Introduction – Deterrence Without Permission
A Mossad officer leaves Tehran undetected, a key Iranian nuclear scientist dead. The West condemns, but Israel’s red lines are clear: deterrence doesn’t need permission.
The modern myth of international multilateralism is crumbling, especially when tested by countries that know they must act alone. Israel, Armenia—different in means, but alike in the lesson: don’t expect global institutions or alliances to save you.
The Hollowing of Global Institutions
In a stately chamber in Geneva, delegates applaud as a resolution passes. The United Nations Human Rights Council has just condemned Israel – again – for its policies in Palestinian territories. It’s the fourth time this year they’ve done so. A lone item on the agenda, “Human rights situation in X country,” seems to exist almost exclusively for Israel; egregious abuses in North Korea or Syria rarely get such attention. On the dais, the council’s vice-president, an ambassador from an authoritarian regime, smiles thinly. He represents a government that jails dissidents and tortures prisoners, yet here he sits as a judge of human rights. In fact, more than two-thirds of the Council’s members are non-democracies[20]. The very body meant to uphold human rights has, to a great extent, been captured by those who abuse them.
This tableau illustrates the tragic hollowing-out of global institutions. After WWII, institutions like the UN were designed by and largely for liberal democracies to codify certain values – peace, human rights, development. For a while, they functioned (imperfectly) as intended. But over time, as global power shifted and Western attention waned, authoritarian states learned to game the system. They realized that by organizing voting blocs and fielding their own candidates, they could subvert these institutions from within. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a poster child. Countries like China, Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia have sat on the Council routinely. Iran – a theocracy that shoots protesters – was recently elected as chair of the UNHRC’s Social Forum on technology and human rights[21]. It would be darkly comedic if real lives weren’t at stake.
Consider the dynamics: dictatorships often back each other’s candidacies in these bodies (you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours). They form a defensive wall against critiques. When a vote comes, say, to investigate war crimes in Syria, authoritarian members band together to block or water it down. Meanwhile, they eagerly pass resolutions bludgeoning Israel – a favorite easy target given automatic majorities from non-aligned and Muslim-majority states. The result is an inversion of moral focus: the worse a regime’s human rights record, the more zeal it shows in highlighting someone else’s supposed abuses to deflect attention. Hillel Neuer of UN Watch famously likened electing China, Cuba and Russia to the Council as “making a gang of arsonists into the fire brigade”[22]. Indeed it is – foxes guarding the henhouse, to use another metaphor he employed[23].
It’s not just the Human Rights Council. The UN General Assembly has become a theater of absurd double standards. In 2024, out of 23 General Assembly resolutions criticizing specific countries, 17 targeted Israel alone – nearly 75%[24]. The rest of the world, including serial abusers, got a combined 6 resolutions[25]. To put that in perspective, there were zero GA resolutions on China’s mass detention of Uyghurs, or on Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing of Rohingya in recent years, but dozens on Israel. The General Assembly – where every nation, democratic or despotic, has an equal vote – has become a place where authoritarians use the weight of numbers to pass what amount to propaganda resolutions. They know there will be no enforcement anyway; the point is to isolate one state or shield another in the court of public opinion. Thus you see year after year a parade of condemnations of Israel (often for defending itself against rocket attacks), while, for example, no resolution ever named Hamas for using human shields or Iran for arming terrorists, etc. The selectivity is glaring. U.S. officials have decried this bias as a sign of moral bankruptcy in the UN system. As one State Department report noted, global institutions no longer protect law – they amplify power. The General Assembly, intended as the voice of “we the peoples,” is instead the voice of governments – many of them unaccountable to those peoples.
Worse, some parts of the UN are now actively tools of authoritarian influence. China has maneuvered its officials or proxies into top jobs in agencies like the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and others, where they subtly push Chinese regulatory standards or stances favorable to Beijing. Russia held the rotating presidency of the Security Council even as it waged war in Ukraine – an Orwellian spectacle of a war criminal chairing meetings on peace and security. And consider the UN Security Council itself: designed to ensure great power buy-in, it’s now often a deadlock between Western members and a China-Russia axis vetoing anything that displeases them. On Syria, on Ukraine, on North Korea – meaningful action is blocked. Thus, a Syrian regime can use chemical weapons with only impotent UN chapter condemnations, because Russia says nyet to accountability. The Security Council, guardian of the peace, is toothless when one of its permanent members is the peace-breaker.
