Why Azerbaijan Will Keep Attacking Armenia

on the 12th of September azerbaijani troops and artillery opened fire and began attacking Armenian positions all across their Mutual border here the fighting between them lasted for a couple of days and left hundreds of people on both sides killed and wounded with azerbaijani troops advancing into and occupying a small amount of armenia's internationally recognized territory around here it was the bloodiest outbreak of violence between the two countries since their two-month-long War fought a couple of years previously back in 2020 that ended in huge territorial gains for Azerbaijan after the deaths of thousands on both sides but azerbaijan's most recent attack was carried out at a highly decisive moment for various reasons they'll get into later Azerbaijan is a closer Ally to Turkey the European Union in NATO while Armenia is a much closer Ally to their former Overlord Russia and is party to Moscow csto military Alliance essentially the Russian version of NATO but of course Russia has been a little distracted elsewhere as of late after they invaded Ukraine back in February the Russians quickly began losing momentum droves of equipment and thousands of lives and then in early September the ukrainians launched a hugely successful counter offensive that reclaimed thousands of square kilometers of occupied territory from them in a matter of days then just two days after that Ukrainian breakthrough here Azerbaijan decided to test the international waters and attack Armenia to see what the Russians would do for their supposed Ally and the answer was effectively nothing which doesn't bode very well for armenia's future as a state you see Armenia and Azerbaijan have been Arch Rivals for decades now ever since their independence from the Soviet Union more than 30 years ago they have fought two major Wars against each other and countless smaller skirmishes and the violence between them is all but guaranteed to continue going on for the foreseeable future and in order to understand why you need to understand what both of them are actually fighting for and how they're actually fighting for it their 21st century rivalry mostly revolves around the unresolved and bitter status of this mountainous region surrounded by Azerbaijan known as nagorno-karabakh every country in the world officially recognizes nagorno-karabakh as a province of Azerbaijan and if you use apps like Google Maps this is the simple reality that you'll be presented with but in reality Azerbaijan only has limited control over the province today because the majority of people who live there are ethnic Armenians who declared their own independent Breakaway State more than 30 years ago the so-called Republic of artsoc more than 99 of our Talk's population is currently Armenian and through a very narrow Corridor that's only three miles wide connected to Armenia proper art suck effectively acts as a de facto extension of the Armenian State itself despite nagorno-karabakh being claimed and recognized by everyone as a part of Azerbaijan this is a Territorial and ethnic dispute that is difficult to negotiate diplomatically and it was set up that way either on purpose or accidentally nearly a century ago by the Soviet Union both Armenians and azerbaijanis have long historic and cultural claims to nagorno-karabakh that go back Centuries with a lot of fighting but the recent dispute began after the Soviet Union took over both countries in the early 1920s with both of them under the direct control of Moscow the they weren't really allowed to fight anymore over the status of nagorno-karabakh and the dispute was shelved for decades shortly after their Conquest the Soviets initially decided to incorporate karabakh into Armenia since its population at the time was estimated to be 94 Armenian but Joseph Stalin disagreed and with the stroke of his pen personally decided to keep karabakha part of Azerbaijan with a high degree of local autonomy and in doing so whether on purpose or by accident Stalin created a sort of dead man switch here so long as the greater Soviet Union existed and continued exerting control over both Armenia and Azerbaijan the status of an autonomous ethnically Armenian karabakh within Azerbaijan wouldn't really ever matter but were the Soviet Union to ever collapse in the future for whatever reason or lose political control over certain member states karabakh's political status inside of Azerbaijan would be almost certain to generate tension and conflict between the newly independent Armenia and Azerbaijan perhaps ideally that would be enough to keep them distracted and weak fighting each other while some one in Moscow steadily worked towards putting the shattered pieces of the Empire back together again and sure enough within 70 years of Stalin's fateful decision in the late 1980s the Soviet Union was collapsing and the status of nagorno-karabakh was suddenly becoming very important again the local armenian-controlled government of karabakh voted to be transferred over to Armenia in 1989 which both Azerbaijan and the Soviet Union rejected then a couple years later in December 1991 just days before the Soviet Union officially dissolved an independence referendum was held in nagorno-karabakh that was boycotted by the local azerbaijanis who also lived there the Armenians of the territory overwhelmingly voted in favor of Independence and created the Breakaway secessionist Republic of artsoc to which Azerbaijan disagreed and considered