The end of the 1980s was the peak of the global Armenian awakening. Numerous objective and subjective factors contributed to this end. On the one hand, it was the already obvious and inevitable collapse of the Soviet Empire, which opened up new opportunities for the nations that failed to maintain independence after the First World War. On the other hand, there was another round of tragedies: the Spitak earthquake, the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population in Sumgait, Baku and Maragha, the operation of the Soviet-Azerbaijani security forces to deport the Armenian population from a number of settlements in Artsakh, including the strategically important Getashen and Martunashen. At that critical moment, the Armenian world mobilised significant resources, without which the independence of Armenia and the liberation of Artsakh would have been impossible.
But why and how did this awakening happen? Unless this question is answered, the root causes of our subsequent defeat will remain unclear. The truth is, we did not wake up — we were jolted awake by external forces.
After the end of the Second World War, a new system of international relations emerged, shaped by the two nuclear-armed superpowers — the United States and the Soviet Union. Their confrontation unfolded across all spheres and in all regions of the world. However, any system of political rules is inherently variable and evolutionary. This means that, in most cases, red lines are negotiated only after serious escalatory incidents. For Washington and Moscow, such an event was the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when the world was one step away from nuclear war.
After extremely difficult negotiations, the countries arrived at a tacit gentlemen’s agreement, realising that further escalation could only result in their mutual destruction and that of humanity. The culture of strategic deterrence forged in hot pursuit made the world a safer place and fundamentally reshaped the nature of all subsequent confrontation. This was largely the result of the meticulous work of two imperial statesmen: Anastas Mikoyan[1] from the Soviet side and Paul Ignatius[2] (Ignatosyan) from the American side. At present, much more is known about Mikoyan’s role thanks to the memoirs of Dobrynin, then the Soviet ambassador to the United States, whereas Ignatius — who was close to President John F. Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, both representing the Irish branch of the American aristocracy — has left far fewer comparable accounts. We hope that most of the still-classified documents on Ignatius’s role will soon be opened for a more comprehensive study.
At that moment, the Armenian factor was revealed from an unexpected side for the White House and the Kremlin. The logic of the local aristocracies was simple: if two ethnic Armenians from different parts of the world can quickly and effectively find a common ground on such a complex issue, which involved bloodthirsty hawks from both sides, and lobby for a balanced solution to the leaders of their countries, then what a huge Armenian potential lies dormant in different parts of the planet. Thereafter, both sides set in motion a series of events aimed at awakening the Armenian world for their own purposes.
Soviet and American statesmen knew that the easiest way to shake the Armenian world was through the topic of the Genocide, since this was the most painful, deep and fresh wound. The Kennedy administration began to revive this topic carefully, mentioning the extermination of Armenians in a document sent to the UN. The Soviets acted more decisively, permitting the construction of a Genocide memorial in Yerevan, enabled by the Armenian factor’s deeper institutional integration. Further events developed at a rapid pace: the first bipartisan resolution on the Armenian Genocide in the US Congress in 1974, the launch of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia in 1975, the intensive integration of the Armenian element into the Republican and Democratic Parties in the period of 1962-1980 (the influence of Steven Derounian, George Deukmejian, Charles Pashayan, the Mugar family from Massachusetts and the Paravonian family from Illinois), the second bipartisan resolution recognising the Genocide in 1982, the doubling of the Armenian presence in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, KGB, military intelligence, etc.
As noted at the beginning of the article, the peak of the awakening of the Armenian world occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the United States was interested in the emergence and strengthening of independent Armenian statehood. The bet on the Armenian national project rested on the presence of a large, already integrated Armenian community in American public, political, and economic life, expected to function as a strategic bridge between the two countries. The other two South Caucasus republics, Georgia and Azerbaijan, by contrast, had no such strategic advantage to begin with. American statesmen were so invested in the success of the Armenian project that they de facto and even in many cases de jure sided with Armenia unilaterally, deterring its potential opponents from taking drastic steps.
So, in 1992, the U.S. Freedom Support Act was passed, which became the legislative basis for building Washington’s bilateral relations with the new national post-Soviet republics. However, the law contained a special provision, Section 907, adopted by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress and enacted with the approval of the White House. Under this section, it was prohibited to provide any economic, military-technical or other support to Azerbaijan due to its aggression against Armenia and Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh. At the same time, humanitarian and economic support to Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh itself was approved within the framework of American government programs. Baku and Ankara asserted that this outcome was driven by the activities of the Armenian lobby. By doing so, they seek to suggest that American statesmen acting in the interests of the United States were not involved in this process. Yet the opposite is true: it was precisely the American national interest that was at work. No lobbying organisation is capable of producing such a broad, rapid bipartisan consensus in Congress — especially one that is unconditionally supported by the President.