Even specialized agencies have seen hijacks. UNESCO (the UN’s cultural body) in 2011 was presided by a Chinese official who promoted Beijing’s line on internet governance and tried to downplay human rights in its agenda. The World Health Organization in early 2020 was criticized for echoing China’s misleading assurances about COVID-19, delaying the alarm – a reflection of China’s outsized influence there. The list goes on.
The decay isn’t entirely the authoritarians’ fault; it’s also benign neglect by democracies. During the 1990s and 2000s, Western powers perhaps grew complacent, assuming these institutions would always operate as originally idealized. But when the U.S. itself flouted the UN (like bypassing it to invade Iraq) or withdrew (as the Trump administration did from the Human Rights Council, calling it a “cesspool of bias”), it ceded ground for others to shape them. Illiberal regimes seized the chance to rewrite norms. They push concepts like “state sovereignty” and “non-interference” to thwart human rights scrutiny – conveniently justifying their own crackdowns as “internal matters.” They flood forums with resolutions that equate criticism of a government with “incitement” or try to police speech under the guise of cultural sensitivity. Bit by bit, the liberal normative edge is chipped away.
One stark example mentioned in the prompt: a UN Special Rapporteur named Francesca Albanese, tasked with investigating Israeli actions, has been accused of repeated antisemitic rhetoric and gross bias[26]. Instead of providing credible human rights monitoring, her role became a platform for propaganda: at one point she absurdly referred to Israel as “the Fourth Reich”[27], trivializing the Holocaust while demonizing the Jewish state. Such individuals getting appointed (and not removed despite protests) signals that the system’s self-correcting mechanisms are broken. When those meant to impartially uphold rights are themselves partisan or prejudiced, the moral authority of the institution crumbles.
Why does this matter in a “Darwinian” world analysis? Because small nations traditionally relied on international institutions as force-multipliers and shields. A weak country could appeal to the UN or international court for justice, or count on collective security principles, or count on multilateral treaties to constrain larger predators. But if those institutions are ineffective or co-opted, the weak lose an avenue of protection. When Armenia was attacked by Azerbaijan, for instance, it went to international bodies for help. It got statements of concern, maybe a UN resolution urging peace – and nothing concrete. Azerbaijan (backed by Turkey and unchecked by Russia or the West) simply ignored the calls. Armenia learned the UN won’t send blue helmets; OSCE observers came, noted the ceasefire breaches, and left. Global institutions have become forums for talk, not action, especially when an aggressor has a powerful patron or veto-wielding friend.
Another consequence is psychological: the narrative of a fair world order falls apart. People see that human rights talk at the UN is often hypocritical, that “international justice” only happens when geopolitics allow, not consistently. This breeds cynicism and the sense that one’s nation must look out for itself. Even citizens in democracies become disillusioned with these institutions, as seen in the U.S. and elsewhere (hence populist calls to defund or exit them). The less legitimacy these bodies have, the less restraining influence they exert on bad actors.
In essence, we now have bureaucracy as a weapon – to twist the next article’s teaser theme. Autocracies learned to use the West’s own creations against the West (and against liberal values). They did this quietly, through patient diplomacy and bloc voting, not tanks and missiles. It’s a 21st-century form of warfare: capture the narrative, seize the referee’s whistle in the global game.
What’s the takeaway for small nations? Be highly skeptical of international guarantees and forums. Participate in them, yes – you want your voice heard and to build coalitions. But do not rely on them for salvation. If you’re a threatened state, a UN resolution won’t save your village from being shelled. A court ruling in The Hague might award you moral victory, but without enforcement it’s Pyrrhic (ask the Philippines, which won a case against China’s sea claims, only to see China ignore it). The only quasi-exception is if you can align a broad coalition of major powers in your favor (like Kuwait did in 1991 when Iraq invaded – but that was under a very different U.S.-led order).
