When diaspora lobbying becomes a strategic liability for Armenia

The core tension is the difference between statecraft and identity politics. Diaspora communities have every right to lobby, advocate and mobilize. The problem begins when a lobby presents itself, implicitly or explicitly, as a substitute for the state’s national interest. That becomes especially damaging when the lobby’s rhetoric, shaped by maximalist narratives and moral absolutism, diverges from the hard choices faced by a government that must pay the real price of conflict, isolation and economic vulnerability.

In that environment, foreign policy becomes less a tool of survival and more a stage for symbolic battles. This is the trap.

In Yerevan, a quiet pragmatism has begun to take root. Armenia’s leadership has recognized that sovereignty is not defended by rhetoric alone, but by expanding viable options and reducing dependence on any single patron. Building practical anchors in the West and exploring channels with Israel fits that logic. The point is not that every initiative will succeed or that every partnership will be politically easy. The point is simpler: A small state must keep doors open because closed doors quickly become strategic dead ends.

This is where the divergence with ANCA becomes consequential. While Armenia’s government seeks workable frameworks, diaspora lobbying has often moved in the opposite direction, treating complex geopolitical tradeoffs as moral betrayals. That difference becomes especially visible in the group’s posture toward the State of Israel. Over the years, ANCA has repeatedly framed Israel not simply as a state with interests in the region, but as a key facilitator of Azerbaijan’s conduct in the Karabakh war, tying Israeli arms ties and energy links to what it describes as atrocities against Armenians and then using that logic to argue that engagement with Israel or with Israel’s partners would be tantamount to rewarding it.

During the 2020 fighting, ANCA’s appeals urged Israeli officials to halt defense exports to Baku, arguing that continued transfers would amount to complicity. More recently, in a late 2025 statement that tried to pull the Gaza debate into the Caucasus file, ANCA claimed that Azerbaijan was invoking the Palestinian issue to “whitewash” its own violence, while again placing Israel near the center of its moral indictment.

By framing Israel as a permanent enemy, the lobby leaves Yerevan with fewer tools to build the partnerships it needs. It also sends confusing signals to policymakers trying to understand what Armenia actually wants. Is it pragmatic integration into Western strategy or perpetual confrontation regardless of cost?

The consequences are not theoretical. When localized disputes are elevated into international crises, they do more than generate headlines. They create friction that Armenia can ill afford. The attempt to turn municipal and legal disputes in Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter into high-profile diplomatic causes is a case in point. Such campaigns shift manageable issues into the realm of geopolitical grievance. They increase tensions with potential partners and narrow the space for quiet, practical problem-solving. Instead of strengthening Armenia’s position, they make compromise and cooperation politically harder.

The most strategically significant flashpoint is the TRIPP normalization framework. For Yerevan, connectivity and de-escalation are not slogans. They are tools to reduce a stifling dependence on Russia and to limit Iran’s ability to benefit from regional paralysis. For diaspora activists committed to a narrative of perpetual struggle, such frameworks are often judged not by whether they expand Armenian sovereignty in practice, but by whether they conform to an idealized moral template. Yet the region is not governed by templates. It is governed by leverage, corridors, energy flows and the ability to avoid isolation.

This is why diaspora obstruction carries a larger risk. It can pull Armenia out of alignment with broader Western goals in the Caucasus—goals that, however imperfectly, seek to reduce Russian and Iranian influence through normalization, connectivity and stability. If Armenia is seen in Washington as internally fragmented or strategically unreliable, it weakens Yerevan’s ability to secure meaningful Western support. And if normalization is treated as taboo, Armenia’s options shrink while Moscow and Tehran gain space to operate.

Armenia’s internal volatility makes this danger even sharper. The protests and polarization of recent years underscore how contested Armenia’s direction has become. Russia has every incentive to exploit internal fractures to preserve influence as its leverage erodes. Iran benefits whenever Armenia remains dependent and the region remains unstable. In that context, diaspora pressure that hardens maximalist positions may unintentionally reinforce the very dynamics that keep Armenia weak: isolation, paralysis and permanent vulnerability to external manipulation.

This is not a call to silence the diaspora. It is a call to recalibrate.

Armenia’s leadership must make it clear that foreign policy is made in Yerevan, not outsourced to organizations with independent agendas. And at the same time, policymakers in Washington and Jerusalem should distinguish between lobby rhetoric and the strategic needs of the Armenian state. Washington should treat ANCA as a domestic pressure group, not as a credible proxy for Armenian state policy. U.S. and Israeli policymakers should engage Yerevan directly and stop allowing maximalist advocacy campaigns to set the agenda or manufacture diplomatic crises.

To survive in the 21st-century Caucasus, Armenia needs realism, not performative outrage. If the gap between diaspora passion and state pragmatism continues to widen, Armenia risks becoming a hostage to its own narrative, losing its future in an attempt to litigate its past.