{"id":7101,"date":"2025-12-17T12:40:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T09:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armtribunal.com\/?p=7101"},"modified":"2025-12-17T12:40:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T09:40:16","slug":"kak-nachalas-katastrofa-v-armenii-ot-romantiki-nezavisimosti-k-sistemnoj-ujazvimosti-8212-chast-2-plan-gobla-geopoliticheskij-kapkan-otkrytyj-v-1997-godu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armtribunal.com\/en\/2025\/12\/17\/kak-nachalas-katastrofa-v-armenii-ot-romantiki-nezavisimosti-k-sistemnoj-ujazvimosti-8212-chast-2-plan-gobla-geopoliticheskij-kapkan-otkrytyj-v-1997-godu\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Current Catastrophic Situation in Armenia Began: From Romanticized Independence to Systemic Vulnerability \u2013 Part 2. GOBLE PLAN: A GEOPOLITICAL TRAP SET IN 1997"},"content":{"rendered":"

How the Current Catastrophic Situation in Armenia Began: From Romanticized Independence to Systemic Vulnerability \u2013 Part 2<\/h3>

GOBLE PLAN: A GEOPOLITICAL TRAP SET IN 1997<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Armenia\u2019s late-20th-century history bears little resemblance to a smooth transition of power. Rather, it evokes red-hot metal hastily beaten into shape\u2014under pressure, with miscalculations, amid the collision of global interests. Therefore, when speaking of those who came to replace Ter-Petrosyan, one must first pause and look back, to see how that era was reshaped, instead of merely turning the page.<\/p>\n

Ter-Petrosyan\u2019s resignation was neither a defeat nor a triumph of democracy, nor even a \u201cnatural end of a mandate.\u201d It was an explosion \u2014delayed, accumulated, and carefully primed - unfolding amid pressure from Washington, Moscow\u2019s cautious resistance, the tense vigilance of Nagorno-Karabakh, and an Armenian elite split between those who feared war and those who understood the price of capitulation.<\/p>\n

His resignation was not simply the end of a political biography; it was a boundary. Once crossed, the country was no longer the same. And it did not become what it was supposed to become, either.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

Institutionalization of Capitulation: The Ideological Swing of 1997<\/h3>
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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 \u201cWar or Peace: The Moment of Seriousness\u201d 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 \u201cchess game,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

Paul Goble\u2019s proposal to transfer Meghri merely exposed the fragility of this position. It was not a concession, but a geopolitical amputation: the loss of access to Iran, the undermining of the only real counterbalance to the regional blockade, and the transformation of the country into a dependent transit appendage. Yet Ter-Petrosyan regarded such scenarios as an acceptable price for \u201cpeace,\u201d rather than as a red line. His notorious formula - \u201cKarabakh cannot be independent\u2026 a compromise is inevitable\u201d - sounded not as a warning to society, but as a predetermined verdict, substituting security interests with the logic of adaptation.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

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The core problem was not the complexity of the international environment, but the president\u2019s refusal to engage in a political struggle for an alternative. Under the banner of realism, society was offered reconciliation; under the pretext of responsibility, it was urged to lower its sights when national values were at stake. The opposition\u2019s criticism, labeling this approach a capitulation, was not emotional rhetoric. For the first time, Ter-Petrosyan institutionalized the notion that Armenia should consent to strategic weakening in exchange for uncertain external guarantees. In this context, the so-called \u201cmoment of seriousness\u201d did not lead the country toward maturity, but rather established a tradition in which concessions are justified as rationality, while resistance is dismissed as irresponsible romanticism.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

REACTION FROM NKR: A REJECTION THAT BECAME FATEFUL<\/h3>
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Every era has its point of no return. For Artsakh, it came in the summer of 1997, when it became clear that the problem was not only external pressure, but also the domestic political choice made by Armenia\u2019s leadership. While in Yerevan, under Levon Ter-Petrosyan, discussions revolved around a \u201ccompromise for the future\u201d and attempts were made to fit Armenia into a diplomatic architecture imposed from outside, in Stepanakert, a systemic threat was already being felt.<\/p>\n

