
| into hypocrites, or set a precedent against themselves,
| by recognizing the NKAO, or Artsakh as it now calls
| itself.
| jdrc wrote:
| A long story but to cut it short, the UN recommendations for
| the final solution of NK status is the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_Principles which
| proscribe a solution not much different from the current
| status. this war could have been avoided if both parties had
| been willing.
| stevenally wrote:
| That is a good post. Likewise the situation in Ukraine
| could have been avoided. Compromise was needed. Both
| parties weren't willing. Now both are suffering.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Stop with this "both sides" bullshit. Putin decided to
| invade, and short of completely surrendering in advance,
| there was absolutely nothing Ukraine could do. All the
| plans were drafted, the propaganda filmed and the orders
| shipped way before the "talks" even started, all of it
| were just for show to form a propaganda context and fool
| people like you. There's only one side's decision that
| made the war happen, and that side is Russia.
| DrSiemer wrote:
| What kind of compromise could Ukraine have made?
| Installing a Russian puppet regime amounts to giving up
| in a different way.
| stickfigure wrote:
| It has become pretty obvious that there wasn't any
| realistic "compromise" (other than complete submission)
| that Ukraine could offer. Putin wants Ukraine and is
| determined to get it by any means. The suffering is 100%
| on his head.
| elchin wrote:
| There's been UN resolutions against Armenia, but that didn't
| result in anything.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Today, war is really bad policy because it kills the young!
| Demographics are bad enough in our aging world, sending the
| youth to go die only makes it worse. Maybe in the past, war
| might be a population stunting tool, but today it just makes
| your population distribution worse.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Exactly. The youth should rise up and demand the old fuckers
| like me go off to die in these pointless wars. The world
| would be a better place.
| jmstfv wrote:
| If we take international law as a basis for our arguments, then
| Armenia has illegally occupied territories that de jure belong
| to Azerbaijan [1], brutally massacred civilians [2], destroyed
| and looted cities [3][4], and left more than 700,000+ people
| homeless [5].
|
| Armenia is the aggressor here.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_Securit...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khojaly_massacre
|
| [3] https://www.meydan.tv/en/article/ghost-town-of-aghdam/
|
| [4]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/azerbaijan/comments/jumrv3/on_the_l...
|
| [5] https://reliefweb.int/report/armenia/armeniaazerbaijan-
| myths...
| tumanian wrote:
| Please stop spreading propaganda. The khojali massacre has
| not been confirmed anywhere but azerbajani sources.
|
| In the meanwhile please refer to bombing of stepanakert with
| cluster munitions and precision bombing of maternity wards,
| hospitals and churches.
| tumanian wrote:
| To further add detail, the un resolution is focused sqarely
| on kelbajar region, which in any negotiation logic (madrid,
| kazan, etc) was slated to return to Azerbajan once the status
| of Karabakh was determined
| akshaybhalotia wrote:
| 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-...
| tradertef wrote:
| Thanks. I was wondering what is wrong with India (saw a bunch
| of social media posts by Indians). "Interest over principles"
| explains it.
| alexryndin wrote:
| > The West was unable to stop the war.
|
| > But Russia did stop it. No matter what.
|
| Such a surprise for me.
| enaaem wrote:
| 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.
| fatihpense wrote:
| 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.
| fleddr wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| sahinyanlik wrote:
| dpq wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| remind_me_again wrote:
| helge9210 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > (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)
| dpq wrote:
| The core ideology of Azerbaijan is armenophoby, and they do
| not really hide the fact. Their claim is that Armenians are
| not native to the, eh, Armenian highlands, and thus should be
| expelled at the very least. During the 2020 war atrocities
| such as decapitation of soldiers and civilians were common,
| as well as cutting off and collecting ears of Armenian PoWs.
| There have been multiple reports of Armenian churches being
| demolished or having the Armenian inscriptions erased (talk
| about cultural expropriation). During the victory parade in
| 2020, Aliyev and Erdogan were praising Enver Pasha, who was
| the architect of the 1915 Armenian genocide. Also the very
| "peculiar" expo of the victory museum. Also the threats to
| take Armenian provinces by force, if political demands are
| not met. I believe this paints a more or less complete
| picture why I don't have any optimism regarding the fate of
| Armenian civilians should that country fall, although
| probably people who favor Azerbaijan in this conflict can
| come up with plausible explanations for every item in this
| list, including decapitations and tortures of civilians.
| fmajid wrote:
| A complete picture would also mention that Artsakh obtained
| its de facto independence for 100,000 Armenians at the cost
| of ethnically cleansing 700,000 Azeris, Kurds and other
| ethnicities from the region.
| chr1 wrote:
| It is also worth to mention that before that 300,000
| Armenians were expelled from Azerbaijan, and people from
| the regions around Artsakh were expelled during a war
| which have started because Azerbaijan have attempted to
| deport the remaining 160,000 from Artsakh too.
| ssijak wrote:
| it is safe to say that the world needs some history
| deleting virus. if we woke up with no knowledge of
| history and relations between nations, all this disputes
| would disappear over night.
| stickfigure wrote:
| _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_
|
| (do no further research before watching this movie, you
| will thank me)
| chr1 wrote:
| I don't think the issue is only the history.
|
| Surprisingly large number of people believe that if
| people in the neighbouring city vote to speak on their
| language and govern themselves locally, they deserve
| punishment up to death.
|
| And there is similarly large number of people who believe
| that it is noble to die for a line on the map.
|
| So forgetting history would have a very small effect only
| on a very small number of conflicts.
| [deleted]
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| Azerbaijan has lots of oil money and purchases weapons from
| Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia, the likes of which
| Armenia cannot afford.
| skrebbel wrote:
| , 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.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| specproc wrote:
| 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.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-03-03 23:01 UTC)