Azerbaijan has said its military measures in Nagorno-Karabakh are continuing for a second day, having launched what it calls “anti-terror” operations in the enclave.
It says it will not stop until Karabakh’s ethnic Armenians surrender.
Tensions in the South Caucasus have been high for months around the breakaway region, recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan and Armenia last went to war three years ago.
Armenia is a member of the CSTO, right? That’s the NATO alternative run by Russia, as I understand it. Russia has no ability to actually help Armenia in this conflict, though.
I agree that the west is awful about doing the right thing if there’s no compounding factor to juice it like oil.
But Armenia made a decision to ally themselves with Russia for protection. That has proven to be a terrible mistake. Let’s not pretend this was a completely unavoidable situation that the west could just walk into and stop. Armenia’s membership in CSTO complicates that greatly.
So … gonna go with “a little of column a, a little of column b” here. I wish the west was more righteous and less greedy. I wish Armenia had chosen better friends.
From what I know, the roots of CSTO basically go back to the early 90’s and a time where a collective guarantee of regional safety largely made sense after the fracture of the soviet states. There was a lot of hope for Russia back then, and at the time, it probably made a lot of sense 30 years ago. New Russia, not so much…
So I see what your saying but also fully understand why a country of under 3 million and a very sparse economy would take the deal to defend against a territory hungry dictatorial petro state. How about we nudge that 50/50 to a 70/30?
I hear you, but they didn’t timewarp from the late 90s to today, either. 2014 would have been a good time to think carefully about their defensive coalition membership.
Edit: I want to finish by saying I wish the US lived up to our ideals more often and that I also wish Armenia had better protection through their defense pacts.
It was, Armenia hasn’t ever been offered an alternative. So let’s not pretend that “the West” is clean of complicity in a genocide here.
It didn’t choose, don’t pretend, again. NATO has Turkey as a member, and supports that member, and that member supports Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan is attacking Armenia.