The new geopolitical paradigm of post-Karabakh Armenia
By Abel Riu
20/10/2025
In his eagerness to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump has recently taken to claiming that he “ended eight wars,” even though this does not necessarily correspond to reality. The case he most often cites is the long-standing dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, despite frequently confusing the years (he has referred to it as a “twenty-two-year conflict”) and even the countries’ names — mentioning Albania instead of Armenia, Armenia instead of Thailand, or a supposed “Aber-baijan.” Beyond the narcissism and Trump’s evident lack of geographical knowledge, the fact remains that in recent months there have indeed been significant developments concerning the resolution of one of the world’s most entrenched and long-standing international conflicts — one in which Armenians and Azerbaijanis have clashed militarily on four occasions over the past thirty-five years (1991–1994, 2016, 2020, and 2023).
Only two years ago, Azerbaijan definitively occupied the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing over 100,000 ethnic Armenians into exile. For the first time in four decades, the outlines of a path toward the normalization of relations now seem to be emerging, even if much of the journey remains ahead. One of its key consequences is the historic shift that has taken place in the geopolitical paradigm of the Republic of Armenia.
Implications of the Washington Summit
The August 8 meeting at the White House between Donald Trump, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was, above all, a dual display. First, it showcased the commitment of the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders to the peace process aimed at normalizing relations and bringing a definitive end to the conflict. Second, it projected the apparent involvement of the U.S. president in the future and stability of the South Caucasus region.
Pashinyan and Aliyev signed a brief but significant declaration in which they agreed to renounce the use of force. They also initialed—but did not formally sign—a seventeen-point document referred to as a “peace agreement,” intended to recognize their respective borders and normalize diplomatic and political relations after decades of conflict. Additionally, they jointly agreed on a plan to establish a new road and rail connection linking Azerbaijan with Nakhchivan—the Azerbaijani exclave bordering Armenia, Iran, and Turkey—through the southernmost part of Armenian territory. Under this plan, Armenia would grant partial development rights for the 40-kilometer transport corridor to U.S. companies while retaining sovereign control over the passage, which is to be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
For Armenia, the TRIPP agreement is positive insofar as it guarantees the maintenance of its sovereignty over the southern Meghri region—challenged in recent years by an increasingly militarily and rhetorically aggressive Azerbaijan—as well as its control of a route that could become crucial to east–west Eurasian connectivity. In turn, the direct involvement of an external power such as the United States allows Yerevan and Baku to sideline Russia from the equation—a country whose role has proved detrimental to regional stability and which had sought to act as guarantor of this transport corridor under the November 9, 2020 ceasefire agreement that ended the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. This illustrates the business-minded approach Trump has applied in other negotiation processes, with varying degrees of success and fortune. Indeed, just one day before the meeting with Pashinyan, the U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil signed a bilateral agreement with the Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR.
Nonetheless, the process remains fraught with uncertainty. The definitive peace agreement has yet to be signed, and Azerbaijan continues to occupy approximately 250 km² of sovereign Armenian territory along the border. In recent months, Aliyev has issued a new demand, calling on Armenia to amend its Constitution on the grounds that it refers to the country’s 1990 Declaration of Independence, which in turn cites a 1989 resolution declaring the union of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan could face significant domestic opposition if he calls a constitutional referendum perceived as imposed by Azerbaijan. Moreover, there is still no mention of transitional justice measures, the return of displaced persons, the release of 23 Armenian political prisoners held by Azerbaijani authorities, or initiatives for reconciliation between the two communities.
The New Armenian Geopolitical Doctrine
Since 2023, Ilham Aliyev has skillfully exploited the dynamics of an increasingly unstable multipolar world—intensified by Russia’s war against Ukraine—as well as the new geopolitical priorities, dependencies, and urgencies emerging in both Moscow and Western capitals as a result. Owing to its privileged strategic location at the heart of the Eurasian landmass and the intersection of the north–south and east–west transport corridors, its role as a producer and exporter of hydrocarbons vital to both the EU and Russia, and the patronage it enjoys from Turkey and Israel, Baku emerged diplomatically unscathed from its use of force to reconquer Nagorno-Karabakh and the ethnic cleansing of 100,000 Armenians in the fall of 2023. Not only did it face no economic sanctions or diplomatic repercussions, but a year later, in November 2024, the Azerbaijani capital hosted the COP-29 summit—attended by delegations from dozens of countries around the world—under a veneer of supposed normalcy.
