With Defeat Last Year, Armenia ‘Lost Its Raison d'Etre,’ Krutikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – Except for the Baltic countries, Armenia led the race to the exit from the USSR because Moscow could not resolve the Qarabagh conflict; and its victories over Azerbaijan in the 1990s provided that nation with justification for its policies. But Azerbaijan’s victory there last year has cost Armenia its raison d’etre, Yevgeny Krutikov says.

            “The chief stimulus” for Armenia’s seeking independence from the Soviet Union in 1990-1991 “was Karabakh,” the Moscow commentator says; and its military defeat of Azerbaijan in the first years following that effort appeared to justify independence (vz.ru/opinions/2021/10/25/1125296.html).    

            After centuries of defeat, “the Armenian people received something real in which they could be proud.” They became the object of international attention with Minsk Group ambassadors focusing on them, and their control of Qarabagh and other Azerbaijani territory surrounding it seeming confirmation of their strategy, Krutikov continues.

            This focus on Qarabagh had two other consequences of note. On the one hand, it led Yerevan to forget the terrorists who had dominated Armenian activism prior to that time. And on the other, by making heroes of those who fought the Azerbaijanis, it opened the door for their dominance of Armenian politics for almost 30 years.

            Until the rise of Nikol Pashinyan, “Armenia was led by Karabakh veterans,” all of whom except the first, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, were opposed to any settlement. And people from Qarabagh entered many positions in business and the government in Armenia and seemed to define the nation for the future.

            That worked until Armenia lost the war in 2020, Krutikov says; but then with its defeat it became obvious that “Armenia had sought independence more than all others but was prepared for it far less than many of them.” Qarabagh had so dominated the political system that “the independence of Armenia never was a question of economics. It was a question of survival.”

            Now, 30 years later and last year’s defeat, “everything has to begin again. That which in the early 1990s had seemed the chief achievement of independence has dissolved into dust.” Armenians now must confront the reality that they are not victors but losers in this way and won’t be the focus of the international attention they expect, Krutikov continues.

            Yerevan can no longer count on the diaspora to save the situation or on geopolitical competition among the great powers to give it room to maneuver. France and the US are not that interested, and Moscow is viewed with suspicion as a result of what it didn’t do before 1991 or in 2020.

            The war last year destroyed the illusions Armenians had been living by, the commentator argues. “This does not mean that Armenia does not have a future,” Krutikov concludes; but rather that Yerevan must rethink what that future can and should be about.