illegitimate and responded militarily Armenia quickly supported art stock the Russians began supplying the Armenians and a full-scale war exploded between both sides that would last for the next three years after the dust had settled and after more than 30 thousand casualties Russian supported Armenia had emerged from this first war as the decisive Victor art sucks de facto control over the entire nagorno-karabakh Province was established while Armenian troops occupied about a further nine percent of azerbaijan's Legally recognized territory outside of it but over the next 30 Years the tide would gradually shift further and further over to azerbaijan's favor because Azerbaijan ended up having something that Armenia doesn't a lot of oil and gas that the West would desperately want located primarily offshore in the Caspian Sea Azerbaijan has an amount of oil and gas reserves that are similar to Norway but unlike Norway these reserves were always difficult to get out onto the World Market for two reasons one they were completely controlled by the Soviet Union and two the Caspian Sea where all of these reserves are located in is completely landlocked where the only possible water-based routes to the world ocean is through the russian-controlled Volga River and their Canal system leading to either the Black Sea the White Sea or the Baltic that meant that in order to avoid Russia the only means of getting azerbaijan's oil and gas resources out to the global market was either by truck rail air or pipeline all of which required expensive infrastructure and investment that impoverished Azerbaijan didn't really possess in the early 1990s but after the collapse of the Soviet Union the political barrier to entry was lifted and that got the interest of the major Western oil and gas companies for the first time beginning in the 1990s Western Energy Company spearheaded by BP began aggressively investing billions into azerbaijan's oil and gas infrastructure culminating with the Baku tibilisi sehan or BTC crude oil pipeline that only began operation in 2006. this pipeline of course was built to strategically circumvent Armenia and it enables azerbaijani crude oil to bypass both Armenia and Russia by traveling to the Turkish Port of sehan where it can then be loaded up on a tankers and shipped off to Europe in the global markets BP continues to own the controlling share of 30 point one percent ownership over this pipeline while other Western energy companies from Hungary Norway Italy France Japan and the United States control a further 36 percent of it with the United States military agreeing to watch over the pipeline security with uavs today this pipeline is capable of transporting one million barrels of oil a day to tankers on the Eastern Mediterranean theoretically enough to meet seven percent of the European Union's oil demand if it all headed that way but this oil pipeline wasn't the only one being built here with Western financing immediately parallel to the BTC crude oil pipeline is the South Caucasus pipeline that transports natural gas which also includes BEP is the largest shareholder at 28.8 ownership combined with the Trans Anatolian gas pipeline across turkey and the transatriatic gas pipeline across Greece Albania and into Italy these pipelines collectively cost around 45 billion dollars to construct and form what's known as the southern gas Corridor capable of supplying Europe with 10 and a half billion cubic meters of gas per year from azerbaijan's gigantic gas fields in the Caspian this network was only completed two years ago in early 2020 and it'll be capable of meeting around 2 percent of the whole European Union's natural gas demand serving as an important source of diversification away from Russia's gas supply and as the years passed on and azerbaijan's oil and gas sales to the West began to mount the country grew exponentially wealthier than the Rival in Armenia for 14 years between 2000 and 2014 Azerbaijan held the title for the fastest growing economy in the world it transformed into one of the world's wealthiest petrol states where the revenues from oil and gas Finance around 60 percent of the government's total budget and they strategically begin using this newfound wealth to shovel enormous piles of cash into their military in order to one day fighter Mania again and reverse the outcome of the war back in the early 1990s by 2020 azerbaijan's economy population and Geographic size were each well over 3 three times that of Armenia and their military budget was more than double and not only did they have all of these advantages but they also had the advantage of better geopolitical relations in their neighborhood as well turkey on the other side of Armenia is a very close Ally of Azerbaijan both the Turks and the azaris are considered an ethnically and linguistically turkic people turkey was the very first country in the world to recognize azerbaijan's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and they've maintained a close Alliance structure ever since with the former president of Azerbaijan Hadar aliyev even going so far as to describing them as one nation two states they maintain an active Mutual defense pact in case one is attacked while Azerbaijan has used their oil and gas revenues to become a huge customer of Turkish military hardware purchasing as much as 200 million dollars worth of Turkish weapons and equipment a year including scores of their Advanced baratar tb2 drones that have seen huge success in Ukraine