Whose friend is Armenia?

Question

A friends question made me think again. Russia has a military base in Armenia, but there are 350,000+ Armenians in USA. USA wants to have Azerbeycan as an ally, but Armenia occupies Azeri land and massacres thousands. USA wants Turkey to remain an ally, but diaspora Armenians cause a rift between USA and Turkey to open.

I am confused. Whose friend is Armenia and Armenians? (Other than themselves, of course.)

Answer 1

Not Turkey's, for sure.

Answer 2

I think these kinds of countries' friendship change for each interest.

Answer 3

Well, in politics there is no friendship. One day you are ally, because the other country needs and wants that or because it can't do otherwise, the other day you are the enemy, because of the same reasons. It's sad, but it's so.

Yeah, Armenia still has Russian military base since it has two neighbors who many times in history attacked Armenia and Armenians, and although Armenians could protect themselves last time when Azerbaijan launched attack against former Armenian territory and predominanlty Armenians occupied territory, obviously the other neighbor (Turkey) is very strong, so Armenian state consider Russian existence and friendship with Russian state necessary supressing factor for probable attack. Turkey and Azerbaijan keep blockading Armenia and do not have official relationships, so yeah, Armenians are not their friends I guess.
Armenians always had good relations with US, which helped and tried to help Armenians in the most bad times for Armenians (Genocide and afterward, earthquake, humanitarian help after collapse of SU, etc.). Armenians are pretty grateful nation, so they try to be helpful with everything they can. Armenia has small contingent in Iraq, for example, although there were worries it can do "grave harm" for comparably big Armenian population in Iraq.
Armenia has good relations with its two other neighbors; Iran and Georgia. You can ask why Iran, since it is not welcomed by US; well, they have no choice; remember about blockade of two other countries. And yeah, Armenia does not have sea and oil, which makes things very difficult and Armenian state has to carry on "complementary politics", try to be good friends with whomever and how much it can. You can say it only doing it to just take all the good things/advantages from other countries, but this kind of politics, of course, has its disadvantages. Armenian state tries not to cross the boundaries of the good relations with any of its friends, to not annoy other states, and often it leads to big disadvantages, and not good decisions for Armenia. For example, we can't develop relations with Iran as much as it is profittable for us not to offend US, we can not develop our relations with NATO or have a bigger pipeline from Iran not to annoy Russia, and in turn Russia will close its border with Georgia or gasoline, although it knows that it is the only way for us to get goods and gas, US won't let us to cooperate more with Iran in energetic field although it knows that it is the only way to have the other source of energy supplies other than Russia. etc. etc. Yeah, it is not as easy as it seems for the first sight, and it is often a closed circle, and there is no good solution. But Armenian state can't do otherwise; the small mountanious country (all we have now) wants to survive as others want, we did it for a few thousand years, but we weren't quite good in that, another way our territory and population would be muuuuch bigger, as it was long time ago. Well, Armenians aren't really good in politics and never were. Obviously for centures we can't undestand that often "high ideals" are incosistent with politics and each state cares mainly about itself, which is understandable, I guess, that friendship, humanity, honor has nothing to do with momentary needs of the other states. Armenians during their long history were underestimating the deadly threats and overestimating the "good will", fairness of others, and we still continue to do it. So I don't quite agree that Armenians are best friends of Armenians; we did much better job for others, as warriors, as builders, as scientists, as artists, as politicians, and as every nation, we had our own betrayers.

And other countries you mentioned are also not always being "friends", for example, Turkey wasn't very friendly for at least one of the requests for Iraq. And what about its behavior during World war II; it signed an agreement with Germany just before Germany attacked SU, and then waited when everything became clear, and only after that it declared war against Germany when the war was almost over. So it wasn't anyone's friend or enemy during very important times for the whole world. Turkey was a friend of SU after WWI, since their government promised to become communist, it was a good friend of US and West after WWII since it was afraid of SU's attack. And now it has good relations with Russia and US simultaneously since it's profittable. (Almost) Nothing is eternal on this earth :o)

So there are no freinds, there are just interests of individual countries. Sometimes interests of two or more countries coincide, so they become allies for some time, but these agreeements can vanish as soon as one country will have more "profit" in alliance with other country. To make stay this country as your ally you should suggest/"pay" more, and for some time you can "buy its loyality". That's what do big/powerful countries; some small countries learn to "swim" well in this wild river, either they have some vital things to suggest, or they can "sell" what they have better, but some countries just have to sacrifice the little things they have just to be able to survive another day.

Well, also we should not forget that often state and nation are two different things. One can blame governments and some individuals from certain state, one can declare them enemies, but if there is no discrimination and hatred (initiated by government) usually nations try to be friends.
Well, I hope, it is obvious that Armenians are very friendly :o); they could live together and be respected and loved by so many nations in so many countries they had to live with.

P.S. I suppose during the war in Nagorno Karabagh thousands of Azerbajanian soldiers died, but that wasn't massacre, massacre was just before the war and the victims were Armenians, but that's another talk.
P.S. Wow, sorry for a long lecture :o) this is my debute in yahoo answers, so I was hungry to talk, I guess :o)

In short, Armenian governemnt tries to be friends with everyone either because of necessity or because of appreciation/reflection of long history with particular nation or both reasons. So both Russia and US are our friends, as well as EU, China and Iran.