A new global balance of power?

18.11.2022

A new global balance of power?

Armenia’s new challenges and possible opportunities

The recent G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia with extensive three-hour talks between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden against the background of Russia’s low-key presence tell a lot about tectonic moves in the global order. Russia is being treated as a strong and influential, yet regional power – albeit in a quite vast region. 

Text by: Tigran Zakaryan 

 

Both US and China agree that a possible nuclear escalation in the Ukraine should be avoided, while days ago the Russian attempt to mount pressure on Ukraine and the international community through exiting the grain deal turned into an image disaster for the Kremlin. 

Dramatically Isolated, although far from being exhausted, nuclear-armed Russia can pose serious threat to global security and peace and attempts to drive it into the corner can backfire in a most dangerous way. This is why Washington, while generously offering military support to Ukraine, discourages direct strikes at Russian sovereign territory, something that can upset the general balance of power in the region and globally. 
In general, the US approach is that Russia as a regional player can play a stabilizing role and fundamentally undermining its power is not in its interest. 

 

Armenia between optimism and grim realism 

It is not hard to understand that Russia’s shrinking power can bring about radical changes in Armenia’s security architecture. There is plenty of evidence, some of which quite recent, that Moscow will not and even cannot fulfill its alliance obligations towards Armenia, at least against Azerbaijan’s limited aggression. On the other hand, Russia’s pre-war plan of Armenia’s tighter integration is a well-known secret, which can only encourage Yerevan to look for alternative partners in security.    

Meanwhile Russian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh has no alternatives for the moment if we mean preventing Azerbaijan’s violent ethnocultural transformation of the region undoubtedly involving an ethnic cleansing and even genocide. All other variants so far are nothing short of hypothetical speculations.  

Those two premises need to thoroughly considered in a nexus and this can lead to the conclusion that the best interest of the Armenians’ continued presence in its historical lands and independent statehood require living under two separate security systems, which should not be antagonistic or mutually exclusive. 

 

Dislodging Russia?        

Following Azerbaijan’s actions along the border and the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh can be a rather worthwhile enterprise if we want to observe Baku’s intentions and short-term plans.   
Azerbaijan recently resumed sporadic shootings at civilians along the contact line in Artsakh which coupled with Aliyev’s remarks on the temporariness of the Russian peacekeepers’ presence in the region send a warning message to Moscow. 

Russian withdrawal from the region theoretically could be welcomed by multiple regional and global players, inspiring them the hope to fill in the eventual vacuum of power. Obviously Turkey could be the biggest beneficiary of such a change, however this can unsettle such disparate players as Iran, EU and US and this is a good news for Armenia. 

 

Security Partners Revised 

In a way, Armenia is drifting apart from the Russian-led security umbrella naturally and with minimal efforts on the part of Yerevan. We see that following the September escalation on the border which was halted largely due to US diplomatic pressures on Azerbaijan, Yerevan is more open to Western overtures. In the meantime, even though Moscow did not ease its anti-western rhetoric also in this region, still it abstains from any possible provocative steps against Armenia. 

Under the current circumstances Armenia could use the opportunity to move towards closer ties in security with western partners, and chiefly the US, which mentioned above, are not set to welcome Ankara’s growing political weight in the region. However, this move needs highly skilled diplomatic agility coupled with a rare talent of predicting developments in an environment of declining political predictability. 

One should not either get overenthusiastic at some pro-Armenian moves by Western partners, such as the French Senate’s recent initiatives on sanctioning Baku for its recent aggression. Playing the anti-Turkish and anti-Russian game of bigger players with no real own agenda can be just as perilous as once were the futile expectations of global support amid a raging war, which we had in 2020.
 

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