against the Russians meanwhile turkeys were relationship with Armenia is icy at best and hostile and worse there is obviously lingering resentment over the 1915 Armenian Genocide carried out by ottoman turkey in which around 1 million Armenians were killed and which turkey still to this day refuses to actually recognize further almost immediately after armenia's Independence the Turks supported Azerbaijan in the first war over nagorno-karabakh and shut down their entire land border with Armenia and refuse to let anyone cross it a situation which has continued into the present day for more than 30 years now Armenia has a troubled relationship with turkey though in a similar manner to how Azerbaijan has a troubled relationship with Iran despite each of them being the only two Shia Muslim majority-led countries in the world Iran holds an understandable fear of Azerbaijan because of this the fact that there exists somewhere around 15 million or so azerbaijanis within Iran which is even more azerbaijanis than with within the state of Azerbaijan itself at around 17 percent of Iran's total population even though he only served in office for a single year between 1992 and 1993. the second president of Independent Azerbaijan publicly argued that the azerbaijanis of Iran should be United within the state of Azerbaijan and that Iran had no right to rule over them this means that despite their religious similarities there is a degree of ethno-nationalist tension between Azerbaijan and Iran and it's made all the worse by azerbaijan's close relationship with another Iranian enemy Israel United over their Mutual concern of Iran Azerbaijan supplies around 40 percent of Israel's crude oil imports while Israel has recently become the largest provider of weapons and arms to Azerbaijan between 2016 and 2020 leading up to the second nagorno-karabakh war Israel provided nearly 70 percent of all the major arms Imports that azerbaijan's military was buying up and though both governments publicly did deny this Azerbaijan has also allegedly granted the Israeli Air Force access to several of their own air bases which they could hypothetically use to strike targets deep in Iran in a faster manner than they could from their own bases back in Israel so with turkey Israel and the West all tied to the more autocratic Azerbaijan for ethnic economic and geopolitical reasons and azerbaijan's tilt away from Russian influence that's left the more democratic Armenia in a very difficult geopolitical position with little other alternative than to seek closer alliances with two of the world's greatest autocracies Iran and their former Master to the north Russia in 1992 very shortly after Independence Armenia agreed to join the csto essentially the russian-led version of NATO consisting of various other post-soviet states who remained fairly loyal to Moscow at the same time several thousand Russian troops have been permanently deployed at a base here in gumri ever since the end of the Cold War one of the largest overseas military bases operated by the Russian Armed Forces Russia sells weapons and arms to Armenia at a discount rate while the Russian State owns interests in all of armenia's major Railways and infrastructure essentially Armenia is overwhelmingly dependent upon Russia for their survival and therefore Armenia sword of already acts like a de facto Outpost of Moscow when Azerbaijan finally felt confident enough in 2020 to militarily assert their claims to nagorno-karabakh and their lands under Armenian occupation Armenia triggered the csto's version of Article 5 and appeal to the Russians and the rest of the alliance for direct military assistance Russia refused the call citing that since Armenia proper wasn't under any direct attack from Azerbaijan the mutual defense treaty didn't apply so after two months of war with Armenia receiving little to no international support from anyone abroad and with Azerbaijan heavily supplied with Advanced military equipment from turkey and Israel it was the azerbaijanis who decisively defeated the Armenians this time completely reversing the de facto boundary set after the first war ended back in 1994 with rapid azerbaijani gains and after a Russian military helicopter was shot down under dubious circumstances the Russians apparently decided to intervene diplomatically and allegedly threaten the use of force against Azerbaijan if they refuse to cooperate they ended up cooperating and in the ensuing ceasefire agreement negotiated with Russia's mediation Azerbaijan recaptured all of their territory outside of nagorno-karabakh that the Armenians had been occupying since the 1990s and they were left with a significant control over nagorno-karabakh itself as well to boots art stocks de facto control over nagorno-karabakh was cut down a size and a narrow Corridor just three miles wide guarded by Russian peacekeepers was established between what remained of artsoc and Armenia proper enabling Armenians to continue traveling between the two safely and at the same time another Corridor free Romanian checkpoints was supposed to be a established for Azerbaijan across Armenian territory here linking the azerbaijani mainland with their large exclave here called nakshavon were this to be implemented turkey would also finally have a continuous land-based route into Azerbaijan proper itself but much to the ire of both Azerbaijan and turkey in the two years now since that ceasefire agreement was made the Armenians have still not granted them this