By Hrachya Arzumanian
Summary:
Russian strategic thought seeking to return Armenia and Azerbaijan to the orbit of its project with military tools while cutting off the possibility of another choice for the countries of the South Caucasus did not take into account the existence of an alternative in Azerbaijan. Instead of returning to the Russian project for the revival of USSR 2.0 / Russian Empire within the framework of which it was created, Azerbaijan chose to join the 21st century’s Turkish project to revive the Ottoman Empire. In other words, speaking of Russia’s unconditional tactical victory in the region one should also speak of Turkey’s strategic victory and Russia’s loss of positions. Russia has created the necessary preconditions for conducting irregular and hybrid military operations outside of the theater of operations of the Middle East/North Africa on Russian territory by its own efforts.
Russia, having developed and implemented a project to dismantle the de facto state of Artsakh and form an even tighter dependence of Armenia upon Russia created the necessary conditions for the emergence of a regional power center led by a NATO member in the South Caucasus and its southern borders. Moreover, we are talking about ideologically motivated Turkey (neo-Ottomanism, Pan-Turkism, Islamism), which a number of de-ideologized Russian people are ready to meet with a standing ovation in a number of Russia’s regions and in Central Asia the integrity of which today is maintained exclusively by the idea of conservation of Eurasia within the realities of the 20th century.
Continue reading “Strategic Context of 2020 Artsakh War”