Toward a Multipolar World: Armenia’s Should Beware of Ukraine’s Fate
Prof. Glenn Diesen interviewed by Arthur Khachikyan
I had a conversation with Dr. Arthur Khachikyan from Stanford University about Armenia’s position in a multipolar world order. The efforts by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to pivot to the West have undermined its ties with its two most important allies in the region (Russia and Iran) and strengthened its two most important adversaries (Azerbaijan and Turkey). In a multipolar system, states diversify their ties with other great powers to avoid excessive reliance on any one power, which risks making them an instrument of great power politics. Armenia has made itself a battleground for great power rivals, and its national interests are best served by modelling itself after Georgia rather than Ukraine.
The oligarchs rivalling for control of Armenia would be all well aware of this. Some will still feel they can personally gain by wrecking their own country.
Such is the blind greed of the wealthiest in most societies - huge wealth and power actually breed even higher levels of greed for its own sake. It’s for that reason that societies should limit accumulation of extreme wealth and power: it’s basically a corrosive force in society, a type of cancer.
The masses of Armenia are the ne who need the messaging being given here, as they are the ones with everything to lose and little to gain, in any misdeeds allowed here.
You have 2 friends, there's been ups and downs over the years, you don't really trust them, with reason, they can be really annoying, but sometimes they've also stood by you in times of need, and they can also be a little pushy, a bit bossy, and you wish you had 'better' friends than those, tbh.
And then one day a really NICE person rolls up, who REALLY wants to be your friend, they're relatively wealthy, and generous, and they promise to be your best friend forever. Woahhh, it's everything you ever wanted.
And they don't want anything in return. Well, OK, just one SMALL thing, a nothing, really.
To earn this zenith of Friendship, to show you really DO want it, if you could just strap on a suicide vest and go blow yourself up while meeting one of both of those now ex-friends, well, that would really do the trick for them.
You'd have to be insane to turn down an opportunity like that, wouldn't you??