Corridor and have been showing no indication of ever doing so of course azerbaijan's long-term objectives here are to regain control over the entirety of nagorno-karabakh and eliminate the Armenian secessionists there in art side while simultaneously guaranteeing some kind of access or Corridor through Armenia towards their large exclave over and knock Sivan while on the other hand Armenia would like to prevent both of those things from happening but Armenia is continuously finding itself in a worse and worse strategic position all the time in February 2022 Armenia is greatest protector Russia started a massive war of Conquest with hundreds of thousands of soldiers when they invaded Ukraine in response the European Union began the process of abandoning the Russians for their oil and gas supplies and began seeking alternative suppliers who could up their production Alternatives like Azerbaijan in July the European Union signed a major new gas deal with Azerbaijan where they would more than double their exports of gas to the EU within five years by 2027 which will ultimately end up replacing around nine percent of all the gas that the Russians were exporting to the EU just before their invasion of Ukraine and so confident in the fact that Europe was now becoming more reliant on their gas to replace the Russian Supply and in the fact that the Russians were getting distracted and bogged down in Ukraine as evidenced by their polling of hundreds of troops away from their Armenian base in gumery Azerbaijan must have felt very confident that neither Europe nor Russia would oppose them if they attacked our Armenia again and that is almost certainly why they did in September immediately after the hugely successful Ukrainian counter-offensive and Azerbaijan was right just like they did two years previously back in 2020 the Armenians once again triggered the csto military Alliance for help and Russia once again refused the call essentially shattering The credibility of the csto as an actual useful defense Alliance and even though the United States helped to negotiate a ceasefire Washington has so far not made any demands for the azerbaijani forces to leave the territory of Armenia proper that they're now occupying with Russia distracted by military catastrophe in Ukraine Europe's refusal to jeopardize their vital energy relationship with Azerbaijan turkey's longtime support of Azerbaijan and Iran currently consumed by internal protests and revolts the future looks very Bleak for armenia's objectives in survival Azerbaijan will be emboldened in the current political and strategic atmosphere to continue attacking Armenia and exert more gains into gorno-karabakh and establish their desired Corridor over to nakshavon and if Armenia desires to resist they may be left with little other choice but to actually become even further integrated with Russia since they really have no other possible alternative despite how terrible and unreliable of a partner Russia has been to them this could potentially in the future include the establishment of an Armenian Russian Union State like currently exists between Russia and Belarus or even a full-on absorption of Armenia into the Russian Federation outright the fact that as many as 70 000 Russians most of them young men escaping from Putin's mobilization order have fled to Armenia since the invasion of Ukraine began doesn't really negatively impact that possibility Russians now make up by far the largest ethnic mind Authority in Armenia and the current situation has almost certainly given Russian security organizations like the fsp the opportunity to infiltrate their own agents into the crowd of Russians keep a very close eye on Armenia and Azerbaijan going forward because it is very likely to become very interesting and very dangerous in times of international conflict and uncertainties such as these government restrictions make certain parts of the internet impossible to access YouTube itself is currently blocked by six countries across Africa and Asia where this video will simply be impossible to view while six other countries have blocked it in the past including Armenia and it's not just YouTube either in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine the Russian government decided to indefinitely block Western social media sites like Facebook and Twitter nationwide at the same time and in compliance with Western Financial sanctions Apple removed vicontactya from their App Store worldwide blocking the largest Russian social media platform to Apple users around the world since 2020 India has blocked Tick Tock over National Security concerns since Tick-Tock is owned by their rival China while even the United States has contemplated doing the same thing and during the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan Azerbaijan temporarily restricted access to basically everything from YouTube to Facebook talking Twitter when Wars are declared and sides are drawn the casualties now extend the internet and contact with the opposite side your country has decided is now the enemy becomes ever more difficult the best way to get around these kinds of national blockades on the Internet is with a VPN and my Preferred Choice happens to be this video sponsor nordvpn I've genuinely been using them myself now for years because no matter where in the world I am as I travel I can use Nord to digitally 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Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 3,316,126

