Sending Armenia Down the Primrose Path

The United States and its allies have traditionally treated Armenia as a friendly country throughout the entire period of its independence, even if among post-Soviet states, Armenia has been in a different category than the Baltic republics, Ukraine, and Georgia. There has been a basic understanding in Washington and European capitals that Armenia had constraints and limitations in terms of how close its relations with the West could be, regardless of its preferences. There has also been an appreciation on all sides of the West’s limitations and constraints as an alternative provider of security for Armenia, given the country’s needs and problems, as well as the country’s questionable strategic value. Accordingly, there was no active and determined effort to knock Armenia out of Russia’s strategic orbit. Indeed, the West and Russia were able to cooperate and act with a common agenda and a common front as mediators in the negotiations to settle the Karabakh conflict. 

The West hailed the revolution in Armenia in 2018 and heaped praise on Pashinyan for pulling it off peacefully and putting the country on the path of democratic development. Even then, however, there was no active and overt encouragement to break with Russia. Nor was there any change of position on the need to settle the Karabakh conflict or the terms of the settlement that had been endorsed earlier. The West stuck to its circumspect posture after the war in 2020, when the anti-Russian sentiment in Armenia began to reach unprecedented levels. On one occasion, the French ambassador to Armenia reminded an interviewer who was criticizing Russia that it was the Russians that rescued Karabakh and Armenia in the fall of 2020. Shortly thereafter, an American diplomat, who had been the U.S. representative in the Karabakh negotiations, had to cool the anti-Russian zeal of another interviewer in a similar manner. Overall, nothing suggested a major change of established practice and certainly no overt endorsement of Armenia’s increasingly vocal quarrel with Russia. 

The attitudes began to change after the conflict in Ukraine escalated, however, and after the competition between the West and Russia became a costly and zero-sum confrontation. Things that were seen as going too far before began to look like reasonable options. Among them was the shift from counseling caution and being reluctant to encourage Armenia’s reckless behavior toward Russia to openly encouraging it. The early harbinger of that shift was the unprecedented visit of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to Armenia in the summer of 2022. This was not a routine State Department visit or a Congressman trying to ingratiate himself with their ethnic Armenian constituents. Even if the press releases about the purpose of his visit and the topics of his discussions with Armenian officials were not very informative, one could safely conclude that the visit signified an upgrade of Armenia in American strategic priorities. 

This was followed by a visit of a congressional delegation headed by Nancy Pelosi to express support for Armenia after the Azerbaijani incursion into Armenia in September 2022 and CSTO’s refusal to invoke its treaty obligation to come to Armenia’s aid. Later that same year, Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, paid a visit to Armenia, which was also unprecedented and could also have no explanation other than a significant reassessment of relations with Armenia. Pashinyan had another meeting with Moore on the sidelines of an international conference in Munich in February 2024. 

In line with these shifts was the extraordinary statement by French president Emmanuel Macron, who openly accused Russia of encouraging Azerbaijan to attack Armenia shortly after the Azerbaijani incursion into Armenia in September 2022. The statement generated a strong rebuke from Russia, as well as from Azerbaijan and Turkey. More recently, the French have decided to provide advanced weaponry to Armenia, including the coveted Caesar howitzers, raising the alarm in Azerbaijan and eyebrows in Moscow. 

The uncertainty as to what the West has been up to was further reduced by the U.S. assistant secretary of state, James O’Brien, who recently visited Armenia. During his visit, he gave an interview to the Armenian Service of Radio Liberty, where, among other things, he argued that Russia should be excluded from the project of opening the communications that will link Azerbaijan and Nakhijevan, and which by extension will link Central Asia to other countries in the region. He argued further that Russia should be excluded from the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process, which essentially means the exclusion of Russia from the region. O’Brien hailed Armenia’s democratic progress and the country’s determination to stand up to Russia and stated that the United States-Armenian relationship was being upgraded to the level of strategic partnership. 

What are the consequences of this shift? The government of Armenia and the assorted pro-Westerners who have made the sharp strategic reorientation of the country the centerpiece of their political agenda see it as a vindication of their efforts and evidence for the correctness of their posture. It has stiffened their determination to stay on their reckless course. Armenia is clearly on a collision course with Russia and consequently also on its way to becoming completely defenseless against Turkey and Azerbaijan at a time when they are responding to every Armenian concession with a new demand. It will also have severe economic consequences for Armenia, given Armenia’s dependence on the Russian market and on cheap energy exports from Russia. The question is, what will the West do when that collision happens? One way to answer that question is to invoke the decidedly unhappy experiences of Georgia and Ukraine. And the answer is “not enough” at best. However, we do not even have to rely on extrapolation from those experiences. 

A few weeks ago, Radio Liberty interviewed the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, who was asked that question, though in a slightly more general and gentler formulation. She spoke of plans to provide the Armenian army with armored ambulances and to organize courses to teach English to refugees from Karabakh. As for the French selling advanced weapons to Armenia, it is the worst of all worlds. It will be a source of concern for Azerbaijan, generating preventive incentives without any willingness or ability to extend security guarantees to Armenia in case these incentives are acted upon, all while providing Russia with incentives to egg Azerbaijan on. 

The same logic applies to Armenia’s upgrade to a strategic partnership. It signals Armenia’s eventual integration into Western institutions in the long run, which the Russians consider unacceptable. At the same time, the West is in no position to protect Armenia from Moscow’s wrath in the short run. To borrow the now-famous phrase of John Mearsheimer, what the West is doing is sending Armenia down the “primrose path” to further conflict.

Arman Grigoryan is an associate professor of International Relations at Lehigh University. Follow him on X @Arm__Grig.

Image: Gevorg Ghazaryan / Shutterstock.com.