Regional geopolitics

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

In 1918 we are just what you are today.
Unfortunately nothing changed.

[Armynia]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Yeh Vrej its always Russia's fault....The things you complain most about ironically enough happened because of the Bolshevik revolution. You know who funded that revolution? You know who gave refuge and funding to its leaders? Who gave them arms? Why Russia left WW1? I will give you a hint..it was not Russians. You go ahead and try to drive that wedge Vrej but those of us who know history and have learned from it will fight you tooth and nail! The fact is that it is the west that has always brought us doom with their false promises and backstabbing yet you are ready to bend over yet one more time...I guess you like that kind of thing but most of us do not. Go ahead take your money from whatever antiarmenian source you get it from. I am happy to protect my people from the likes of you and will do it for free so long as I breath.
Armenia does need to follow her interests but you must have the power to do that and power is what she does not have much of. Vrej thinks that spiting on Russia and kicking them out will somehow allow us to further our interests. Unfortunately he does not say how this will help us pursue our quest for sovereignty. Ok so we kicked out Russia...then what? This is the main problem with the likes of Vrej and pretty much most of the antirussian protesters in Yerevan. Ok Russia is gone..now what? Is Armenia safer? Is Armenia economically better of? Is Armenia less isolated? Any objective observer will say no to all of these questions. If Russia leaves what is to stop Azeris and the Turks from launching wars on both fronts? Europe and USA have proven that they will not stop Turkey. With Russia gone what will stop the Turk from finishing the genocide? You think we can beat both Turkey and the Azeris at the same time by ourselves? You think Iran will save us? Vrej loves talking out of his arse but when it comes to reality you can see that he is nothing more then hot air. Yeh sure Armenia needs to pursue her interests whenever she can and so should every other country on earth...there is nothing new here. To pursue ones interest one needs to be strong enough to do it. Armenia can pursue some of her interests today but not all of them because she is far from being a strong country. Russia can pursue many more of her interests compared to Armenia because she is much stronger. These are simple facts of life. Armenia has demonstrated that she can Pursue some of her interests (Kharabagh war) and has also demonstrated her weaknesses(Iranian relations). Sure Russia in pursuing her interests limits Armenia in this case from pursuing her interests. This is simply the law of the jungle...strong vs weak. Sure I want Armenia to pursue her own interests all the time but this is not possible today because she is still very weak. Realizing one's limitations are just as important as realizing and seizing one's opportunities. I think on the international Level Armenia's leaders have indeed done all they could to pursue her interests within their abilities. There seem to be new opportunities opening up for Armenia now because of various geopolitical reasons and I have no doubts that her leaders will seize the opportunities that arise and will have to pass on some because they are simply not strong enough to seize those. I have always stated that Armenia must seize her opportunities when doing so does not threaten her survivability. Pursuing interests that are out of reach or that put the existence of the nation at risk is playing with fire. Some of us learned this from our tragic history and some of us are much too stubborn to let history(or anyone else) teach them anything.
I want people to realize some very important things about risk(I actually teach about risk taking in college). Taking risks is necessary some times but taking risks always means you have the possibility of loss. The more often you take risks the greater the chance of loss. We sit back today and gloat about our victory in Kharabagh but we forget that things were so bad at one point that our president was ready to surrender. We forget the generation that grew up on candle light and kerosene. When you take risks your success is not guaranteed and the risk of loss (for the types of risks we are discussing regarding Armenia) can be total. When you take risks you want to make sure that the possible reward is greater then the possible loss. While Armenia today faces some opportunities, they all come with some level of risk. Based on previous actions I believe the present government is effective and evaluating which risks are worth taking and which are not. I only wish they were as good at resolving domestic issues.

Good Job Haykakan!

None could ever write this much. Looks like you have an grade (A) in English, I mean grade 5 in Armenia

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Yeh Vrej------eve the present government is effective and evaluating which risks are worth taking and which are not. I only wish they were as good at resolving domestic issues.

Dumdum, 1 and unique phrase.
1 and unique .......

[Armynia]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Ay mart, zzvtzrir.
Hayasdane pokr erkir a.
Vor klukhed mi kitch kor dass, hasdad ge jaress megin, vor midum gam bnum texte dessel a...
Mi had zanki ko hamar....

Even in Armenian translation this makes no sense!

՝՝Այ՛՛ մարդ զզվցրիր.
Հայաստանը փոքր երկիրա.
Վոր Գլուխտ միքիչ քորես հաստատ գե ջարէս մեկին, վոր միտում գամ բնում տեղտ տեսելա...
Մի հատ զանգի քո համար....

