I don't care so much either

... but in the spirit of Vox Day, I'm going to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh too.

Over the past few weeks, Azerbaijan invaded a part of their own "sovereign territory", which Armenia sort-of claims. The Azeris won - kicked ass, in fact. Armenia at the time was being run by Democracy!! which we are all supposed to support or else be called nasty names. Armenia's democratic opensociety Build-Back-Better leaders are currently disgraced and ... not leading very much; to the extent there is a leader around there anymore, it's Putin. You know, the Russian guy. Whom we are supposed to detest or else be called nasty names.

I disclose some more sympathy to the Armenian position than to the Turks'. Azeris are interesting here in that they are not exactly Turks. They speak that language but they seem to have adopted it secondarily. An "old Azeri" language once existed - it was Iranian. The Caucasus and Caspian-shore regions tend to attract languages and to keep them around for longer than usual. Azeri Turkish is rather an exception to this rule. As for religion, the Azeris are Shi'ite; I recall they belonged to some nativist heresy and went to Shi'ism later, like Iranians again. The Safavids were Azeri, ended up ruling Iran - if not inventing "Iran". Because for a third time they're Aryans.

Where the Azeris weren't to be found was up in Nagorno-Karabakh. Stalin - Georgian - had given those hills over to Azerbaijan's SSR for reasons, possibly just not liking Armenians very much. After the USSR collapsed and before Putin, the local Armenians simply (okay, violently) got it back. The Azeris recently smelled an opportunity in Armenian incompetence and made a move for it again.

Azeris know as well as I do that their claim on N-K is unhistorical. So they've argued it belongs to historic Caucasian Albania. Not to be confused with Balkan Albania; Albania means generically "white-mountain-stan" I believe, sometimes contrasted with a "Montenegro". Azeris include a Lezgic minority in their north, clearly preceding any Turkish or Aryan presence, so they sometimes claim to be descendants of them. The main literate language in that region, unlike Azeri, survives today: Udi.

Nobody has broken it to the Azeris that the Caucasian Albania was always diverse and, as it happens, often run by... Armenians, when it wasn't run by Iranians. At least in the late AD 600s, my focus, this was so. (The Greater Armenia was politically diverse in those days, too.) As for the Udi they're northern folk, akin to Chechens and various Lezgics. N-K is to (now, in) Azerbaijan's west.

But who really cares about 'oo lived, er, 'ere. Right-of-conquest, bitchez! The Azeris won N-K and could well keep it. Except they made one tiny little mistake. They murdered Armenian captives. And then Turks abroad made some UGLY marches and declarations against Armenians - as a race, wherever they reside. Now, the Armenians aren't blameless here either. The difference here is that when Azeris are murdered, only Turks care. When Armenians are murdered, Orthodox Christians care. And so does their protector, Putin.

I agree with The Saker and with Karlin and with the other Unzite Russophiles on this one. Armenia lost a battle, to Azerbaijan. But I suspect she might not lose this war. Azerbaijan is no match for Russia, and Turkey - under Erdogan - isn't getting what he wants either.

In retrospect, the Azeris may end up wishing they'd stayed put and kept the peace.

OR NOT 10/7/23: They had Israeli help. How's that working out for Israel.