Analyst: Armenia's state ideology has fundamentally shifted after Karabakh conflict

Armenia is undergoing a profound transformation because the ideological foundation on which the country was built has fundamentally changed following the loss of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), political analyst Alexander Iskandaryan claims.

In an interview to Aysor.am on Thursday, Iskandaryan, director of the Caucasus Institute, argued that the Karabakh issue was the defining principle of Armenia's Third Republic, shaping its political elite, national identity and foreign policy for decades.

"Our army was created before the state itself. Armenia's first political elite emerged from the Karabakh conflict," he said. "The Karabakh Committee evolved into a nationwide movement. Whether those politicians were good or bad is another question, but they built their political capital around it."

According to Iskandaryan, the Artsakh issue served as the ideological backbone of Armenian statehood.

He said that from the 1994 ceasefire until the 2020 war, the Karabakh conflict dominated Armenia's foreign policy.

"For more than 25 years, about 90% of Armenia's foreign policy revolved around the Artsakh issue – the OSCE Minsk Group and everything connected with that process," he said. "It has now changed."

Iskandaryan described the shift as one of the most consequential changes in Armenia's post-independence history.

"Whether it is called the Third Republic, the Fourth Republic or something else is beside the point," he said. "What matters is that the state's ideological foundation has disappeared. A new rationale for the Armenian state now has to be constructed because the old one no longer exists."

He contrasted Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's 2019 declaration that "Artsakh is Armenia, period" with the government's postwar policies.

"After 2020, and especially from 2021 onward, the trajectory reversed," Iskandaryan said. "The government has had to explain and justify what happened, and in doing so it is attempting to redefine the ideological foundation of the state."

He concluded that political leaders inevitably pursue their own interests, but their success depends on public acceptance.

"Politicians always pursue their own interests," he said. "They can do so only to the extent that society allows them."