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know

Id: 7NOMj7n6QAM

Length: 22min 10sec (1330 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 15 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/ichbinaser]

Naxcivan hani gijdillag

[u/Kebabgutter]

This is interestingly one of the most detailed and least biased explanation of the situation I see from western sources altough I think he missed some points.

[u/PDX_radish]

Mostly unbiased, though I think him brushing over the events of 1921 by just saying “the soviets initially decided to transfer Karabakh to Armenia but Josef Stalin stopped it” is a little misleading.

It was an illegal transfer attempt that was stopped.

It wasn’t “the soviets,” it was the Caucasian Bureau which had an Armenian majority that voted on and immediately announced that a transfer was definitely taking places. All without approval from the Central committee, which was against Soviet Law. Republics were not allowed to change borders without central committee approval. But they already started printing newspapers in Yerevan that “Karabakh has been transferred” before it was even approved.

[u/[deleted]]

I think everything he said is true. We shouldn’t have attacked Armenia in last clashes. We gained nothing. In good side I see many Azerbaijanis becoming anti war after this. USA showed that it won’t tolerate taking Armenian territory. That is actually good for us. Because government won’t try doing something crazy.

[u/babycakes2018]

As an Armenian I would show this video to anyone who needs a rundown on what’s going on. but let’s be real who cares besides us (actual) Caucasians anyway 🫠

[u/illougiankides]

Just watched the video and came here to see what’s going on. The video appears to be azerbaijan bashing armenian propaganda, but actually is quite unbiased. Attacking Armenia proper won’t help Azerbaijan, just like attacking AZ didnt help AR. Azerbaijan has to play the long game, Armenians will be obliged to agree to an actual peace. Their victim mentality and emotional decisions are harming them more than anyone else. I hope for them that they will soon start playing the ‘realpolitik’ game and realize they need peace more then Azerbaijan does. Or, they may keep playing the pity game and see their country collapse.

[u/5tormwolf92]

Why Azerbaijan will keep defending itself from Armenia

[u/Fuzzy_Molasses_9688]

This is 99% unbiased true documentary. Only he lied when he said USA is asking nothing in return from Azeris when in September they attacked Armenia. USA already asked to have Azerbaijan take their troops out of Armenia not Karabagk but actual Armenia Jermuk. They will be asking this till Azeris do take them out.

[u/ThisUsername1sT4ken]

🤓