Baku’s triumph has been built on its superiority in economic, demographic, and military capacity, combined with a multivector foreign policy aimed at maximizing ties with regional and global actors. Armenia’s conduct, by contrast, has been shaped by regional isolation and a geopolitical dependence on a single external actor—Russia—which explains much of its failure.
Following Azerbaijan’s victory in the fall 2020 war, Armenia became even more dependent on Russia than before. Since 2022, however, this dependence has diminished substantially, as Moscow’s ability to project power in the South Caucasus has eroded due to its military quagmire in Ukraine and Azerbaijan’s definitive victory in Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023. Russia has not fulfilled its role as the defender of Armenia’s territorial integrity amid frequent Azerbaijani cross-border incursions. In doing so, the Kremlin has sought to punish Prime Minister Nikol Pashiniyn—whom it has long distrusted—while avoiding antagonizing Baku, a key partner, despite existing mutual defense commitments and Armenia’s membership in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
On September 24, 2023, as the exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh unfolded in the face of Azerbaijani military operations, Pashinyan declared in a televised address that his country’s current alliances were “ineffective” and “insufficient.” Although he did not name Russia directly, the reference was unmistakable. For three decades, Russian patronage had constrained Armenian sovereignty, keeping Yerevan within Moscow’s geopolitical orbit by exploiting its hostility with Turkey and Azerbaijan. That framework had now become inoperative. Moscow’s credibility as a reliable ally had collapsed, prompting Armenia’s leadership to turn the page and seek to overcome its historical dependence on its powerful northern neighbor. This shift was also driven by a desire to distance the country from a state engaged in an indirect confrontation with the U.S. and EU—partners to which Yerevan aspires to draw closer.
At the beginning of 2024, Pashinyan’s government suspended Armenia’s participation in the CSTO at all levels, freezing financial contributions, halting participation in military exercises, and withdrawing from several institutional functions. In February of the same year, Armenia became the 124th state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), following its ratification a few months earlier. The move was viewed in Moscow as hostile, given that the ICC has issued arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and several Russian officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine—effectively preventing them from setting foot on Armenian soil. Later in 2024, Yerevan also requested the withdrawal of Russian border guards stationed at Zvartnots Airport and most of those deployed along the borders with Turkey and Iran—a Cold War–era arrangement that had long symbolized Armenia’s limited sovereignty.
With these moves, Yerevan is not seeking a total break but rather a rebalancing of its external relations. Russia remains the country’s main gas supplier, and for now, the Armenian government rules out leaving the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union. The closure of the Russian military base in the Armenian city of Gyumri is also not planned; Moscow reinforced its presence there over the summer, sending the message that it does not intend to leave—at least until 2044, when the current contract expires. Even so, the Kremlin is attempting to punish the Armenian government for its “disloyalty”, by promoting internal destabilization. Since June 2025, several businessmen and members of the Armenian Apostolic Church with ties to Russia have been arrested, accused of plotting a coup. Internal tensions could escalate further in the run-up to the legislative elections scheduled for the summer of 2026.
The flip side of the new rebalancing logic promoted by the Armenian government is the increase in defense and security cooperation with third countries, which also represents a break from the near-monopoly that Moscow had long enjoyed as the supplier of arms to the Armenian armed forces. One of the main cases is France, with which Armenia has historically maintained significant political and diplomatic ties due to the large Armenian community residing in the Hexagon—mostly descendants of survivors of the 1915–1923 genocide.
