Armenia Is an Orphaned Client State

Armenia had a pro-west government, but it received no support, the UN SC did not even issue any resolutions, and western media practically buried the news of the war because it happened during the US elections. The people of NK see the russians as guarantors of their safety (rightly so). Meanwhile a NATO country (Turkey) provided major support to AZ, including mercenaries from syria.

Pity that this is also flagged, like most articles about the war (presumably by online mobs). It's an important conflict that the west should know about.

> That’s the kind of thing they should have put front and centre, because it completely changes the narrative.

Does it? I think that the heuristics about an occupier being bad are less useful than usual. The territory was occupied just after both countries gained independence from the USSR, because the arbitrarily drawn borders did not reflect the ethnic composition of the countries and there were worries among the Armenians about ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan.

Obviously, it's important historical context, but there's a huge amount of important historical context, such as the Armenian genocide, atrocities committed by both sides in the 1990s etc., which they also don't put front and centre, because it's simply not an article about the historical context.

If China invaded and occupied Taiwan, would you discount an article writing about the situation in Taiwan, just because it did not focus on the fact that officially Taiwan is not an independent country?

> Armenia Is an Orphaned Client State

Of course, it is. My answer below is an attempt to explain why it is an orphaned state. It has been so since its formation.

During WWI, Armenian separatists in the Ottoman empire were tools used by Nicholas II to open an Eastern from to keep the Ottoman forces busy there so the British and their allies could take the straits and İstanbul and keep him in power. During the initial stages of the war, incompetence had already caused close to 100,000 Ottoman soldiers to be lost on the Eastern front[1]. The strategy of mobilizing a rebellion behind the lines was a smart one and Nicholas II employed it. The Ottoman Empire had been in decline for over 200 years at that time, and the western reaches of the empire had been shrinking through revolutions and rebellions.

Just like the Greeks and others, there were Armenians who had been wanting to break from the Ottoman Empire and had been working towards establishing their own state for many years. E.g., see Arshak Gavafian[2]:

> The battle of Sarikamish, which the British press boomed as an enormous Russian success, was absolutely won by the courage and determination of the Armenian soldiers in the Russian army, and by the military genius of Arshak Gavafian (familiarly known as Keri), whose gallant life was lost in the battle of Rowanduz, where he inflicted another heavy defeat on the Turks and saved the situation. If it were not for Keri and Armenian soldiers, the Sarikamish battle would have been lost, and the Turkish army would have reached Tiflis. - Diana Abgar,

Despite the smartness of the strategy, the Allies failed at get through Gallipoli and reach İstanbul. The Russian empire fell to the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks were not fond of any friends of the Tsar.

Sure, later the Ottoman Empire fell as well[3]. But, then a group of Turks organized and fought a war of independence and changed the terms of the Sevres treaty[4]. During that war, the USSR was friendly with the revolutionaries. That meant the Armenians who were now in de facto Soviet territory did not have an ally to help them take land what they had thought they had been granted to them in Sevres[5]. They did not enjoy great support with the Soviet regime as they had been allied with the countries who had been trying to help Nicholas II stay in power and crush the Bolsheviks.

The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was their chosen tool of control. Their interest was in preventing rebellions.

The ASSR controlled nothing strategic. While Turkish presence in Anatolia had always been an obstacle on the path of the Russian Empire.

After WWII, Stalin considered using the Armenians to fell the Turkish Republic to ensure Soviet dominance in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. However, until 2008, U.S. administrations put priority on containing Soviet expansion, decided to "support" Turkey as a roadblock to Soviet expansion. As one of the consequences, ASSR remained a backwater, not having access to or controlling anything strategic. In Turkey, anything that harms the Armenian state is considered "good policy" regardless of political affiliation.

After the fall of the USSR, they tried to change this with the Karabağ campaign. The problem is, in a world with "big" uncertainties, no major players are interested in the details of one's cause. There doesn't seem to be anyone who is interested in the consequences of a strong Armenian state. Therefore, for the near future, their efforts on the battlefield are unlikely to succeed.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sarikamish

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_(fedayi)

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_S%C3%A8vres

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lausanne

[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union%E2%80%93Turkey_re...