Thus, a savvy small nation now uses institutions instrumentally: if they help you, great; if not, bypass them. For example, Israel, fed up with UN bias, simply takes its case directly to individual allies and uses its own capabilities to protect itself (as we’ll see next). Taiwan, excluded from the UN by Chinese pressure, forms its own networks of support with like-minded countries. New informal groupings (regional alliances, ad-hoc coalitions like the Quad in Asia, etc.) are emerging to do what formal bodies can’t. This is part of the “multipolar fragmentation” – a shift to more localized or interest-based partnerships, rather than universal ones.
One might ask: can these global institutions be reformed or revived? Possibly, but only if democracies reassert leadership and invest political capital, which so far they have hesitated to do, especially when domestic issues loom larger. It may take a shock (like a war that directly involves more big powers) to force an overhaul. Until then, they limp on, half-zombie, still carrying the banner of ideals but too weak or compromised to enforce them.
In the meantime, the paradox is rich: We have more international institutions than ever, yet a less “international” order in the normative sense. Lots of meetings, summits, declarations – but fewer shared values or resolve. If the last era was about building global rules, this era is about surviving without them. As a cynical diplomat remarked, “The UN is effective at one thing: convening crises to discuss the crisis.”
The hollowing of institutions teaches small states a final sobering lesson: legality and legitimacy are separate from reality. You can win all the UN votes and court cases you want, but if an enemy has the guns and no scruples, you lose. Or in Hobbesian terms: “Covenants, without the sword, are but words.”[28] International law is a covenant; its sword was collective will. That sword is rusting in the sheath. We now turn to a nation that understood this early on and decided to wield its own sword without asking permission.
Israel: Deterrence Without Permission
The year is 2010. In the suburbs of Tehran, an Iranian nuclear scientist kisses his wife goodbye and gets into his car for the morning commute. He never makes it to the lab. A motorbike zooms up, a sticky bomb is slapped onto the car door, and boom – one less physicist working on Iran’s nuclear program. Over the next two years, four Iranian nuclear scientists are assassinated in similar fashion. No one officially takes credit, but the world’s intelligence agencies and media have little doubt: Mossad, Israel’s famed secret service, is at work. At the same time, a mysterious computer worm called Stuxnet is wreaking havoc at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility. Centrifuges spin out of control and self-destruct – about 1,000 of them – setting Iran’s program back by years[29]. Again, no one is openly claiming responsibility, but reports reveal it was a joint U.S.-Israeli cyber operation[29], the first cyberweapon to physically destroy another nation’s infrastructure. The world might quietly applaud preventing a nuclear Iran, but officially, these acts are condemned as illegal. Yet Israel calculates it cannot afford to care about the official noise. It has bought itself time – without asking anyone’s permission.
Israel offers a masterclass in unilateral realism. A tiny country in a hostile neighborhood, it long ago shed any illusions that international institutions or even superpower allies would secure its existence. From its birth, surrounded by enemies rejecting its right to exist, Israel learned it must be ready to defend itself, by itself, every single day. The 1967 Six-Day War, waged largely alone, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, where U.S. aid arrived only after Israel suffered heavily, reinforced a culture of self-reliance. The world’s sympathy after the Holocaust dissipated quickly into realpolitik. And so Israel adopted a doctrine often summarized as: no existential threats tolerated, act pre-emptively if necessary. The world might not like its methods, but as an Israeli official once said, “Better a condemnatory resolution than a eulogy.”
The most famous example of Israel’s lone-wolf deterrence was the 1981 airstrike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. Saddam Hussein’s regime was nearing completion of a reactor that Israel believed was designed to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Diplomacy and international pressure had failed to stop it. So, in June 1981, Israeli jets flew a daring long-range mission and blew the reactor to smithereens. The immediate reaction was global outrage – even the U.S. voted for a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel[30]. Yet years later, as Saddam in 1990 invaded Kuwait and threatened the region, many came to privately acknowledge Israel’s strike prevented a nuclear-armed Iraq. It had changed the course of history, at the cost of opprobrium. Israel deemed that worth it. This set a precedent known as the “Begin Doctrine” (after Prime Minister Menachem Begin): Israel will not allow hostile states to acquire nuclear weapons, period.