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

In 1918 we are just what you are today.
Unfortunately nothing changed.

Thanks. That is what I have been telling all this time. But in 1918 we allied our selfs with west (England, France and U.S.) against communist Russia. And Turks, being very smart politicians, ataturk offered friendship with Lenin, thus making sure that Russia would not interfere(which at that time was immersed deep in civil war from all sides and needed delay Turkish and western alliance in order to keep turkey from entering deep into Caucasus). And also that superficial alliance would warn west about closing area off limits for them, if they kept turkey as a fallen enemy and isolated it. The choice was either support turkey or see that a powerful coomunist Russia/turkey allience can be formed. That trick worked very well. Besides, England and France were not gonna let old aliences go down the drain. After all WWI was just a small incident in Turkish policies, a sleep that cost it dearly, and thought good lessons.
And our allies did not swing even their fingers as turkey invaded and almost wiped us out.
On the contrary, England made sure that Georgia, another ally, which was more richer and better situated, got a big chunk from us, javakhq.
Things would not stop there... We pride ourself for Sardarabad, and rightfully so. But next 6-10 years with the level of support that turkey got from Europe and US, which enabled turkey to defeat 80 years old (not months old) and much bigger than us Greece, who was winning the war up until that moment, turks would see us finished off completely.
Next was gonna be us and we were gonna be finished for good. Because west saw that we could not resist turkey and Russia at all. Better if turkey got all first so communist Russia could not have gotten any territory there.
West had never attempted to danger relations with turkey for tiny Armenia. Why would they? But it bothered them that we were so weak and always susceptible in Russian domination because we needed it to survive. There was no possibility for us to exist next to turkey by our selfs.
Actually turkey would help eliminating that Russia's opportunity. It was supposed ito have eliminated Armenian headache already before that in past 30 years.
Wilsonian armenia was just a slip in policies 4 years before(who knew what direction Turks would turn after 1918-20?).
So right after ending civil war Russia saw that there was not a moment to loose in grabbing what was still possible to grab, before turkey, with the help of allies could, as it was becoming abvious that ataturk's blef would not last for long, turkey was coming out of WWI shock.
So, communist Russia ended up saving what's left over of as Armenia for itself. That left over became today's republic.
That's that. Things have not changed much.
Anybody can go and dig in history and see this all.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Thanks. That is wha///////////and see this all.

My dear,
I am very disapointed.
This unreadable text is a mixture of soviet era classical mic/mac, tending to hide the truth in the shadow or rewritten history, only destined to blind and hopeless russophile armenian masses...
Usually you do a better job..
Nevertheless, I have no time to proof established facts, any historian more or less honest will tell you.
Something I am not, neither pretended to. And from the way you react, I am certain you are not neither.
Any historian I have met in modern Armenia (nuance is important, since same people during soviet era usually sang your song, for evident reasons), beginning from the director Mr Ashod Melkonyan, himself a Javakhktzi, would tell you enough, to reach sickness....
You just need to open eyes, and accept facts, however unpleasant.
If ever you meet Mr Melkonyan, since he makes Lektzias very regularly all over the Diaspora, usually on Javakhk matters...., or probably any honest historian, you will have your dose.

For me, since I will not waste time more on this already well established fact, I will just copy/paste wikipedia, with all reserves on that source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Turkey_relations#Turkey_and_the_Soviet_Union

"Turkey and the Soviet Union[edit]
Main article: Turkey–Soviet Union relations
The Ottoman government was party to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed between the bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers on March 3, 1918; the treaty became obsolete later the same year. Russian bolsheviks and the Soviet government headed by Vladimir Lenin, who emerged victorious from the Russian Civil War by 1921, viewed the Turkish revolutionary (national) movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal as friendly, and Lenin's government abdicated the traditional claims of the Russian Empire to the territories of Western Armenia and the Straits. The Soviet supply of gold and armaments to the Kemalists in 1920–1922 was a key factor in the latter's successful grab of power in an Ottoman Empire defeated by the Triple Entente and their victory in the Armenian campaign and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22).[2]


Russian Embassy in Istanbul. Ottoman postcard
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the second state to formally recognize the Kemalist government of Turkey with the Treaty of Moscow signed on 16 March 1921 between the RSFSR's Lenin government and the government of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (the Sultanate was still nominally in existence). Under the Treaty of Moscow,[3] the two governments undertook to establish friendly relations between the countries; Article VI of the Treaty declared all the treaties theretofore concluded between Russia and Turkey to be null and void. The Treaty of Moscow was followed by an identical Treaty of Kars signed in October 1921 by the Kemalists with Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan and Soviet Georgia, which formed part of the Soviet Union after the December 1922 Union Treaty.

The first serious tensions in the countries' bilateral relations emerged during the negatiations that led to the signing of the Montreux Convention in July 1936, whereunder Turkey regained control over the Straits which it was allowed to remilitarize.[4]

While Turkey officially remained neutral during World War II until 23 February 1945, the USSR viewed Turkey's continued relationship with Germany, whose warships were allowed passage through the Straits,[5] as inimical to itself.[5] On 19 March 1945, the USSR's Foreign Minister Molotov advised Turkey's ambassador in Moscow that the USSR was unilaterally withdrawing from the 1925 Non-Aggression pact;[6] the decision was explained by asserting that "due to the deep changes that had occurred especially during World War II" the treaty did not cohere with "the new situation and needed serious improvement."[7] The Turkish government was subsequently informed by Molotov that in addition to bases in the Straits, the Soviet Union also claimed a part of eastern Turkey, which was assumed to refer to the districts of Kars, Artvin and Ardahan, which the Russian Empire (and the short-lived Democratic Republic of Armenia) had held between 1878 and 1921.[8]

At the Potsdam Conference (July 1945), Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin demanded a revision of the Montreux Convention; the Soviet demand that the USSR should be allowed to join in the defence of the Straits was rejected by Turkey, with the backing of the West.[8] In March 1947, with the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine, the US underwrote the frontiers of Turkey (as well as Greece) and the continued existence of non-communist governments in the two countries.[8] Turkey to sought aid from the United States and joined NATO in 1952. The USSR and Turkey were in different camps during the Korean War and throughout the Cold War."

------

Early cooperation with Turkish revolutionaries[edit]
The Ottoman government was party to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed between the Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers on March 3, 1918; the treaty became obsolete later the same year. Russian Bolsheviks and the Soviet government headed by Vladimir Lenin, who emerged victorious from the Russian Civil War by 1921, viewed the Turkish revolutionary (national) movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal as congenial to their ideological and geopolitical aspirations. The Lenin government abdicated the traditional claims of the Russian Empire to the territories of Western Armenia and the Turkish Straits.

The Soviet supply of gold and armaments to the Kemalists in 1920–1922 was a key factor in the latter's successful grab of power in an Ottoman Empire defeated by the Triple Entente and their victory in the Armenian campaign and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922).[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union%E2%80%93Turkey_relations#cite_note-1

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

My dear,
I am very disapointed.
This unreadable text is a mixture of soviet era classical mic/mac, tending to hide the truth in the shadow or rewritten history, only destined to blind and hopeless russophile armenian masses...
Usually you do a better job..
Nevertheless, I have no time to proof established facts, any historian more or less honest will tell you.
Something I am not, neither pretended to. And from the way you react, I am certain you are not neither.
Any historian I have met in modern Armenia (nuance is important, since same people during soviet era usually sang your song, for evident reasons), beginning from the director Mr Ashod Melkonyan, himself a Javakhktzi, would tell you enough, to reach sickness....
You just need to open eyes, and accept facts, however unpleasant.
If ever you meet Mr Melkonyan, since he makes Lektzias very regularly all over the Diaspora, usually on Javakhk matters...., or probably any honest historian, you will have your dose.

For me, since I will not waste time more on this already well established fact, I will just copy/paste wikipedia, with all reserves on that source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Turkey_relations#Turkey_and_the_Soviet_Union

"Turkey and the Soviet Union[edit]
Main article: Turkey–Soviet Union relations
The Ottoman government was party to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed between the bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers on March 3, 1918; the treaty became obsolete later the same year. Russian bolsheviks and the Soviet government headed by Vladimir Lenin, who emerged victorious from the Russian Civil War by 1921, viewed the Turkish revolutionary (national) movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal as friendly, and Lenin's government abdicated the traditional claims of the Russian Empire to the territories of Western Armenia and the Straits. The Soviet supply of gold and armaments to the Kemalists in 1920–1922 was a key factor in the latter's successful grab of power in an Ottoman Empire defeated by the Triple Entente and their victory in the Armenian campaign and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22).[2]


Russian Embassy in Istanbul. Ottoman postcard
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the second state to formally recognize the Kemalist government of Turkey with the Treaty of Moscow signed on 16 March 1921 between the RSFSR's Lenin government and the government of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (the Sultanate was still nominally in existence). Under the Treaty of Moscow,[3] the two governments undertook to establish friendly relations between the countries; Article VI of the Treaty declared all the treaties theretofore concluded between Russia and Turkey to be null and void. The Treaty of Moscow was followed by an identical Treaty of Kars signed in October 1921 by the Kemalists with Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan and Soviet Georgia, which formed part of the Soviet Union after the December 1922 Union Treaty.

The first serious tensions in the countries' bilateral relations emerged during the negatiations that led to the signing of the Montreux Convention in July 1936, whereunder Turkey regained control over the Straits which it was allowed to remilitarize.[4]

While Turkey officially remained neutral during World War II until 23 February 1945, the USSR viewed Turkey's continued relationship with Germany, whose warships were allowed passage through the Straits,[5] as inimical to itself.[5] On 19 March 1945, the USSR's Foreign Minister Molotov advised Turkey's ambassador in Moscow that the USSR was unilaterally withdrawing from the 1925 Non-Aggression pact;[6] the decision was explained by asserting that "due to the deep changes that had occurred especially during World War II" the treaty did not cohere with "the new situation and needed serious improvement."[7] The Turkish government was subsequently informed by Molotov that in addition to bases in the Straits, the Soviet Union also claimed a part of eastern Turkey, which was assumed to refer to the districts of Kars, Artvin and Ardahan, which the Russian Empire (and the short-lived Democratic Republic of Armenia) had held between 1878 and 1921.[8]

At the Potsdam Conference (July 1945), Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin demanded a revision of the Montreux Convention; the Soviet demand that the USSR should be allowed to join in the defence of the Straits was rejected by Turkey, with the backing of the West.[8] In March 1947, with the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine, the US underwrote the frontiers of Turkey (as well as Greece) and the continued existence of non-communist governments in the two countries.[8] Turkey to sought aid from the United States and joined NATO in 1952. The USSR and Turkey were in different camps during the Korean War and throughout the Cold War."

------

Early cooperation with Turkish revolutionaries[edit]
The Ottoman government was party to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed between the Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers on March 3, 1918; the treaty became obsolete later the same year. Russian Bolsheviks and the Soviet government headed by Vladimir Lenin, who emerged victorious from the Russian Civil War by 1921, viewed the Turkish revolutionary (national) movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal as congenial to their ideological and geopolitical aspirations. The Lenin government abdicated the traditional claims of the Russian Empire to the territories of Western Armenia and the Turkish Straits.

The Soviet supply of gold and armaments to the Kemalists in 1920–1922 was a key factor in the latter's successful grab of power in an Ottoman Empire defeated by the Triple Entente and their victory in the Armenian campaign and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922).[1]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet...ns#cite_note-1

Lol. I knew that you would bring this article from Wikipedia.

In 1918 we are just what you are today.
Unfortunately nothing changed.

Thanks. That is what I have been telling all this time. But in 1918 we allied our selfs with west (England, France and U.S.) against communist Russia. And Turks, being very smart politicians, ataturk offered friendship with Lenin, thus making sure that Russia would not interfere(which at that time was immersed deep in civil war from all sides and needed delay Turkish and western alliance in order to keep turkey from entering deep into Caucasus). And also that superficial alliance would warn west about closing area off limits for them, if they kept turkey as a fallen enemy and isolated it. The choice was either support turkey or see that a powerful coomunist Russia/turkey allience can be formed. That trick worked very well. Besides, England and France were not gonna let old aliences go down the drain. After all WWI was just a small incident in Turkish policies, a sleep that cost it dearly, and thought good lessons.
And our allies did not swing even their fingers as turkey invaded and almost wiped us out.
On the contrary, England made sure that Georgia, another ally, which was more richer and better situated, got a big chunk from us, javakhq.
Things would not stop there... We pride ourself for Sardarabad, and rightfully so. But next 6-10 years with the level of support that turkey got from Europe and US, which enabled turkey to defeat 80 years old (not months old) and much bigger than us Greece, who was winning the war up until that moment, turks would see us finished off completely.
Next was gonna be us and we were gonna be finished for good. Because west saw that we could not resist turkey and Russia at all. Better if turkey got all first so communist Russia could not have gotten any territory there.
West had never attempted to danger relations with turkey for tiny Armenia. Why would they? But it bothered them that we were so weak and always susceptible in Russian domination because we needed it to survive. There was no possibility for us to exist next to turkey by our selfs.
Actually turkey would help eliminating that Russia's opportunity. It was supposed ito have eliminated Armenian headache already before that in past 30 years.
Wilsonian armenia was just a slip in policies 4 years before(who knew what direction Turks would turn after 1918-20?).
So right after ending civil war Russia saw that there was not a moment to loose in grabbing what was still possible to grab, before turkey, with the help of allies could, as it was becoming abvious that ataturk's blef would not last for long, turkey was coming out of WWI shock.
So, communist Russia ended up saving what's left over of as Armenia for itself. That left over became today's republic.
That's that. Things have not changed much.
Anybody can go and dig in history and see this all.



