Abraham Gasparyan says if you lost the war and failed to restore national dignity, what is there for the world to talk to you about?

A state falls under external influence when it loses the balance of power. The loss of the regional balance of power leads, first, to the partial or total restriction of a state’s sovereignty, as happened, for example, in Syria, and second, to value-based, ideological, and institutional disorientation among that state’s elites, said political analyst Abraham Gasparyan, head of the Genesis Armenia think tank/foundation, during a discussion titled “Armenia as a Stage for External Influences.”

“After 2020, Armenia found itself in precisely this collapse, when the elites lack a clear value orientation, there is a distortion of national identity by which the world could recognize you and accordingly shape a negotiating agenda,” Gasparyan said.

According to him, Armenia has lost the alliance map it once had, and Armenia, as such, had been of interest to the world because of the existence of the Artsakh conflict.

“Now Artsakh no longer exists, you have turned Syunik into a subject of bargaining, and you have moved the conflict into the realm of state sovereignty. After 2020, Armenia has largely become a zone of influence for states or international organizations serving mediated Turkish-Azerbaijani lobbying interests,” the political analyst said.

He added that Armenia’s domestic political agenda is dictated by clear narratives coming from Baku and Ankara.

Europe is currently in a deep crisis, he said. In Gasparyan’s view, the European Union, as a political actor of the past, will disappear from the world’s political map in terms of making meaningful decisions. Europe, he said, cannot influence decision-making either in the Kremlin or in the White House. It is now trying to find proxy actors in different regions, and in the South Caucasus that proxy, he argued, is the Pashinyan government.

“If you have lost a war and have not restored your national dignity, what is there for the world to talk to you about?” Gasparyan concluded.