Is tiny, pro-Western, landlocked, democratic, free-market, Christian Armenia (pop. 2.9 million) a threat to its neighbor, Turkey (pop. 75 million)? According to the government of Turkey, and its autocratic Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Armenia’s “alliance” with Russia is lethal to Turkish security and stability. Is this a credible assertion? On the annual observance of the Turkish genocide of the Armenians (1915), it might be useful to consider the circumstances from Armenia’s point of view.
Like another small, well-known country in the region, Armenia is almost entirely surrounded by Islamic neighbors (Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkey) who wish it ill. Turkish parliamentarians and public officials routinely talk of “finishing the job” of the Genocide, when an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by Turkey. For five centuries, Armenia was occupied by the Ottoman Turks; when the Ottoman Empire disintegrated at the end of World War I, Armenia’s brief independence was crushed by Soviet Russia (1921). With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia became an independent democratic state — but a microscopic state in the shadow of Turkish hostility. Turkey does not recognize the Republic of Armenia, its closed border cripples the Armenian economy, and its government carries on full-time diplomatic warfare.,
Armenia’s relations with nearby Russia are, accordingly, complicated. The Putin regime regards Armenia, like Ukraine, as a breakaway province of the old Soviet empire; but Orthodox Russia also considers itself a protector of fellow Christians. Armenia, which looks westward, historically and culturally, finds itself caught between Turkish dreams to eradicate its existence and Moscow’s ambitions to extend Russian influence.
Turkey’s membership in NATO is a vestige of the Cold War, and it uses its membership as leverage in Washington. But not much to the benefit of United States foreign policy: Turkey’s Islamist government has routinely thwarted American efforts in the War on Terror – it would not permit U.S. forces to invade Iraq from its Turkish border, for example – and Turkey’s rhetoric against our nearby ally Israel is very nearly as violent as its posture toward Armenia.
So Armenia’s tactical “alliance” with Russia is a matter of convenience, at best, and survival, at the least. Which leads to a handful of hypothetical questions. If, for example, Turkey were to finish the job of the Genocide and attack Armenia, does anyone suppose that the United States would lift a finger against President Obama’s “most trusted” and “favorite” foreign leader, Recep Tayyiip Erdogan? If Iran (pop. 77.5 million) were to threaten Armenia, would the United Nations take any action whatsoever? As oil-rich Azerbaijan (with Turkish assistance) seeks to conquer the ancient Armenian province of Nagorno-Karabakh, has the European Union had anything to say on the subject? The questions answer themselves.
By any measure, the Armenian “alliance” with Russia isn’t much of an alliance: Vladimir Putin has been selling billions of dollars in advanced weaponry to Azerbaijan, which the Azeri dictatorship has been using, in recent months, to attack Armenian villages, killing civilians and soldiers. And when Turkey raises the rhetorical temperature, and rattles its sabers on the anniversary of the Genocide, Armenia has cause for concern. From the American standpoint, the behavior of Islamist Turkey – toward its Christian neighbor, toward Israel, toward its putative NATO allies and the European Union -should be of deeper concern, and greater importance, than Armenia’s good-faith efforts to stay alive in a dangerous neighborhood.
