Jirair Libaridian
This article was written as a Post Scriptum to a volume of the author’s selected writings, “Armenia-Turkey. Statehood, History, Politics”, to be published this year. The article is being released now considering its immediate relevance to the present moment.
Azerbaijan’s September 2020 war against Nagorno-Karabakh was different from previous military conflicts in several ways. One was the type and level of military assistance that Turkey provided to Azerbaijan. There is no doubt that the role assumed by Turkey during that war constituted an important step against the interests of Armenia and Artsakh. There is also no doubt that this step was part of Turkey’s general policy towards Armenia in recent years.
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Given the importance of that assistance in the defeat of the Armenian side, the usefulness and/or expediency of starting a dialogue with Turkey, or of establishing normal relations, would certainly be questioned in the minds of reasonable people.
It would be natural, then, for this issue to be publicly discussed in all its aspects, and in the context of Armenia’s future foreign and security policies.
However, such a discussion has become almost impossible due to the hysterical noise that some political forces are raising with their daily, endless, and deafening drumbeats. For those forces, Turkey’s participation had only one meaning and significance: that Turkey’s participation was further evidence that Turkey was, and still is, motivated by genocidal instincts, evidence which justified all anti-Turkish sentiments before the war. Consequently, these forces argue, any attempt to normalize relations with Turkey—or even initiate a dialogue—is tantamount to “betrayal.”
It is necessary for those forces that there be no rational discussion. They want to predetermine the response to that legitimate concern by playing on the people’s emotional strings and almost instinctive fears. These people think that it is their God-given monopoly to throw around the word “traitor” left and right.
However, an individual, nation, or state guided by reason has no right to make such a weighty decision without very serious and comprehensive discussion. Mistaken choices in foreign policy, seemingly correct conclusions, lessons learned from history and experience which have not been questioned—all have done great damage to our past, and might yet lead to new losses in the future.
What lessons might be learned from history, and how might we decide which lessons to learn? A short-lived, four-day war occurred in April 2016. Azerbaijan was the initiator of that brief war, as a result of which we lost a small area under our control. The fact that this war was initiated by Azerbaijan led many to conclude that Azerbaijan should be punished by entrusting our future to a new war, rather than relying on continued, may be even more intense negotiations. Of course, we could have learned another lesson from that event. It was possible to see the loss of territory, no matter how small, as a sign that the balance of power perhaps had shifted, that losing a war was a serious possibility for our side. Even those who paid attention to the outcome of that war and began to negotiate more seriously insisted on conditions that Azerbaijan had rejected for more than twenty years, without which we could have both made progress in resolving the conflict and avoided a new war. So it was possible to learn the right lessons and take those lessons more seriously. However, instead of changing our approach to such a challenge, we became more and more entrenched in the disposition of “not an inch of land back.” We are familiar with the result.
One can also consider the 2020 military confrontation with Azerbaijan that lasted a few days, the result of which we considered a “victory”. If we rely on public speeches, there is no evidence that this small war, which involved limited units on both sides over a very small area, was seriously analyzed. Without a serious analysis of the event, we instilled in ourselves the confidence that the balance of power had not changed, and in the event of a full-scale war, that we could surely occupy new Azerbaijani territories. The Minister of Defense of Armenia stated as much.
To decide today whether or not we should talk to our opponents, or whether striving for normal relations with them is useful or preferable, it is necessary to answer a few questions. My purpose here is not to discuss and offer answers to all the questions we face in this regard, but simply to present some of the relevant questions as a starting point for a healthy debate.
1) First of all, we need to have a complete, but real picture of the type and quality of threats we face. That is, we must distinguish the sense of fear from the actual reason for it. Our history has given us the reasons for both. However, exaggerating or underestimating the danger poses a serious hazard in itself. Exaggeration can be a reason to ignore possible steps which could reduce threats, or a reason to miss opportunities to do so. Underestimating threats can lead to disaster and defeat.
2) We need to answer the following questions: (a) Why did Azerbaijan stop its advance after occupying Shushi when it could have easily reached Stepanakert? (b) Why did it stop on its side of the southern border of Armenia when it could have crossed it comfortably and reached Nakhichevan? Why did Turkey not send troops across any of our borders when it could have easily done so?
