According to the expert of the Armenian Center for Democracy, Security and Development, Marta Ayvazyan, it can negatively affect both the US-Armenian relations and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.
– First of all, let’s talk about the US presidential elections. Which do the election results by the US society indicate? Although many people were making forecasts on Hillary Clinton’s winning but unexpected developments occurred. Why Trump?
– The year 2016 will be remembered among the vast majority of political and expertise community for a long time perhaps by illogical and therefore unexpected two important national votes: Brexit in the UK and Donald Trump’s elections in the United States. In the mentioned two cases, the losing parties had obviously overestimated their rating, potentials and influence, and underestimated and in some cases, also neglected the power of ideology adopted by the opposing party and the influence of conducted campaign, the scope of the electorates thereof, the problems and expectations of the voters. The voting results indicate also some fundamental problems that were not resolved over years as well as almost the absence of government-society relations and unprecedented high degree of public discontent and complaint against ruling political elites or establishments.
If we talk about the course of the US presidential elections and the victory of Trump, then I can mention also private reasons which, in my opinion, significantly affected the election results. First of all, who were Trump’s voters? It was the vast majority of the population of the middle of America, who are mostly poor working masses by the American standards and the high index of relatively low education and unemployment. With his quite absurd, impracticable but attractive and even exciting statements for these voters that have no political and diplomatic education, often also far from political politeness, and shocking behavior, Trump drastically differs from the typical representative of the political elite acting in various wings of the government for decades, in various roles, and even boring a segment of traditional electorate of the Democratic party Hillary Clinton.
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In this comparison, the voters disregarded that Trump is also an integral part of their hated establishment, and perceived him as the embodiment of the well-being and dream of America. They also disregarded the fact that he being the bright representative of the business elite in the world, it is less likely that he will fulfill some election campaign promises that will contradict the interests of big business. Clinton’s team, in turn, did not attach enough attention on some US states which were traditionally supporting the Democratic Party in the past and failed even here.
– The issue of US-Russia relationship has become a subject that is discussed the most. What predictions can be done, will the existing Russian-US disagreements in a number of geopolitical issues be successful to overcome as a result of Trump’s presidency, and whether an ease in Russia-US relations can be expected.
– I do not expect significant changes in the US-Russia relations. There will be meetings but the outcomes thereof essentially will be declaratory in nature and principally will not change the relationship existing between the two countries. This is due to several factors:
First, the pre-election rhetoric is one thing while the real politics is completely a different thing in the position of a US President. If we look at Trump’s pre-programmed campaign speeches, we will see that one of his main theses is the magnitude of the United States. Being an extremely ambitious and always striving personality to win, he as a US President would hardly accept the requirements offered by Russia’s President, thereby also violating the continuity of approaches and basic principles of foreign policy implemented by the consecutive administrations of the United States, causing a damage to the country’s rating.
We should also take into account the fact that Trump’s election caused an unprecedented split in the ranks of the US Republican Party, several influential Republicans acted against him, including the 2 US Presidents’ Bush family. Also, bear in mind that the Republicans constitute the majority I the newly elected American Senate and Congress, while the Republican Party generally has acted in favor of tough policy against Russia. In this situation, given the mechanism of state decision-making in the United States, the abrupt change in the US policy particularly against Russia becomes less likely. At best, the United States will not toughen its sanctions against Russia.
– The US newly elected president has one implemented business projects in Georgia and Azerbaijan, in other words, he has a good knowledge of our region. What will be his policy towards the South Caucasus, the regional conflicts, and certainly, what can be said about the Armenia-US relations, is it possible to expect significant changes?
– I do not think that he has or has not the information which is necessary for his as a US president, hence he once again need to disclose the South Caucasus for him which objectively is a very important region in geopolitical point of view, and has always been and will remain in the scope of interests by great superpowers.
Under various administrations, the US has always been and will be involved in the processes going on in the South Caucasus. The degree of this involvement depended also on its relations with other states in the region: Turkey and Iran. Hence, I think there will not be any significant changes for us in the coming months. Further on, depending on the development of US-Russian relations, it is possible to have some ease of the US involvement in our region which will negatively affect both the US-Armenia relations and the normalization of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In this regard, today, it is more important how Armenia will demonstrate itself, how it will work with Trump’s administration and to what extent Armenia will be able to ensure the US-Armenia future and possibly favorable course for us.
– NATO Secretary General has made several statements on the necessity to be protected from threats and withstand Russia. How long can this tension last? Is this a cold war or however the bridges are not burnt down?
– I do not think that this tension would be eliminated under the current Russian government and the relations of RF-NATO, the West would go back to former format. This tension currently complies with the political interests of the Russian president and his administration and is used by them, first of all, to resolve or conceal numerous domestic economic and political problems. The image of Russian authorities fighting for justice and withstanding the external world carrying out abuse on Russia’s sovereignty and identity and intending hostile against Russia without failure functioning on a certain class of the population and ensuring RF president’s high rating is necessary to preserve the RF President’s power. This also enables to use pressure in any form against dissent and political opposition in the pretext of fighting against the “enemies”, to respectively tighten the legislation, to ignore the state obligation to protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms.
As for the Cold War, in my opinion, we are living in the Cold War for a few years. Naturally, the current Cold War is different from the previous one as the world has changed, however, the essence of the relationship is not changed. The bridges were not burnt down until the end during the previous Cold War, they are not burnt now too, and given the degree of interrelation and interdependence of the world states, I think that they will act in the future too.
EMMA GABRIELYAN