Fast forward to the 2000s and 2010s. Iran’s nuclear ambitions become Israel’s foremost security concern. Diplomacy drags on; sanctions hit Iran but don’t stop its uranium enrichment. Israel watches as world powers negotiate (the 2015 JCPOA accord) but remains skeptical it will really dismantle Iran’s program. Throughout, Israeli intelligence runs a shadow war: aside from Stuxnet and assassinations, they reportedly sabotage facilities (mysterious explosions and fires have struck Iranian nuclear sites and missile factories over the years), and they cultivate extensive espionage networks. In 2018, Mossad pulled off a heist straight out of Hollywood – stealing half a ton of secret nuclear archives from the heart of Tehran and flying them to Tel Aviv. The documents proved Iran had worked on bomb designs, vindicating some of Israel’s warnings. Again, no one else could or would have done that. It was a national effort driven by a “do whatever it takes” ethos.
Israel also repeatedly struck Syria and Sudan to interdict arms bound for Hezbollah or Hamas. In 2007, it secretly bombed a Syrian nuclear reactor under construction (Operation Orchard), with North Korean assistance, catching the world by surprise when it was revealed. The U.S. had hesitated on how to handle that intelligence; Israel just acted. And beyond nuclear/preventive strikes, Israel maintains a posture of aggressive deterrence against immediate threats. In Gaza, when rocket fire becomes unbearable, Israel launches major operations to restore deterrence, despite inevitable UN condemnation and media scrutiny. The civilian toll is tragic in such asymmetrical fights, but from Israel’s perspective, inaction is worse if it means enemies think Israel has lost its bite.
“The West lost its taste for war; Israel never did,” goes a grim joke. It reflects the reality that Western publics have grown casualty-averse and constrained by moral qualms, whereas Israel, though certainly not bloodthirsty, accepts that sometimes force must be used, even without international blessing. Israelis serve compulsory military service; society remains on a quasi-wartime footing always. This creates a mindset foreign to more comfortable nations. A senior Israeli official once put it to a European counterpart: “You live in Nice; we live in Sderot.” (Sderot is a town frequently hit by rockets from Gaza). The implication: your lectures on restraint ring hollow when your citizens aren’t the ones under fire daily.
Crucially, Israel’s actions, however unilateral, are underpinned by a strategy of deterrence. They are not wanton or random; they aim to instill in enemies a belief that Israel will retaliate tenfold for aggression and preempt emerging threats before they mature. It’s classic “deterrence by punishment and denial”: punish the bad actors (like assassinating key nuclear scientists to discourage others) and deny them capabilities (blowing up reactors, convoys). This strategy has been remarkably effective at times. It likely delayed Iran’s nuclear timeline significantly – some estimate by a decade or more. It keeps Hezbollah cautious; despite having an arsenal of missiles, Hezbollah hasn’t provoked a full war since 2006 because that war hurt Lebanon badly under Israeli bombardment, and they know Israel will do it again if pushed.
Israel also leverages unpredictability. Neighbors know Israel’s red lines but also that Israel might strike out of the blue if it feels threatened. This creates an aura of “the crazy guy in the neighborhood – better not mess with him.” Yet ironically, Israel is quite calculated, not crazy. It chooses targets carefully to avoid all-out regional war (so far). It operates in the shadows to give foes face-saving deniability. And it coordinates tacitly with big powers when possible (even its 1981 strike, while officially condemned by Washington, was not punished severely behind the scenes).
What about international law and norms? Israel’s view could be summed up as: Our existence is at stake; legal idealism is secondary. They would point to the UN’s failure to protect Israel in the past or to fairly arbitrate its conflicts. Surrounded by states that refused to even recognize it for decades, Israel understandably felt that deterrence without permission was the only realistic path. Do first, explain (or don’t) later. If an Israeli action staves off a new Holocaust scenario (e.g., a nuclear attack), history will forgive it even if the present doesn’t.
This doesn’t mean Israel doesn’t seek alliances or approval where it can. In fact, a hallmark of its strategy is pairing independence with alliance-making. It values its partnership with the United States above all – the one country that consistently vetoes the worst UN measures against it and supplies it with advanced weapons. But even with the U.S., Israel doesn’t ask permission for every move (as seen in 1981 Iraq strike – it informed Washington after the fact). This can cause friction. During the Obama years, Israel reportedly came close to striking Iran outright, but the U.S. pressured it not to, promising sanctions and diplomacy would suffice. Netanyahu bristled but pulled back for the time being. Yet he also kept Mossad’s covert campaign running. Israeli leaders across the spectrum hold that ultimately, Israel will do what it must, even if alone[31]. Netanyahu often said, “If Israel is forced to stand alone, it will stand alone”[32]. And as recent as 2025, he warned again that Israel is prepared to act by itself to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb[31].
