Should Pashinyan Listen To Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney?

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

By Noubar Serabian

On 14 Jan 2026, I published an article titled “The Rules-Based International Order Collapsed. Can Pashinyan Adapt To The Laws Of The Jungle Or The Donroe Doctrine?” While the primary target I had in mind when preparing the article was Nikol Pashinyan, I don’t think his aids translated it and delivered the content to his attention. At best, an analyst working for Armenia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) took notice of it, translated it, and currently the article is resting in an electronic archiving system managed by the FIS. 

In the academic world I am a NOBODY. An analysis of current international relations by a virtual unknown, who relies on quotes associated with the name of the Greek General and historian Thucydides, and his account of the Peloponnesian War (416 BC), does not carry any weight, and Armenia’s principle rulers will not have a sleepless night because an Armenian from the “Diaspora” is ranting about the destructive policies of PM Pashinyan. 

But what if the warning came from Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney instead of Noubar Serabian whose name does not ring any bells in Armenia? 

In his speech at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on 20 January  2026, addressing the collapse of the rules-based international order and the rise of great powers rivalries, PM Carney highlighted the following points:

– “Today, I will talk about a rupture in the world order. The end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality where geopolitics, where the large main power geopolitics is submitted to no limits, no constraints.”

– “It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must. And this aphorism of Thucydities is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.”

– Conformity with the Rules-Based international relations was a mere set of sophisticated lies and rituals. “We participated in the rituals and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”

– “The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied, the WTO, the UN, the COP, the architecture, the very architecture of collective problem solving are under threat. And as a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains. And this impulse is understandable. A country that can’t feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.”

The last point made by PM Carney is very important for the destiny of Armenia. Instead of developing “Strategic Autonomy,” Nikol Pashinyan, decided to import fuel from Azerbaijan. To secure the daily bread of the Armenian citizen, he determined to import wheat from Kazakhstan. Unavoidably, Kazakh wheat has to pass through Azerbaijan before it reaches its final destination in Armenia. This week, the “Enemy-Appeasing Collaborationist” government of Pashinyan, decided to integrate Armenia’s electrical grid with Azerbaijan’s electricity distribution network. 

When your fuel, your bread, your electricity are totally dependent on the whimsical “Benevolence” of Petro-Dictator Aliyev, how can you claim that you have achieved “Strategic Autonomy?” At any point in time, when your submissive attitude is subjected to the paranoid perceptions of the “Glorious” dictator, your fuel deliveries can stop, electricity disconnected, and wheat shipments blocked at the maritime border Azerbaijan shares with Kazakhstan. Without fuel and electricity your population will freeze during the harsh winter season, and without wheat deliveries a significant number of Armenians will starve. 

But we have to give Pashinyan credit for materializing the dream articulated by Levon Shirinyan, one of his prominent supporters, when he said during an interview (translated into English): “Better be the dog of Turkey rather than be the slave of Russia.”

It is obvious that Pashinyan is: “…a man ignorant of the law, well-nigh an enemy to his people’s advantage, while intent on his personal convenience, a dedicated voluptuary, a hater of learning, freedom and truth, without a thought for the interests of his country, and measuring everything in terms of his own profit and desires.“ [Desiderius Erasmus].

Remember Armenian academics labelled Pashinyan as the “Loyal servant of the interests of Ankara and Baku, and also the humble enabler of “The Greater Turan” dream (Pan-Turkism).”

Անկարայի և Բաքվի շահերի հավատարիմ ծառան, ինչպես նաև «Մեծ Թուրան» երազանքի (պանթուրքիզմ) համեստ քարոզիչը;

Արդյո՞ք դավաճանությունը Փաշինյան ընտանիքի գերիշխող հատկանիշն է: