EW: "But there is a long way to go, and the brutal reality is that Azerbaijan is strong and Armenia is weak and lacking allies. Many Armenians expect a fresh assault some time in 2025, perhaps the spring, once Baku has successfully buttered up the international community with lucrative public relations contracts and phoney climate conferences – and when that happens the West, and especially Britain, will not speak a word."
Yes. Exactly. Armenia's leadership (I cannot comment on the population) is stupid. It alienated its one natural ally/protector (Russia), and it's relying on the West to help. Yeah, well, that would be like the Basques relying on China to help them. It won't, it can't, and it has no reason to. If you are a tiny country like Armenia, surrounded by far more powerful countries, then you look for at least one ally in your neighborhood and you hold on to it for dear life. If you don't do that, then don't be surprised if you find yourself no longer existing.
"This leaves Armenia only with Iran and France, which also has a large Armenian diaspora and has historically seen itself as guardian of the region’s Christians. "
It's largely forgotten today that there was an actual Armenian polity around Tarsus in the High Middle Ages that imitated the (largely French) Crusader States.
"This language, and the country’s approach to the past, is important. It was reading about the mass murder of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians that Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin conceptualised the idea of genocide"
Intriguing. I was aware the word "genocide " was conceived in the midst of WWII and the Holocaust but didn't know it was conceived with the recent Ottoman atrocities in mind.
As someone who has very little time for performative statesmanship and interference in the affairs of Sovereign States beyond our control and therefore beyond our aid I am nonetheless routinely toubled, in my own small way, by the fate of Armenia.
It was a central question of British Near Eastern Policy in the 19th Century, as we know. Both Gladstone and Palmerston had to wrestle with Proteus over it when we actually had "the ships, the men, and the the money too", as the old song goes, with which to actually make an material difference.
in the second decade of the 21st century Mr David Lammy now sits in Gladstone's chair while the Meditterannean Fleet was disbanded in 1967.
Gestures of support, without material aid, in that part of the world have historically led not to positive change but to heavier yokes and scorpion whips for defenceless minorities.
All I can say it is that it is yet another corner of the world where we are, as it were, encountering as a darkling plain the misintepreted movements and reverberaions of our own historic foreign policy.
As far as His Majesty's Government speaking for Armenia goes, I would first want to feel confident that someone, somwhere in His Majesty's Foreign office understood Armenian - or Turkish for that matter.
It was always British policy to maintain the Ottoman Empire, because Britain was threatened by Russia. While we did force some reforms on them, I feel like this wasn't ideal for the region's minorities ultimately.
Palmerston was a realist in the 19th Century in a way that Woodrow Wison wasn't in the 20th. He knew that there is no such thing, in the real world, as the "autonomy of small nations" and that someone would dominate Armenia unless Britain made them a client state - which she was in no position to do.
An Armenia independent of Turkey would simply have become a vassall of Russia. Not a pleasant prospect in the late 1860s.
So Palmerston worked doggedly for reform of the Ottoman system from wthin. And was remarkably succesful, up to a point. The Tanzimat period of British backed reform in the Ottoman Empire was an extraordinary boon to the minorities and included the Armenian National Constitution of 1863.
The Armenian Genocide was perhaps as much a response to the failure and collapse of Western diplomacy as a result of The Great Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878 as it was an atavisitc flaring of Turkish chauvinism.
But it's hard to speak as an outsider to the story. No doubt those who fought so bravely in the Bulgarian Serbian and Romanian uprisings would have questioned the reality of the reforms. However they would also be among the first to equivocate over the beningity of the Russian influence.
I think you have forgotten another supporter of Azerbaijan called Ukraine. After all, Nagorno-Karabakh was part of the Azerbaijani SSR and so Artsakh’s separation was in direct violation of the “borders of 1991” principle, which, for obvious reasons, the Ukrainians hold very dear. So yeah, there is no difference between the events of 2014 and the Karabakh wars in the 1990s as far as Ukraine is concerned. And, of course, they view the recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan through the lens of their own dreams to restore their borders the way they were before 2014.
Lots of things I don’t know but ought to in here. Also, that their morality is not real only makes more outrageous their tedious invocation of it to disenfranchise, delegitimise and impoverish indigenous Britain with their various mad pet projects.
The most startling thing about this piece is that David Lammy has a Substack.
None of this would be quite so galling if British politicians weren't constantly paying lip service to the need for us to act morally. Leftist politicians are especially guilty of this sickening hypocricy.
There is something about this region that triggers something in my ancestral brain in the same way that the sights and smells of the Yorvik Centre in York did. I can almost imagine trailing a slightly eastern-looking mum around from kitchen to darkened living room, the cramped house full of old eastern furniture and everything penetrated with the reassuring smells of centuries of cooking and human habitation. The picky me of today wouldn't necessarily want to live in a house that smelt of pickled vegetables and grandma but then I'm already halfway towards living in an anticeptic human-free bubble.
Sad, but predictable. For all of Ireland's bumptious finger wagging over various other IR issues the government here will simply repeat the weasel phrase 'were not in a position to adjudicate'.
EW: "But there is a long way to go, and the brutal reality is that Azerbaijan is strong and Armenia is weak and lacking allies. Many Armenians expect a fresh assault some time in 2025, perhaps the spring, once Baku has successfully buttered up the international community with lucrative public relations contracts and phoney climate conferences – and when that happens the West, and especially Britain, will not speak a word."
Yes. Exactly. Armenia's leadership (I cannot comment on the population) is stupid. It alienated its one natural ally/protector (Russia), and it's relying on the West to help. Yeah, well, that would be like the Basques relying on China to help them. It won't, it can't, and it has no reason to. If you are a tiny country like Armenia, surrounded by far more powerful countries, then you look for at least one ally in your neighborhood and you hold on to it for dear life. If you don't do that, then don't be surprised if you find yourself no longer existing.
Russia did nothing for Armenia in the 2020 war. I'm not surprised that they turned to the West after that.
"This leaves Armenia only with Iran and France, which also has a large Armenian diaspora and has historically seen itself as guardian of the region’s Christians. "
It's largely forgotten today that there was an actual Armenian polity around Tarsus in the High Middle Ages that imitated the (largely French) Crusader States.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Kingdom_of_Cilicia
"This language, and the country’s approach to the past, is important. It was reading about the mass murder of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians that Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin conceptualised the idea of genocide"
Intriguing. I was aware the word "genocide " was conceived in the midst of WWII and the Holocaust but didn't know it was conceived with the recent Ottoman atrocities in mind.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/genocide#etymonline_v_6004
As someone who has very little time for performative statesmanship and interference in the affairs of Sovereign States beyond our control and therefore beyond our aid I am nonetheless routinely toubled, in my own small way, by the fate of Armenia.
It was a central question of British Near Eastern Policy in the 19th Century, as we know. Both Gladstone and Palmerston had to wrestle with Proteus over it when we actually had "the ships, the men, and the the money too", as the old song goes, with which to actually make an material difference.
in the second decade of the 21st century Mr David Lammy now sits in Gladstone's chair while the Meditterannean Fleet was disbanded in 1967.
Gestures of support, without material aid, in that part of the world have historically led not to positive change but to heavier yokes and scorpion whips for defenceless minorities.
All I can say it is that it is yet another corner of the world where we are, as it were, encountering as a darkling plain the misintepreted movements and reverberaions of our own historic foreign policy.
As far as His Majesty's Government speaking for Armenia goes, I would first want to feel confident that someone, somwhere in His Majesty's Foreign office understood Armenian - or Turkish for that matter.
It was always British policy to maintain the Ottoman Empire, because Britain was threatened by Russia. While we did force some reforms on them, I feel like this wasn't ideal for the region's minorities ultimately.
Palmerston was a realist in the 19th Century in a way that Woodrow Wison wasn't in the 20th. He knew that there is no such thing, in the real world, as the "autonomy of small nations" and that someone would dominate Armenia unless Britain made them a client state - which she was in no position to do.
An Armenia independent of Turkey would simply have become a vassall of Russia. Not a pleasant prospect in the late 1860s.
So Palmerston worked doggedly for reform of the Ottoman system from wthin. And was remarkably succesful, up to a point. The Tanzimat period of British backed reform in the Ottoman Empire was an extraordinary boon to the minorities and included the Armenian National Constitution of 1863.
The Armenian Genocide was perhaps as much a response to the failure and collapse of Western diplomacy as a result of The Great Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878 as it was an atavisitc flaring of Turkish chauvinism.
But it's hard to speak as an outsider to the story. No doubt those who fought so bravely in the Bulgarian Serbian and Romanian uprisings would have questioned the reality of the reforms. However they would also be among the first to equivocate over the beningity of the Russian influence.
“Always” meaning in the 19th century. The Dardanelles and Gallipoli, the capture of Palestine and the exploits of Larry of Arabia say otherwise.
I think you have forgotten another supporter of Azerbaijan called Ukraine. After all, Nagorno-Karabakh was part of the Azerbaijani SSR and so Artsakh’s separation was in direct violation of the “borders of 1991” principle, which, for obvious reasons, the Ukrainians hold very dear. So yeah, there is no difference between the events of 2014 and the Karabakh wars in the 1990s as far as Ukraine is concerned. And, of course, they view the recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan through the lens of their own dreams to restore their borders the way they were before 2014.
Lots of things I don’t know but ought to in here. Also, that their morality is not real only makes more outrageous their tedious invocation of it to disenfranchise, delegitimise and impoverish indigenous Britain with their various mad pet projects.
"Armenia is poor... outskirts are full of crumbling communist-era housing...has dreams of joining the EU" Why does this remind me of Britain?
Big differences tbf - there are no Bully XLs in Yerevan!
The most startling thing about this piece is that David Lammy has a Substack.
None of this would be quite so galling if British politicians weren't constantly paying lip service to the need for us to act morally. Leftist politicians are especially guilty of this sickening hypocricy.
There is something about this region that triggers something in my ancestral brain in the same way that the sights and smells of the Yorvik Centre in York did. I can almost imagine trailing a slightly eastern-looking mum around from kitchen to darkened living room, the cramped house full of old eastern furniture and everything penetrated with the reassuring smells of centuries of cooking and human habitation. The picky me of today wouldn't necessarily want to live in a house that smelt of pickled vegetables and grandma but then I'm already halfway towards living in an anticeptic human-free bubble.
Sad, but predictable. For all of Ireland's bumptious finger wagging over various other IR issues the government here will simply repeat the weasel phrase 'were not in a position to adjudicate'.