Robert Kocharyan’s rise to power in 1998 was the outcome of a multi-step political combination unfolding between 1996 and 1998. Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s resignation, which at first glance appeared to stem from disagreements over the Karabakh settlement, became a turning point: after victory in the First Karabakh War, society was not prepared to accept capitulation.

The summer of 1997 became not only a moment of external pressure, but also a moment of internal ideological rupture, for which Levon Ter-Petrosyan bore personal responsibility. His article “War or Peace: The Moment of Seriousness” was presented as an act of sober realism. In reality, however, it amounted to an ideological formulation of a defeatist logic that was inherently unfavorable to Armenia. Instead of challenging the externally imposed “chess game,” the president effectively accepted the role of a lesser piece, justifying strategic concessions by fatigue from war, rather than by the necessity to continue the struggle.

History is like a mirror reflecting past events and one’s own mistakes. Armenia has been looking into that mirror for thirty years. And the longer it looks, the clearer it becomes that those years were not the beginning of statehood, but the beginning of vulnerability.

If these lessons are ignored once again, history will return — as it always does — to remind us.