Shortly after the definitive loss of Nagorno-Karabakh and the exodus of Armenians from the region, at the end of October 2023, the French and Armenian governments signed a military cooperation agreement under which Paris would assist in reforming the Armenian armed forces and supply weaponry such as Thales GM200 radars, short-range Mistral anti-aircraft missiles, and Bastion armored personnel carriers. This was Armenia’s first defense cooperation agreement with a Western country. By mid-2024, France announced the provision of CAESAR 155/52 self-propelled howitzers, in the same year that an agreement was also reached to intensify military cooperation with a view toward 2025.
The other power toward which Armenia is increasingly pivoting is India. While the bilateral relationship had already deepened since the Second Karabakh War in the fall of 2020, over the past two years it has grown to the point that India has become Armenia’s main arms supplier, with purchases totaling €600 million between 2024 and 2025. These include howitzers, anti-tank missiles, anti-drone weaponry, Pinaka rocket launcher systems, and Akash-1S air-defense systems. In turn, deepening ties with Armenia provide New Delhi with a strategic foothold in the South Caucasus, partly countering Pakistani and Turkish influence in the region while improving its connectivity with European and Eurasian markets.
Armenia’s geopolitical rebalancing has also entailed a closer rapprochement with the United States. Since 2023, annual editions of the joint military exercises Eagle Partner have been organized on Armenian territory, focusing on internal security and peacekeeping. The U.S. has provided $27 million in funding to support Armenia’s efforts to develop its border-security capabilities. In January 2025, just days before Donald Trump’s return to the White House, a Strategic Partnership Charter was signed, including provisions to deepen bilateral defense cooperation, conduct joint exercises, provide training, and implement measures to strengthen Armenia’s border security and capacity. This formed part of a broader set of initiatives to intensify ties in the diplomatic, economic, energy, technological, educational, scientific, cultural, judicial, defense, and security spheres. In August 2025, within the framework of the trilateral summit in Washington, Trump and Pashinyan signed memoranda of cooperation to strengthen Armenia’s border security, advance AI and semiconductor production, and promote energy security.
In April 2025, Armenia adopted a law establishing the legal framework to initiate the process of EU accession. Beyond the fact that joining the EU may be an unrealistic scenario in the short or medium term, there is a strategic intent to align more closely with the Union’s political, economic, and legal standards. In the defense sphere, in July 2024, the EU Council approved the first aid package for the Armenian armed forces, valued at €10 million, under the umbrella of the European Peace Facility. In June 2025, the the first bilateral consultations took place to expand cooperation in security and defense. So far, the EU’s most significant involvement in maintaining peace in the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute has been the deployment of an EU monitoring mission in the border area, which began in February 2023, although its presence was unable to prevent sporadic attacks that year and in early 2024. The EU’s main strategic priority in the region remains Caspian gas, which continues to shape Brussels’ relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Armenia shares a mutual interest in closer ties with its only southern neighbor, Iran. The 40 kilometers of shared border in the Meghri region hold very high strategic value. This is the area through which the east–west transport corridor will have to be constructed as part of the TRIPP plan. Both countries share an interest in ensuring that Yerevan retains sovereignty over this territory. Were it to fall under Azerbaijani control, Tehran would see all its land access to the Caucasus and Europe controlled by Ankara and Baku, two of its regional rivals. In Baku’s case, it is also Israel’s main strategic partner in the area.
In April 2025, Armenian and Iranian troops carried out the first joint military exercises in history, precisely in the shared border area. Over the past two years, contacts between their respective Ministries of Defense have increased, and in August, ten cooperation agreements were signed in different areas: political, social, cultural, tourism, industrial, educational, road and urban development, artistic, and healthcare — with the presence of President Pezeshkian and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. This alignment is expected to grow further, and Pashinyan aims to make it compatible with the strengthening of ties with European and North American partners.
Finally, Armenia has also signed trilateral military cooperation agreements with Greece and Cyprus for troop training, joint exercises, and advisory support, which include the possibility of arms provision starting in 2026. These are two states with which it shares a historical relationship of animosity toward Turkey.
None of these moves, however, constitutes in itself a guarantee of security in the event of aggression by Azerbaijan and/or Turkey. The Armenian authorities have accepted that the main guarantee for their territorial integrity lies precisely in normalizing relations with their neighbors and establishing a new framework of peace and stability in the region. If successful, the respective agreements with Azerbaijan and Turkey, still under negotiation, should allow Armenia to open its borders east and west, finally overcome its dependence on Russia, and become a self-sufficient state.