Israel’s approach, while perhaps unique in scale, resonates with other small states’ survival strategies. It says: international norms are nice, but survival is non-negotiable. If the world won’t act, we will. In a collapsing rules-based order, many nations quietly envy Israel’s capability to do that. Gulf Arab states, once Israel’s foes, now find common cause with it against Iran – partly because they know Israel will actually do something about Iran if push comes to shove. That credibility earned through action has given Israel surprising new diplomatic openings (e.g., normalization with UAE, Bahrain via the Abraham Accords). These Sunni states basically decided that siding with a strong, determined Israel is safer than relying on fickle Western security guarantees. Again, power and proven resolve attract partners more than ideals do in today’s world.
However, Israel’s unilateralism also has costs. It has deepened its pariah status in some international fora. It faces accusations (some justified, some exaggerated) of violating international law. It can lead to cycles of escalation – e.g., assassinating scientists can spur Iran to retaliate via proxies, which then leads to further Israeli strikes. Living by the sword means permanent vigilance and risk. But Israelis often counter: we live in a permanent state of risk regardless; better to manage it on our terms. And indeed, Israel has thus far managed to avoid the worst-case scenario of a nuclear-armed adversary or multi-front war it can’t handle. It walks a tightrope, but so far with balance.
One more narrative from 2020 encapsulates Israel’s ethos. A senior Mossad operative stands on a rooftop in Tehran at dawn, watching an explosion bloom at a warehouse below – a warehouse that secretly stored key components for nuclear centrifuges. Mission accomplished. As his team exfiltrates, news of the blast will soon hit airwaves. Iran will blame “Zionist sabotage.” UN officials will call for “restraint on all sides.” But by the time inspectors arrive, the evidence is literal smoke and rubble. Israel’s action will never be publicly admitted, but its impact will be very real. That operative, as he boards an unmarked helicopter, muses that he’ll probably never get credit or thanks internationally. But he doesn’t do it for thanks. He does it so that his children, back home in Tel Aviv, won’t have to live in the shadow of an Iranian nuke. That is deterrence without permission in a nutshell: doing what is necessary, accolades be damned.
For small nations, Israel’s experience underscores that strength earns safety more than sympathy does. The world might condemn you in the halls of the UN, but quietly many respect decisive moves. At the end of the day, every country’s duty is to its own people’s security. Israel takes that duty to its absolute extreme – arguably out of sheer necessity given history. Others may not need to go as far, but the principle stands: be ready to stand alone, and ironically, you’ll never be truly alone (because strength draws others to support you, or at least think twice before crossing you). In the jungle, even the small must roar like lions if they want to survive. No one grasps that better than Israel.
Armenia: The Price of Trusting the West
In a small stone church in southern Armenia, candles flicker as villagers gather their belongings to flee. It’s late 2023, and the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh – home to ethnic Armenians for generations – has fallen to Azerbaijani forces after a lightning offensive. Outside, the thump of Azerbaijani drones still echoes; the very sky that once seemed to watch over them is now a source of death. An elderly man looks to the heavens and asks bitterly: “Where is everyone? Where is Russia? Where is Europe? Why have we been forsaken?” There is no answer, only the distant hum of a Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone that has already done its lethal work, hovering like a silent judge.
Armenia’s tragedy is a textbook case of misplaced faith in the international community. For years, Armenia relied on a diplomatic process – the OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by France, Russia, and the U.S. – to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute with Azerbaijan. Armenian leaders believed that with such great powers mediating, full-scale war could be averted and their kinsmen in Karabakh protected. In 2020, that illusion was shattered. Oil-rich Azerbaijan, having built up a formidable modern military (funded by petro-dollars and equipped by Turkey, Israel, and Russia ironically), launched a surprise offensive to retake territories lost in the 1990s war. Armed drones, loitering munitions, and precision rockets rained down on Armenian positions, obliterating their outdated tanks and shattering defenses[33][34]. The Armenian forces, courageous but outmatched, crumbled in 44 days. Over 6,500 people died, 100,000 Armenians were displaced from lands their families had inhabited for a century[35].
