🇷🇺 Why Russia Needs the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict to Stay UNRESOLVED:
Russia has long used the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict not to solve it, but to freeze it just enough to maintain leverage over Armenia and Azerbaijan. Here's an in-depth explanation as to WHY: 👇
1/ 🇷🇺 doesn’t solve conflicts, it manages them just enough to be indispensable.
In Nagorno-Karabakh, 🇷🇺 sells weapons to both 🇦🇲 & 🇦🇿 and positions itself as the only viable “neutral” mediator, while using the unresolved status to justify a military presence in the region.
2/ By keeping the crisis on life support, Moscow ensures that Armenia remains dependent on 🇷🇺 for security guarantees while Azerbaijan continues to tolerate Russian involvement in return for balancing Turkish support. Thus, keeping Western powers out of Caucasus diplomacy.
3/ The threat of renewed conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh keeps Yerevan tethered to Moscow, afraid to abandon the alliance entirely.
🇷🇺 uses this fear to fiscourage 🇦🇲 from drifting toward EU, US or NATO support pressuring Armenia into accepting Russian military & economic terms.
4/ 🇹🇷’s growing role in South Caucasus, especially its military alliance with 🇦🇿, threatens 🇷🇺 dominance.
By keeping the crisis active, 🇷🇺 complicates Turkish–Azeri plans, especially the Zangezur Corridor project. Maintaining itself as a counterbalance to 🇹🇷 in the region.
5/ The uncomfortable truth for Moscow is this:
>A genuine peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
>Full normalization between Armenia and Turkey.
>Western/EU-led diplomatic frameworks replacing Russian ones.
…would mean that 🇷🇺 becomes irrelevant in the South Caucasus.
6/ So while Russia may host talks and release statements, it has no incentive to see a final, stable resolution.
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💬 Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman Diplomacy: From Imperial Nostalgia to Strategic Brokerage 🇹🇷
Turkey is no longer just a regional actor reacting to events, it’s actively trying to shape the architecture of post-imperial Eurasia. Here's why...🧵
1/ For decades, Turkish foreign policy oscillated between Kemalist isolationism and Western integrationism. But under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it has transformed into something more ambitious, and more fluid.
2/ This is not a revival of the Ottoman Empire in a literal sense, but rather a strategic push to fill power vacuums left by declining actors, i.e. 🇷🇺 in the Caucasus, 🇺🇸 in the Middle East
A vision of 🇹🇷 as a “connector state” between Muslim, Turkic, European & Eurasian worlds.
💬 What does Pashinyan's official visit to Turkey means for Russian influence and peace in the Caucasus?
This could be a watershed moment in both Caucasus diplomacy and the geopolitical power struggle between Russia and the West.
Let's break it down...👇
1/ A Diplomatic Shockwave: Armenia Reaches Out to an Old Enemy
This visit is symbolically enormous because relations have long been poisoned by events such as Turkish support for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh wars.
Whilst 🇹🇷 recognised 🇦🇲, it has refused to establish diplomatic relations. In 1993, 🇹🇷 reacted to the war in Nagorno-Karabakh by closing its border with 🇦🇲 out of support for 🇦🇿, which remain closed to this day.
🇮🇷 💬 The Flawed Logic Behind Justifying Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions By The Less Informed🧵
1. The logic that 🇮🇱 repeated attacks on 🇮🇷 justify Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is emotionally persuasive to some, but breaks down under closer scrutiny. Here's why...👇
2. It relies on a dangerously flawed moral equivalence and ignores the broader implications of legitimizing nuclear ambitions based on grievance politics.
“If one bad actor has nuclear weapons, then another bad actor should be allowed to as well.”
3. Adding more volatile regimes to the ncatastrophe, particularly those with opaque governance, poor human rights records, and histories of ideological militarism, does not make the world more just or more balanced, it simply multiplies the risk of catastrophe.
[HISTORY] How the US Took Over the Global Pistachio Market & the Violent History Behind It:🧵
1/ From pistachio cakes to Dubai chocolates, pistachios have become a global food obsession. What was once a niche Middle Eastern nut has now become a symbol of luxury across the world.
2/ But behind this growing popularity lies a darker, lesser-known history: the violent, geopolitically charged story of how the US muscled its way to the top of the global pistachio trade, displacing Iran, the original heartland of pistachio cultivation.
3/ For centuries, Iran was the undisputed king of pistachio production.
That dominance, however, began to unravel after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ushered in the Islamic Republic and triggered decades of sanctions and diplomatic isolation from the West.
💬 How Malaysia’s Flawed Inter-Ministry Coordination Will Derail Our Balancing Strategy:🧵
1. The Huawei AI chip episode reveals a deeper weakness in 🇲🇾’s balancing strategy. It exposes a troubling structural flaw, that is the weak inter-ministry & inter-agency coordination.
2. By all appearances, 🇲🇾 is striving to position itself as a neutral yet strategic player amid intensifying US-China tech rivalry. It has welcomed foreign investment from both sides, courted digital partnerships with 🇺🇸 tech giants, and opened doors to 🇨🇳 AI & 5G technologies.
3. Malaysian government initially declared it would implement 3,000 Huawei Ascend GPU-powered AI servers nationwide by 2026, positioning itself as the first country to adopt this technology at a national scale. malaymail.com/amp/news/malay…
🧵SAARC and Why It’s So Useless: An Exploration of Regionalism Without Results
1. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was established in 1985 with high hopes of fostering economic & regional integration among South Asian nations.
2. Comprised of 8 member states—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka—SAARC was envisioned as a platform for cooperation on trade, development, culture & mutual security in one of the most densely populated & diverse regions of the world.
3. Nearly four decades later, the dream has largely turned into a diplomatic dead-end. SAARC’s relevance has diminished to the point that many regard it as ineffective, if not entirely obsolete.