The proposal that entered history as the \u201cGoble Plan\u201d was not perceived in Artsakh as a negotiating position. It was seen as an ultimatum. The transfer of Meghri to Azerbaijan, a narrowed Lachin corridor, and an autonomous Karabakh within Azerbaijan together amounted to nothing less than the nullification of the strategic results of the war. In Stepanakert, it was well understood that peace was not the goal; the goal was the reshaping of the region. And in that new regional configuration, Armenia would no longer be a subject. The idea of territorial exchanges, including proposals involving a corridor swap between Meghri and Lachin, has appeared in international analyses of the conflict\u2019s diplomatic options, such as those explored byThomas de Waal in \u201cBlack Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War.\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

By 1997, Robert Kocharyan was no longer president of the NKR: since March of that year, he had served as prime minister of Armenia. Yet his political and moral legitimacy in Artsakh remained exceptionally high. He was perceived as a representative of the Karabakh line of security, not of the Yerevan school of diplomatic concessions. Kocharyan openly challenged the idea of territorial exchange. Memoirs and recollections from that period frequently cite the categorical rejection of trading land for uncertain peace guarantees: \u201cLand for which blood has been shed cannot be the subject of political deals\u201d (A. Harutyunyan, Memories Without Silence, 2004 (arm.\u0540\u056b\u0577\u0578\u0572\u0578\u0582\u0569\u0575\u0578\u0582\u0576\u0576\u0565\u0580 \u0561\u057c\u0561\u0576\u0581 \u056c\u057c\u0578\u0582\u0569\u0575\u0561\u0576, 2004).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

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This position was fully shared by key military commanders of Artsakh\u2014Seyran Ohanyan, Samvel Babayan, and other senior officers who ensured the region\u2019s real defense. Their arguments were not built on rhetoric or ideology. They rested on geography and military logic: the transfer of Meghri would turn Karabakh into an isolated enclave, and its final occupation would become a matter of time rather than force.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

It is noteworthy that the plan also drew criticism at the international level. Analysts warned that a territorial swap associated, among others, with Paul Goble\u2019s name could cost Armenia its vital access to Iran, thereby making the country far more vulnerable from a geopolitical standpoint(for similar assessments, see Salih Y\u0131lmaz, review \u201cLand Swap Formula\u201d).<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

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A number of reports and analytical articles also noted that the idea of a \u201ccorridor via Meghri\u201d was viewed as part of a radical redesign of the region\u2019s logistical architecture \u2014 a scenario that would entail a strategic deterioration for Armenia without a single shot being fired, while creating a direct Baku\u2013Nakhijevan\u2013Turkey link(for similar views, see International Crisis Group, \u201cNagorno-Karabakh: A Plan for Peace\u201d).<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

Here emerges the key political responsibility of Levon Ter-Petrosyan. His rhetoric about the \u201cmoment of seriousness,\u201d and the theses articulated in late 1997, became an ideological justification for concessions that were effectively welcomed in advance, rather than a call for the careful management of risks. Ter-Petrosyan\u2019s formula - Karabakh cannot be independent. Armenia cannot fight endlessly. A compromise is inevitable\u201d - was perceived by many as a verdict of capitulation, issued before any serious attempt had been made to mobilize alternative instruments for protecting national interests.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

The critics of the plan were not limited to the so-called \u201cKarabakh radicals.\u201d These concerns were shared by much broader circles: the military, expert communities, and international analytical reports. All pointed to the same risk that the loss of Meghri would become a point of no return for Armenia, fundamentally undermining its strategic position(see, for example, analyses on the \u201ccorridors of opportunity\u201d and the consequences of losing Meghri published on ReliefWeb).<\/a>).<\/p>\n

For Artsakh, Meghri was not merely a territory, but an artery of survival. It was Armenia\u2019s only access to Iran, the only direction not controlled by Turkey or Azerbaijan. The loss of Meghri would mean:<\/p>\n