What did the “guarantors” of peace do? The United States and France expressed concern, maybe imposed an arms embargo on Azerbaijan (too late). Russia, which Armenia considered an ally through a defense pact (CSTO) and which had a military base in Armenia, largely stayed neutral – some say because it had tacitly agreed with Turkey to divide influence, others because it was distracted and didn’t want to alienate Azerbaijan (or Turkey). The OSCE process was exposed as a paper tiger – when one side decided to use war to settle the conflict, the mediators were caught flat-footed[36]. None of the countries in the Minsk Group had the will to intervene or penalize Azerbaijan effectively. This “clear signal of neutrality” by the major powers in face of aggression did not go unnoticed by others, including Putin (who may have read it as a license for his own plans)[37][36].
Armenia’s government, led by a reformist Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan (who came to power in 2018’s democratic “Velvet Revolution”), had bet that pivoting West and highlighting shared democratic values would rally support. Indeed, Pashinyan received much Western praise for domestic reforms. But when war came, those democratic credentials didn’t translate into military aid or boots on the ground. Western leaders gave stern statements at the UN, and some humanitarian aid after, but effectively let Azerbaijan and Turkey run the show. It was a harsh awakening: moral narratives collapse when drones fill the skies. High-minded talk of human rights meant little to the Azeri TB2 operator locking onto a target, or to the Israeli-built Harop “kamikaze” drone diving onto an Armenian artillery position[38][39]. Modern warfare technology, combined with old-fashioned willingness to use force, trumped decades of negotiations and UN resolutions.
After 2020, Russia did broker a ceasefire, deploying peacekeepers in rump Karabakh. But in 2022-2023, emboldened by the world’s focus on Ukraine (and arguably by seeing Russia tied down there), Azerbaijan tightened the noose – blockading the Lachin corridor (Karabakh’s lifeline to Armenia), starving the population. Appeals to international courts and the UN to lift the blockade were ignored by Baku. Finally, in September 2023, Azerbaijan struck again, overruning what remained of Karabakh in 24 hours. Over 100,000 Armenians fled en masse – the largest ethnic cleansing in Europe’s vicinity in recent memory. Pashinyan labeled it a “direct act of ethnic cleansing”[40], and indeed the ancient Armenian presence in that region was erased virtually overnight.
The fallout for Armenia was immense. It felt betrayed by Russia (its supposed protector) – Moscow’s peacekeepers stood by and did nothing as Azerbaijan broke the ceasefire. It felt let down by the West – European monitors on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border watched incursions but had no mandate to stop anything; the EU and U.S. imposed no real costs on Azerbaijan for its aggression. Why? Geopolitics: Europe buys Azerbaijani gas (to substitute for Russian gas), and Western diplomats perhaps quietly deemed Nagorno-Karabakh a hopeless cause not worth a confrontation when so much else was burning. As for Russia, it was likely content to see Pashinyan (whom it viewed as too pro-Western) humiliated, even if it meant Armenians suffering. Thus do small nations become playthings. Armenia learned that even formal alliances (CSTO) can be useless if your ally’s interests don’t align at the moment of truth.
This is a bitter pill: trusting external security guarantees – whether Western or Russian – cost Armenia dearly. In retrospect, could Armenia have done more on its own? Possibly: it could have invested in better air defense and drones, seeing what was coming. It could have tried a more flexible diplomatic stance earlier to avoid giving Azerbaijan the pretext for war. But those are what-ifs. The core lesson is akin to Ukraine’s: hope is not a strategy. Armenia hoped international mediation would suffice and that Russia’s deterrence would hold. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, prepared: it built an army with force, patience, and preparation, aligning with stronger allies (Turkey, and tacitly Israel) and waited for an opportune moment. When it struck, it achieved in weeks what negotiations failed to in decades.
Armenia’s experience also underscores the declining efficacy of moral arguments. Armenians around the world cried out that another genocide might be looming. They invoked the memory of 1915 when Ottomans massacred Armenians. But realpolitik prevailed over “Never Again” sloganeering. Turkey’s strategic weight (as NATO’s bridge to Central Asia, as a drone powerhouse, etc.) meant few wanted to confront it over backing Azerbaijan. Israel, usually aligned with Western democracies, nonetheless armed Azerbaijan because Azerbaijan offered oil and a strategic foothold against Iran[41][42]. The UAE and others similarly favored Azerbaijan’s side. This coalition of interests vastly outweighed Armenia’s pleas based on justice or historical grievance.
