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Much controversy and differences of opinion have surfaced following the August 8 summit in Washington DC, where Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with Presidents Donald Trump and Ilham Aliyev. The lack of detailed public disclosure about the negotiations has created fertile ground for speculation, with uninformed voices rushing to fill the vacuum with conjecture and often self-serving interpretations. What is clear, however, is that this summit marks a significant turning point in the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization process, while also altering the entirety of the geopolitical configurations of the region.
An objective review of what has been made public to date fundamentally boils down to this: in exchange for the establishment of a commercial route for goods flowing between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave—one that would operate fully under Armenian sovereignty and legal jurisdiction—Ilham Aliyev pledged in the White House that he will not violate the principles of the Washington Summit as declared by the three sides. Of course, while this outcome is not explicitly stated in any of the signed documents, the broad contours of the arrangement have been recognized by serious analysts as a meaningful, if limited, restraint on Azerbaijan’s ongoing pattern of coercion and escalation. For a complete analysis of the details of the three-way agreements, readers can consult this excellent article by Prof. Nerses Kopalyan.
Most informed experts agree that the chances of another military conflagration initiated by Aliyev during the remaining tenure of the current U.S. administration are highly unlikely. As a result, those characterizing the outcome of the August 8 summit (which was preceded by several months of intense negotiations) as highly favorable to Baku at the expense of Armenia fail to comprehend the opportunity the agreement has created for Armenia to reduce the current asymmetry in hard and soft power capabilities between the two states. Said differently, the August 8 accords should be understood not as the culmination of a process but as its beginning; the first constructive steps toward transforming a destructive cycle of conflict into a framework for cautious co-existence, however imperfect it may be.
Seen in this context, the results of the Washington summit have temporarily reset the clock for Armenia’s efforts to re-establish relative parity with its eastern neighbor, a reprieve which cannot be lost in vain. The stark truth is that even five years after the 44-day war and two years since the catastrophic ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, many critical components of an effective, multi-layered deterrence capability remain partially completed, or yet to be developed at all. While some of this can be attributed to lack of institutional depth and capabilities, it’s also true that Armenian society has been repeatedly told that any concerted effort to achieve defense parity or respond proportionately to the enemy’s aggression would lead to wide-scale attack on Armenia proper. In this post-August 8 reality, that threat has been diminished and deferred, though not eliminated, extending the window of opportunity for a coordinated nation-wide effort to raise the stakes for any future attempt by Azerbaijan to exert threat of force to achieve political gains.
Unfortunately, reprieves also run their course, often with graver consequences. International Financial Institutions (IFIs) who restructure loan programs to states that fail to achieve necessary economic and political reforms will impose more onerous conditions for the second (or nth) bailout or, in extreme circumstances, refuse any further assistance. Similarly, the primary actors—friendly, neutral or hostile—engaged with Armenia in this period of recovery will each draw their own conclusions about the intent and ability of the country’s path towards self-sufficiency, and act accordingly.
In short, Armenia did not achieve a sustainable, guaranteed peace on August 8. Rather, Armenia secured the opportunity to earn that peace by doubling down on efforts to become the primary guarantor of its security and prosperity. In addition to benefiting from the implied deterrence against renewed aggression by Baku, Armenia has the opportunity to leverage the MOUs signed with the United States regarding investment in the Crossroads of Peace (infrastructure-building and logistical routes); civilian nuclear energy (critical to support Armenia’s growth plans, especially in tech); and finally AI and semiconductors, which will have outsized benefits by further integrating Armenia’s advanced tech industry into American supply chains and technology development. These MOUs represent the cornerstone of increased American involvement in Armenia’s development. However, Armenia will only enjoy the dividends of these areas of cooperation if it fully commits itself to the execution of its responsibilities, something that requires significant political will, large-scale investment and, last but not least, the active recruitment of experts (local and international) in each domain to ensure the successful completion of the series of projects emanating from these agreements pain relief. Collectively, investments and projects in these three areas have the potential to exceed any public-private initiative undertaken by any post-independence Armenian government.
With this backdrop, Armenia now has less than four years to accelerate economic development by exploiting national assets such as natural resources, agriculture, renewable energy, tourism and its advanced tech industry, as well as its global diasporan network, to channel the outputs of that growth into a set of strategic imperatives to assure its security across multiple dimensions. This can only be achieved by a coordinated, concentrated and resolute joint effort by government, key institutions, the private sector and society at large to capitalize on the clock reset on August 8.
