Armenia’s over-confidence and the catastrophic defeat in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War

Great article by Michael A. Reynolds for War on the Rocks about Armenia’s painful defeat in the recent war with Azerbaijan:

This second conflict came as no surprise. With peace talks stalled, Azerbaijan had, for over a decade, been threatening war and ostentatiously arming for one. Nor was the war’s outcome any surprise. The bigger and better equipped Azerbaijani army, backed by Turkey, overwhelmed the smaller and obsolescent Armenian force. What is a surprise is the way Armenia’s leadership for over two decades remained stubbornly blind to the likelihood of such a debacle ― and even contributed to it by alienating allies and needlessly provoking enemies. One might have expected that as a tiny, isolated, and resource-poor country with a tragic history stamped by violence, Armenia would have taken a more realist approach to diplomacy, displaying hardheaded pragmatism, cunning, and shrewd cynicism. Yet to the contrary, Armenian statecraft has revealed itself as a mix of delusional self-confidence and naïve sentimentality.