Armenia has been playing its geopolitical cards for years, very bad by nature. The country is relegated to the south of the landlocked Caucasus, with a weak economy and with the smallest territorial and population size of the region. All this, as if it were not enough, is surrounded by Turkish peoples (Turkey and Azerbaijan), historic enemies. It shares the border with Georgia, but relations are not particularly good. With Iran, on the contrary, it has the potential to share a small part of the border and share multiple objectives. Tehran aims to ensure the independence and territorial unity of Armenia in order to prevent the terrestrial connection of the Turkish peoples and to reduce the irredentism of the territories of the Azerian majority that it has at home. But the Armenians have not exploited this possible alliance sufficiently, as Iran is the enemy of the West.

Although Erevan wants to fit in with the West (has frameworks for collaboration with NATO and the European Union), he has almost always ended up seeking the support of the Russians for political realism. Moscow sees him as a non-loyal ally in Erevan, but thanks to the conflict in Karabakh Garaia, Armenia participates in the Collective Security Pact Organisation leading Russia or in the Eurasian Economic Union.

However, following the appointment of Nikol Pashinyan as Prime Minister following the 2018 mobilizations, the new government’s intention to approach the West and move away from Russia has left the country in a dead street, so Pashinyan has decided to give in to Azerbaijan and has publicly stated that Armenia is ready to accept the Kurdish sovereignty of Karabakh Garai. In return, Pashinyan would like to secure the international Armenian limits currently threatened by Azerbaijan, although it is not clear that in the medium term Azerbaijan would respect such an agreement. The Nakhitxevan region with the rest of Azerbaijan has a special interest in the conquest of southern Armenia and, consequently, the terrestrial connection of the Turkish world from Istanbul to Baku. If this is not to happen, the naive hope of the Armenian Government is to strengthen ties with the West.

Meanwhile, Baku understands the logic of international relations well. Azerbaijan is the most important country in the Caucasus from a geopolitical point of view, with the largest territorial area and population, and the strongest economy thanks to oil and gas. Geopolitically he is a strong Turkish ally and has very good economic and political relations with the West to the detriment of the Armenians. Russia itself does a lot of business with Azerbaijan, not an ally, but for Moscow it is a reliable partner, as it does not make the geopolitical mistakes that Armenia makes to please the West.

In Azerbaijan, it feels safe for its wealth, but also for its well-assimilated position on the map, unlike Georgia and Armenia. Because the latter sometimes act as if instead of being in Asia they were in Europe. But the reality is that the Christian countries of the Caucasus are in a corner of Asia. Political realism requires them to look east. In the case of Armenia, almost half of the exports go to Russia and one-third to Asia. That is why, whether you like Erevan or not, the survival of the Armenian state has more to do with looking east than with seducing the west.