Asia Times / Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute. This article was originally published on his Substack, Weapons and Strategy. Asia Times is republishing it with permission.
ARMENIA
Will the US enter another war, this one in Armenia?
The Russians are scrambling to block the US and NATO
By STEPHEN BRYEN
SEPTEMBER 21, 2023
An ethnic Armenian soldier fires an artillery piece during a military conflict over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in this handout picture released Oct. 5, 2020. Photo: VOA
Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia’s Prime Minister, has decided to align Armenia with the United States, maybe also with NATO. Accordingly, he has arranged anti-Russian protests in Yerevan, and carried out military exercises with the United States. It is unlikely the Russians will allow him to make deals with Washington.
Armenia, a country with around three million people, is wedged between Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Iran and Georgia. While Armenia’s historical enemy is Türkiye, in recent years Armenia has been involved in supporting ethnic and religious Christian Armenians living in Nagorno Karabakh.
Armenia has considerable support in the United States, especially due to the Armenian genocide carried out by Türkiye (1894-1896, 1915-1918) that took the lives of 1.5 million Armenians. Almost 400,000 Americans of Armenian descent live in the United States.
Nagorno Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus. During Soviet rule it was territorially part of Azerbaijan but Armenia more and more disputed that status. (Both were Soviet states.)
Most of the territory came to be governed by the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh (also known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic [NKR]) as a result of the first Nagorno-Karabakh War, which ended in 1994. Armenians have been accused of seeking to purge the region of ethnic Azeris, destroying homes, farms, mosques and even cemeteries, and driving tens of thousands of local Moslems out of the country.
In 2020 war again broke out, leading to a significant Azeri victory, and a defeat for the Armenian government headed by Pashinyan. He blamed the defeat on lack of support from Russia, although he agreed to a settlement brokered by Vladimir Putin that placed Russian peacekeepers around the Lachin corridor protecting the Nagorno Karabakh capital, Stepanakert.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Photo: Middle East Monitor
On Wednesday, September 20th, Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno Karabakh came under small arms gunfire and were all killed. Clearly intended as a provocation aimed at the Russians, the shooting is likely to have been carried out by pro-Armenia forces. A joint investigation has been launched by Russia and Azerbaijan.
Observers in Moscow and in Europe believe that the Armenian leader precipitated the latest conflict to drive the Russians out of Nagorno Karabakh, or at least to blame the Russians for the trouble.
Under the ceasefire terms it seems that the pro-Armenia fighters in Nagorno Karabakh are required to give up their weapons. It is still too early to tell if this will happen.
Whether Russian peacekeepers will remain in Nagorno Karabakh is uncertain, although the Russians are clearly worried about the budding romance between Armenia and the United States, led by Pashinyan. Pashinyan called already for the United States to intervene, an invitation Washington did not take up. Instead Washington, like Russia and others, condemned the renewed fighting.
It is in Azerbaijan’s interest for the Russians to stay in Nagorno Karabakh, since their presence blocks, for the most part, any serious effort by the United States to set up a base in Armenia. Likewise it is in Iran’s interest, since a US base would directly threaten Tehran. If the Russians should decide to pull out there is reason to think that Iran would step in, using its increasingly large ground forces.
The wild card is the United States. Should the US push to set up a military base in Armenia, the Russians would not sit still, any more than they sat still for Ukraine’s move to join NATO.
The country is well within Russia’s sphere of influence. Moreover, Russia is increasingly alarmed by the US and NATO ambition to expand in Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Researcher Akanksha Singh explains that “the Grand ChessBoard theory of (Zbigniew) Brzezinski states that in order to sustain its position as a global hegemon, the US needs to control and manage Eurasia.” The US is again stirring the pot in Georgia, in Uzbekistan and elsewhere (now including Armenia).
Pashinyan’s plan seems to be to seek aid and support from the United States and blame the Russians for the “loss” of Nagorno Karabakh. Whether he can pull off such a maneuver remains to be seen. It is unlikely Russia will stand by and watch this happen.
Will the US go ahead and put US troops in Armenia? Would it lead to a direct conflict with Russia?
Stephen Bryen is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute. This article was originally published on his Substack, Weapons and Strategy. Asia Times is republishing it with permission.
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