Facts are stubborn things, and they show that by recognising the potential of the Armenian world, external actors helped awaken it, opened many doors for it, and supported the formation of the Armenian national project in the form of the Republic of Armenia and a liberated Artsakh. This awakening could not have happened in any other way, since we did not have our own centralised national aristocracy with a comprehensive plan to fight for independence (as was the case for the Irish, the Jews, and the Poles at their time).
However, our enemies were not going to sit idly by. They created their own resource base to establish a dialogue with the leading centres of power. The enemy worked hard and patiently, making the most of our mistakes and miscalculations. And at a certain point, they managed to shift the balance of geopolitical perception in their favour. Artificially created, ethnically heterogeneous post-Soviet, formally Shiite and Turkic Azerbaijan has transformed itself from a losing side with neither a strategic legacy nor global assets into a wealthy state with a coherent and intelligible position, a diversified network of partners, and lobbyists around the world — and all of this is the result of our carelessness, laziness, and inability to think strategically.
Heydar Aliyev did not perform any miracles, neither did Kemal Ataturk in Turkey long before him. He built an effective system that steadily developed the tools required to meet strategic challenges.
We lost at the moment when we let the very same Heydar Aliyev dodge the unconditional surrender. We lost at the moment when we did not realise that everything had an expiration date and we had limited time to institutionalise the Armenian awakening. Some influential Armenians around the world remained isolated on the sidelines, not becoming part of a transnational institution that was would become an intellectual, lobbying, political and economic resource of the Armenian statehood. Armenia did not become the centre of a new global entity – the transnational Armenian nation, but turned into a physical colony, where the feudal clan system took root. Armenians did not become a political nation united by a well-developed value and ideological base, but remained an ethnic group dealing with the issue of physical survival on a daily basis.
Change must begin with the acceptance of these facts and the harsh reality that the Third Republic, for which the outstanding sons of the Armenian people have sacrificed their lives, has become not an Armenian Republic, not a subject of the international relations system and the centre of Armenians worldwide, but a second-rate colony and a bargaining chip between global and regional players. Decisions affecting the fate of the global Armeniancy are made not by the national aristocracy formed according to the principles and spirit of meritocracy, but by local feudal clans, which surrendered the country to outsiders in order to preserve their material wealth and the illusion of power.
External forces will protect this system because it is understandable, simple, and predictable for them. Therefore, we should harbour no illusions regarding the upcoming so-called ‘elections’ of the summer of 2026. With firm external patronage, the feudal clan system will undoubtedly be reproduced again. Representing different branches of the same system, the collaborationist regime and the traditional players (former presidents) will receive from their patrons an updated scenario of a play called ‘power-opposition’. We need to stop focusing on specific individuals and parties, because they are all part of the same system and there can be no question of liberating Armenia without eradicating it. After all, they are just unpretentious hired servants who have one interest – to keep their ‘jobs’.
‘Spoilers’ and a network of small-time agents will create the illusion of a real alternative, while patriotic young people with good intentions will naively believe that in a colony, where there has been no political culture (since no one has built a state), there can be real ‘elections’, ‘competition’, and ‘struggle’. A road paved with good intentions has its destination fixed in advance — and those intentions exist to serve a beautiful façade for those who believe in imminent change. It is in the enemy’s interest that Armenians are continually presented with the hope of change instead of a genuine, substantive alternative. Therefore, anyone who is outside this feudal-clan system, but at the same time believes that they may be able to overcome it in this artificially set predictable and controlled spectacle, must bear the brunt of the consequences of legitimising the spectacle itself and its very obvious outcomes.
Whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, the only chance to change the situation is to create an alternative to colonial geographical Armenia, which at the moment is not the legitimate or moral face of the global Armeniancy. This year is really important, but not because of the play called ‘elections’, since, again, its results are obvious. This year is important for another reason: it marks the beginning of the real Armenian awakening, which, unlike the previous one, will not miss its chance. We know ourselves and the enemy, we know about the mistakes of the past, we recognise and accept the realities and are able to be calm and act in a cool-headed fashion. We know that our enemy is smart, powerful, ruthless and influential, but we also know that it has plenty of vulnerabilities. And we know that there is simply no other way.
[1] Revolutionary, statesman and party leader of the USSR.
[2] Armenian-born American statesman, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy and president of The Washington Post. His name has been given to a U.S. Navy warship.