Tell me where do I talk contrary to the Wikipedia article.
Britain backstabbing Greece just before the battle of Sakaria by cutting ammunition supplies and refusing to continue using British ships carrying them between Greek and Turkish ports? While 2 years before Lloyd George had promised Greeks an unconditional support in war and territories? (Just like they promised us their support in war with turkey). Or In the backdoors in Brest litovsk where western entane was already burgaining with Ataturk on Greeks and Armenians.
This article clearly shows that had not we believed in entente but negotiated with Bolsheviks, much less lead in antibolshevik crusade, things would have been different.
You called the Lenin ataturk treaty saving turkey, but look deeper. I state above they grabbed what they had to. They were both enemies with Armenian republic.
But our triple allies, who were victors in WWI and had committed hundreds of thousands of troops against Ottoman turkey, suddenly stood by.
We had already lost Kars and the rest. For Lenin just upped the ante, later to be reversed. And Turks took advantage of both sides. That is what I have been talking about.
Try to get under wests skirt now and see what will happen!!!
Don't you think that if our leaders clearly saw the false in allience with entane then it would be abvious that the only direction too look would be towards Moscow, that devil Lenin?(and I mean it but for lots of other reasons too)? Because that war was existential.
Again, if not Bolshevik army,("liberating", I have to put in this way so you don't go crazy on me) turkey would finish us off within next 5 years. Because you see kremlins help to turkey, but I see western help and support that continues till today. Moscow's ended the moment soviet Armenia was declared. Sad facts? Appalling? But true.
You want to kick Russia till to Volgograd? Do it. With what? With whose help? Wests? Nato's
See that they don't stop short and if they do, Armenia will be gone to history.
Rusdiphile you say...
Excuse me if I don't agree with your tall tales of US isolating turkey and Russia giving away Artsakh.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Lol. I knew that you would brin //////? Wests? Nato's
See that they don't stop short and if they do, Armenia will be gone to history.
Rusdiphile you say...
Excuse me if I don't agree with your tall tales of US isolating turkey and Russia giving away Artsakh.

1- We did not chose Europe against Russia. That's a falsification of history.
It is Russia who abandoned us to our fate, and retreated out of Kavkaz.
We just had no other option.
We even refused to declare independence, it was imposed on us by turks and georgians!!!

2- Who in 1918 his right mind would have chosed a bunch of criminal bolsheviks, who were preaching brotherhood of all peoples, that is with turks? History is easy to falsify in retrospect. This is chekist propaganda made for Armenians, during Stalin era, to justify Brest-Litovk, Maskwa and Kars. Nothing more.

3- I never read on the internet about these events. Never needed to. And as I said, I had no intention to search proofs for facts well established. I puted the first thing it came....
Whether it pleases you or not, facts remain facts. Lenin and Russia saved modern Turkey . Both sides had an interest, for evident reasons, to disguise these facts from their masses as early as during WWII. Nevertheless, it remains a well known and established fact, which has an interest only for us.
So Armenian historians are pretty good on that matter, with very few undisclosed archives for them.
Just find any, and he will tell you same thing, even if necessary behind closed doors, if he is afraid from his post.

4- I do not argue about Zmyrnia. These are known facts, but at that time Lenin already had saved Kemal, and the brits were just being bargained by an already victorious Kemal. It is a total other story, even if organically related. Zmyrnia is the consequence of russian saving hand....

5- It is typical slave mentality, to think, that if you are a good slave, your master will treat well. Never. Never with Turks, never with Russians. Perhaps elswhere, but never with the kind of empires we had to obey. So being probolshevik, would have saved us nothing, even the contrary. Thue russians would have sacrificed us just as well, if not more... remind why Zankezur was not incorporated into azerbaijan, as was the initial russian plan?

[Armynia]

Re: Regional geopolitics

It is typical slave mentality, to think, that if you are a good slave, your master will treat well. Never. Never with Turks, never with Russians.

Great!

And also never with the West.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics