Day: January 11, 2026

I reject the view that small countries are interesting to global powers only because of the conflicts they possess. For decades, certain ultra-nationalist forces have believed that if  #Armenia did not have the “Karabakh conflict” it would not be of interest to great powers.

Their perspective is that Armenia must be “instrumentalized” by major powers – particularly  #Russia – in order to become a relevant factor. According to this view, if Armenia demonstrates the will to fight for  #Karabakh, major powers will emerge to support that struggle.

For roughly 25–30 years, this very formula was in effect. Armenia handed over its major strategic infrastructure to Russia, hoping to receive security guarantees for Karabakh in return. The peak of this worldview came on November 9, 2020, when Russia deployed peacekeepers to  #Karabakh.

However, it took only three years for this myth to collapse. Russia failed to ensure the security of Karabakh, effectively also failing the political theory that Armenia could pursue an external territorial ambition with the support of an external patron.

History proved that major powers – in this case, Russia – used Armenia’s “conflict resource” as a bargaining chip in dealings with  #Turkey and  #Azerbaijan. Russia handed Karabakh over to Azerbaijan when it suited its own interests. Consequently, the narrative of using an external conflict as a resource for ensuring state security has been shattered.

The global actor that was supposed to benefit from Armenia’s “conflict resource” and serve our external ambitions acted according to the opposite logic. The conflict resource we possessed was used by Russia to serve its own interests. Even then, it failed to do so effectively, and today it is being pushed out of the South Caucasus.

Therefore, I believe Armenia was right to abandon the practice of using an external conflict as a diplomatic resource. There is no powerful force, nor will there ever be one, that will support the victory of our external-ambition narrative.

There is no force that will provide us with such extensive diplomatic and military resources as to counterbalance the combined resources of Turkey and Azerbaijan. As a result, Armenia today is trying to become interesting to major powers by positioning itself as a regional communications crossroads.

Armenia has achieved an unprecedented gain in the form of the implementation of the Trump Route project with the  #USA. Although it is an economic project, it carries geopolitical significance. Long-term economic cooperation with the United States is one of the resources that will increase Armenia’s level of security.

We must change our perception of our own role. More broadly, the South Caucasus has a powerful potential to become a region for global trade and transit communications.

I believe it is also in Azerbaijan’s interest to build relations with Armenia based on cooperation and the pursuit of shared economic interests. We will continue to be competitors – which is normal – but we can cooperate in areas of mutual interest.

This policy requires rational and prudent approaches, as well as the ability to draw lessons from history. I believe Azerbaijan, too, has nothing to gain if it follows a logic of military aggression against Armenia and the escalation of conflict.

— Robert Ananyan (@robananyan) Jan 11, 2026

Last SDF fighters leave Syria’s Aleppo, Ekhbariya TV reports  reut.rs/4qgph9f  reut.rs/4qgph9f

— Reuters (@Reuters) Jan 11, 2026

New cars kept selling in 2025, just not to everyday buyers  trib.al/7iGKqbt

— The Hill (@thehill) Jan 11, 2026