A New Political Identity
For Armenians, the price they paid for their victory in the 1991–1994 war—which allowed them to gain not only control of Nagorno-Karabakh but also the seven surrounding regions—was very high: regional isolation, the subordination of their sovereignty to Moscow’s dictates, and, ultimately, the total loss of that territory three decades later, which marked the end of an Armenian community with roots spanning more than 2,000 years of history. At the time, they may not have been able to capitalize on the historical circumstance of a military victory achieved against all odds, and against a better-resourced adversary, to secure a lasting peace agreement favorable to their interests, despite the various negotiation attempts that were made.
In the long run, this proved to be a fatal error, stemming from a failure to adapt to the region’s shifting power dynamics, given the increase in the demographic, economic, and military capacities of its rival—especially since the boom in its oil exports in 2005. The successive Armenian governments under Presidents Kocharyan, Sargsyan, and finally Pashinyan since 2018, also failed to grasp the implications of Turkey’s growing support for Azerbaijan, or the fact that Russia could not be relied upon to defend Nagorno-Karabakh in the event of an attack (nor, as later events have shown, in the event of an attack on Armenia itself), given Moscow’s ties with Baku.
Today, the survival of the Armenian state depends on the good faith and interest in regional stability of its historical enemies, as well as on the success of a peace process largely driven by the coercive diplomacy of Azerbaijan. In this regard, rhetoric of coexistence often contrasts with that of domination—an element that does not smooth the path toward any potential reconciliation. This discourse is also frequently combined with expansionist rhetoric and claims to territories south of the Republic of Armenia, invoking ethnic hatred aimed at humiliating the defeated enemy. Time will tell whether this represents a new form of conditioned sovereignty under another name, or whether it will be possible to build a genuine relationship of good-neighborliness and mutual respect, which could be key to regional integration in the South Caucasus.
So far, Armenia has not only paid the price of permanently relinquishing the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and the possible return of its population. The new Armenian geopolitical paradigm entails a transformation of the country’s very political identity. This involves abandoning any symbolic claims to the territories of Anatolia that were majority Armenian until the 1915–1923 genocide, and recognizing that, for all intents and purposes, Armenia is solely and exclusively the territory within the borders of its current Republic. This process has gone so far as to remove all representations of Mount Ararat, the sacred mountain of the Armenians, from official documents, including the seals on passports at entry and exit points—although it remains at the center of the Republic’s official coat of arms. Armenians’ relationship with their tragic history has also been affected, and the government has had to renounce demanding recognition of the genocide as a condition for normalizing relations with Turkey.
As painful as these decisions may be for many Armenians, it is for them to decide and judge what best serves their national interest. As Hans Morgenthau’s realism argued, at the core of every national interest lies the preservation of one’s own sovereignty. For this reason, in addition to attempting to normalize relations with its historical enemies, Armenia is not only seeking to maximize its external ties and partnerships, but also to invest more and better in defending its borders. The words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky resonate strongly in this context. Speaking at the UN General Assembly last September, he emphasized that, for a country whose existence is particularly threatened, the only effective guarantees of security today are “having weapons, and having friends.”
Gerard Libaridian, historian and advisor to Armenian Prime Minister Levon Ter-Petrosian after independence between 1991 and 1997, observed that in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenians and Azerbaijanis “had invested their history, culture, and identity,” with an existential struggle approach that forced rulers to “maintain maximalist positions in order to stay in power.” Now, in the turbulent times Europe and the world are experiencing, amid adverse geography and the possibility of being engulfed by the Pan-Turkic expansionist project the threat has become existential even with regard to the future of a sovereign Armenian state. These are increasingly uncertain times, in which the alternatives are either to adapt, or to perish.
Abel Riu is a geopolitical analyst and President of the CGI, interested in Russia and post-Soviet affairs.
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the CGI or its contributors. The designations employed in this publication and the presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the CGI concerning the legal status of any country, area or territory or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers.
