Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

[armnuke]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

[burjuin]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

[Haykakan]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Unfortunate that you believed in Armenia/Russia brotherly alliance. Lots of us know that this idea has been forced upon us and most of the times contradicted by Russia itself for past 200 years.
But still, most of us were calculating on balanced mutual interests and subsequently behavior between us. That the prowest activists have been pushing an anti Russian feelings amongst us is being resisted by simple logic that there seem not any benefit possible from seeing Russia as an enemy. On the contrary, a great harm.
Meanwhile, we hope, that Russia balances her position in Caucasus in regards to us in our benefit.
This sometimes looks happening and sometimes not.
So we look, at what factors are affecting this behavior and how can we influence it?
No matter how you look at it, eventually you end up seing the true problems in Armenia/Russia relations inside us, in Armenia mostly. In our ruling government and opposition's immaturity (and being financed from abroad, instead of being grass roots).
One devastating factor that stands out is our government/oligarchic successfull campigne in making synonymous their hold in power with being pro Russian and guaranteeing our relation for Armenian and Russian audience.
And our opposition on the other hand, seems propagating anti Russian views and beliefs in Russia, that only current leadership will keep Armenia in Russian circle.
But for Russia in reality it does not matter who is in power in Armenia, as long as the country stays in Russian sphere.
If you look in past 10-15 years, several times Russia has tried to distance itself from Armenia's domestic turmoils because it is not a good idea to tie your political prospects up in one fraction of a country.
But, as soon as trouble comes up for our government, it runs to kiss Kremlin's butt and somehow most stupidly our oppositions main message becomes a call for choice between Russia and west.
This is very frightening for Kremlin. Immediately, it sees the need to protect the ruling government in Armenia against opposition.
Very shrewdly our oligarchs have made Russians believe that only they are the best defenses of Russian interests not only in Armenia but in region.
But in reality they are ready to give up owner ship of the last rock in Armenia to Russians as long as they stay in their power. Otherwise they can be toppled in days.
The example of my concept is the Electric Yerevan protests. At the beginning Moscow started to panic that this was just another pro west Orange Revolution attempt.
But soon, when it became abvious that this was against corruption, kremlin was more willing to let Russia controlled electric company and protesters to get a compromicse.
Bottom line.
Russia has interests, but current leadership has led Armenia into low lying subject only position in that interest, because of self preserving need of Russian sponsorship.
But had our government been less corrupt and more legitimate, we could have more balanced relation with Russia, as both countries have the natural geopolitic factors to be allies.

I don't know how, but in order for government change, our opposition has to separate today's rulers from image of prorussian guarantors.
Kremlin knows very well that only true interests our oligarchs have is the power and money.
Ukrainian oligarchs thought bitter lessons to Russians in this.
But our oligarchs have successfully embedded in Kremlin psicho that any social political change in Armenia leads to prowest turn about.

You are giving the oligarchs too much credit here. Russian fears are very justified but not because of what the olis do. It was the coupes by the west of Ukraine and Georgia that scare Russia. The unfortunate fact is that any instability can indeed be used to hijack the popular movement to serve the interests of others. This is why stability is preferred by Russia. I have long argued that the demented system of capitalism is wrong for people including us. Armenia has a similar version of capitalism that is dominating USA today, it is called crony capitalism. The problem with capitalism is it concentrates almost all the wealth into the hands of the very few. It is very unfortunate that the former soviet states have all fallen victim to this. Non of this "isms" work on their own. It really is funny to me as some people praise capitalism yet at the same time they complain of inequality and corruption. Once this sort of capitalism takes hold it will not let go and will drag the country down. National interest becomes a moot point as only the interests of the rich matter. The conditions in Armenia will not change so long as this system is in place but changing it also involves some of the risks mentioned earlier.

[arakeretzig]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Another difference between Armenia and Azerbaijan: when an Azeri civilian crosses the border, the Armenians repatriate/send that individual back home quickly...when an Armenian crosses the line, the Azeri torture and kill that person.


https://www.icrc.org/en/document/arm...en-repatriated

Unfortunately, we are humane to our barbaric enemy. This will be our eventual fall because azeris dont fear us anymore. But hey, atleast we are humane, right?

[armnuke]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

[arakeretzig]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Their idea of a "good armenian" is a dead armenian, or atleast one who follows orders and barks, and preferably turkified, because armenians are intrinsically anti-turkic because they never assimilated.

[burjuin]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Առաջնագծի զինվորները

[Azad]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

They are so messed up and obsessed with Armenia/Armenians. Like the Sultan in the East uses Armenia/Armenians to shift his problems, now the Sultan on the West is doing the same. The "good" Armenian is the submissive betch to these neanderthals.

[armnuke]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

***Very childish***

Russia Unhappy With Armenian Statue

Russia criticized Armenia on Friday for erecting a statue in Yerevan of an Armenian nationalist statesman who fought against the Bolsheviks and later collaborated with Nazi Germany.

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Garegin Nzhdeh’s statue is “not compatible with the memory of heroes” of World War II, among them many Armenians. The ruling Republican Party of Armenia dismissed the criticism.

Born in the Russian Empire in 1886, Nzhdeh became an Armenian nationalist militant at a young age and spent several years in Russian prisons as a result. He was pardoned by the Russian authorities before commanding one of the Armenian volunteer units that fought the Ottoman Turkish army alongside Russian troops during World War War I.

Nzhdeh went on to become one of the prominent military leaders of an independent Armenian republic formed in 1918 following the Bolshevik revolution. In late 1920, he mounted armed resistance against the republic’s takeover by Bolshevik Russia in Zangezur, a mountainous region in what is now southeastern Armenia. Nzhdeh and his supporters ended the resistance and fled to neighboring Persia in July 1921 after receiving assurances that the region will not be incorporated into Soviet Azerbaijan.

Nzhdeh was one of several exiled Armenian leaders who pledged allegiance to Nazi Germany in 1942 with the stated aim of saving Soviet Armenia from a possible Turkish invasion after what they expected to be a Soviet defeat by the Third Reich. Their “Armenian national council” cobbled together several battalions mainly comprising Armenian prisoners of war from the Red Army. The so-called Armenian Legion never played a major role in the Wehrmacht’s military operations, however.

Nzhdeh surrendered to advancing Red Army divisions in Bulgaria in 1944 after reportedly offering Josef Stalin to mobilize Armenians for a Soviet assault on Turkey. In 1948, a Soviet court sentenced him to 25 years in prison on charges that mainly stemmed from his “counterrevolutionary” activities in 1920-1921, rather than collaboration with Nazi Germany. He died in a Soviet prison in 1955.

Nzhdeh was rehabilitated in Armenia after the republic’s last Communist government was removed from power in 1990. The first post-Communist Armenian government named a square and metro station in Yerevan after him in the following years.

Nzhdeh is widely credited with preserving Armenian control over Zangezur, a strategic region bordering Iran. He is also revered by many in the country as the founder of a new brand of Armenian nationalism that emerged in the 1930s.

His Tseghakron ideology put the emphasis on armed self-defense, military organization and self-reliance. The ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) has espoused it throughout its existence.

http://www.azatutyun.mobi/a/27791223.html

[Hakob]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

You are giving the oligarchs too much credit here. Russian fears are very justified but not because of what the olis do. It was the coupes by the west of Ukraine and Georgia that scare Russia. The unfortunate fact is that any instability can indeed be used to hijack the popular movement to serve the interests of others. This is why stability is preferred by Russia. I have long argued that the demented system of capitalism is wrong for people including us. Armenia has a similar version of capitalism that is dominating USA today, it is called crony capitalism. The problem with capitalism is it concentrates almost all the wealth into the hands of the very few. It is very unfortunate that the former soviet states have all fallen victim to this. Non of this "isms" work on their own. It really is funny to me as some people praise capitalism yet at the same time they complain of inequality and corruption. Once this sort of capitalism takes hold it will not let go and will drag the country down. National interest becomes a moot point as only the interests of the rich matter. The conditions in Armenia will not change so long as this system is in place but changing it also involves some of the risks mentioned earlier.

It is not a credit to oligarchs. They are doing whatever is in the interest of their power hold. The'e doing only what they are capable of.
The problem is mainly with opposition, that cannot convince neither Armenian people nor Russians that their activity is not about western sponsored putsch but fight against corruption.
Again the matter is not about capitalist or whatever system. This corruption was there in soviet times too.
In order to establish somehow fare system for majority, opposition has to focus on corruption, assemble healthy national concensus and force government change. Russians, like others, are watching how much our or any government represents its people. Corrupt government opens doors to manipulations that do not represent people.
As long as we do not have a government that functions on popular anti corruption ideology platform, it does not matter what system you adapt.
You may ask how it's possible to create such a government?
I don't know, how exactly. But I know, we cannot wait for Artsakh problem or Armenia's security to fall in such state that we have to act. It may be too late.
That is why fiew weeks ago I was talking about one possibility. A military putch.
Russia will not stand against that change because of ties to our military.