If the answer is that the Russian presence and our defense treaty with Russia was the reason, then why are we so fearful now? After all, that treaty with Russia is still in force, and the Russian presence has not diminished. In fact, it is to the contrary.
Are there other factors which might explain what Azerbaijan and Turkey could have done, but did not do?
And we need to answer the following question. (c) Can these threats be mitigated by talking to Turkey and Azerbaijan?
From the fact of defeat in the war, then, by what logic do we reach the policy of not talking to the enemy or excluding any contacts? I do not see a rationale here. The forces which consider such relations a betrayal had reached that conclusion before this last war, before the 2016 war, and in fact, before any war. Weren’t they the same forces who were against Armenia’s independence, because in case of independence, Turkey would enter Armenia and massacre the rest of the Armenians?
Behind all these comments and conclusions is a simple, hateful, decades-long “national” ideology based on anti-Turkishness. According to this ideology, anti-Turkishness is the essence of Armenianness, it is Armenia’s fate to remain dependent, and it is the people’s duty to hand over power to those who carry and spread that hatred.
There is also an additional, interesting phenomenon. Both before and after the independence of Armenia, these forces did everything they could to prevent the establishment of normal relations with Turkey, and by so doing strengthened the supporters of the extreme, anti-Armenian policy in Turkey. These same forces have made the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict impossible, a settlement that would have made it possible to establish relations with Turkey and at least reduce the threat posed by that country. Not only that, but this also expressed to Turkey that we have demands from it. That we will always remain enemies because Turkey refuses to return our lands, Western Armenia, to us, and too because it does not recognize the Genocide.
For three decades, the disruptive, beyond-any-rational disposition of these forces has dominated their discourse in different forms and styles. Since 1998, this approach has also been adopted to some extent by our authorities. As I have explained in the introduction to this volume, and as evidenced by the materials included in it, we have made fear the basis of strategic thinking while at the same time threatening and cursing Turkey, and then Azerbaijan. After doing all this, when Turkey takes these factors into account in determining its policy towards Armenia, we hasten to declare that Turkey is hopelessly anti-Armenian and a potentially genocidal state.
And now, without providing an opportunity to examine this issue, those forces want to learn two lessons from this last war. (a) Anti-Turkish policy based on hatred was justified, and this last war constitutes new evidence of it, and (b) it naturally follows that Turkey’s policy is to commit a new genocide. Had that approach been valid, Turkey should have attacked Armenia in the very first days of our independence. That did not happen then, or when Armenia won the war against Azerbaijan in 1991-1994, or when Armenia lost the war in 2020. What did not happen when it could have happened—or according to their analysis should have occurred, but did not—is as important as what happened. I do not see a logic or a method of thinking about strategy here. What we have is a big leap from one fact to a difficult and weighty conclusion. That leap has two foundations. The first is that we have no greater role in history than to be a victim and our destiny is determined. We either become victims, or we avoid that fate in one way or another. In other words, what we do and say does not make any difference, except for what is permitted to us in our role as victim.
Second, what Turkey and Azerbaijan could, but did not do makes no difference. We have our gospel, where everything—and the meaning everything–is already known. There is no need to think anew. “We know”.
We have two main ways to plan future policies. One is the path conditioned by fear and illusions. The second is a strategy based on achievable goals and realistic calculations. When making that choice, we must keep in mind the following two simple principles. (a) we must not lose what is acceptable and possible by pursuing that which is desirable, yet impossible; (b) we must first be good in order to be able to be very good.
This time, will we learn the right lesson from history?
There is no question here of ignoring dangers, anti-Armenian dispositions, even intentions. However, we do not have the right to entrust our future fully to any individual state or external power. States change. Our friends and enemies change. We change. Our ways of thinking, politics, and diplomacy must strive at least to reduce existing threats. One cannot build a future solely on the politics of weapons, martyred heroes, and the avoidance of responsibility.
If after this last war and its defeat we continue to formulate strategy on an emotional and parochial basis, without considering and calculating all the possibilities, we have no right to expect that the outcome of our policy will be different from the outcome of the previous conflict.
April 2021