One striking image: Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the U.S. House, visited Armenia after Azerbaijan’s 2022 cross-border attacks on Armenia proper (not just Karabakh). She condemned Azerbaijan’s aggression. Armenians cheered her words, seeing a glimmer that the West might intervene. But words did not translate into deeds. No sanctions, no military aid came that could alter the balance. It was a stark example of the limits of Western moral support when unaccompanied by concrete action[43].
Armenia is now reorienting its survival strategy. Disillusioned with Russia, it’s inching toward the West – perhaps hoping if integrated (say, with the EU someday), it would deter future attacks. But even that is uncertain; Azerbaijan, flush with victory, might try to press advantage on other disputed border areas. Armenia is also trying to rapidly reform and strengthen its own army, but its resources are limited. Ultimately, Armenia might seek a balance of aligning but not relying: keep ties with multiple powers (Russia, Iran, West) to avoid total abandonment by all. It’s a tough act.
For other small nations, Armenia’s saga is a cautionary tale: if you bank on someone else’s promise instead of your own preparedness, you may pay a fatal price. Security pacts are only as good as the interests behind them at any given moment. If circumstances change (say, your ally is busy with another war, or you’ve drifted politically), those promises can ring hollow. Armenia had paper guarantees (like CSTO’s mutual defense clause) but when Azerbaijani drones darkened the skies, not a single ally’s soldier came[36]. The only “cavalry” was Armenian volunteers rushing to the front in pickup trucks, facing high-tech weapons with valor alone.
Also instructive is the role of technology: Azerbaijan’s use of drones was a game-changer, earning them a decisive edge at low cost[33][44]. This suggests small nations should invest in force multipliers like drones, cyber, precision missiles – the kind of tools that can offset a larger enemy’s numbers. Off-the-shelf drones turned out to nullify much of Armenia’s traditional armor and artillery. In modern warfare, quality and innovation beat quantity, especially if your opponent is stuck with legacy systems.
Finally, the psychological blow to Armenia’s populace cannot be ignored. They watched as the world simply moved on after Nagorno-Karabakh fell. This breeds a fatalism that can be dangerous – some Armenians now say, “we only have ourselves, no one else will ever help.” That can spur a healthy self-reliance, but also despair. Leaders of small nations must harness such sentiments carefully: use them to galvanize internal reform and strength, rather than sink into victimhood. Pashinyan, to his credit, seems to be channeling it into a kind of “Armenia will become strong on its own terms” message, but his domestic critics accuse him of naivety and even treason for trusting the West at all.
In conclusion, Armenia’s ordeal encapsulates a core theme of this essay: the collapse of the old order leaves the weak to fend largely for themselves. Treaties, peace processes, and moral victories at the UN mean little if not backed by might. Armenia’s foreign minister perhaps said it best in a moment of candor: “We were told the world would not allow ethnic cleansing in 2023. We believed that. We were wrong.” It’s a heart-wrenching admission that in this Darwinian turn of world affairs, even basic norms like preventing ethnic cleansing are not guaranteed unless someone with power cares enough to enforce them.
Armenia trusted; Armenia lost. The price is etched in abandoned homes, lost lives, and an ancient community uprooted. For other small states, the message couldn’t be clearer: build your defenses, nurture alliances but expect nothing, and never entrust your survival entirely to the hands of others. The cavalry isn’t coming – you are the cavalry.
Conclusion – Toward the Final Lesson
Israel’s lone-wolf deterrence and Armenia’s costly faith in global protection are two sides of the same coin. One proves that decisive strength draws both respect and survival; the other warns that without it, even the most righteous cause can be erased in days.
Both stories point toward the same conclusion: in a Darwinian world, multilateralism is a luxury, not a lifeline.
In the final part of After the Collapse, we will explore how this reality is driving a new survival doctrine for small nations—a doctrine built not on moral consensus, but on adaptability, asymmetric tools, and the will to endure.
Note: This is the second part of a three articles series, to go and check out the sources used for its creation please go to the end of the last article of the series. See the first and third parts.
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