Beyond the “King of Armenians” syndrome: A blueprint for strategic resilience

On June 25, the newly established Institute for Security Analysis (ISA), in partnership with NAASR and the Calouste Gulbenkian Series on Contemporary Armenian Issues, invited Dr. Henry C. Theriault for a public lecture at the AGBU Armenia Office Building in Yerevan. Following introductory remarks by ISA Operations Manager Anna Avagyan, Theriault, associate provost at Worcester State University and a two-term former president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, set out to examine the intersection of memory, reparative justice and Armenia’s current national trajectory. What followed was not a standard, detached academic survey. Instead, drawing on his extensive background in philosophy and genocide studies, Theriault offered an unsparing critique of contemporary Armenian political culture, urging a fundamental shift away from personality-driven politics and reactive defensiveness toward what he called a “multiplicity strategy.”  Theriault began by addressing what he sees as a chronic vulnerability in Armenian political discourse: the tendency to organize around individuals rather than principles. Whether in the republic or across the diaspora, he argued, Armenian political life frequently resembles an absolutist contest between personal factions. “What I perceive in the political landscape is that everything in terms of political options is presented as individuals,” Theriault noted. “Rather than saying, ‘What are the principles we want to organize around, and how do we advance those principles?’… electoral politics is not really participatory.” This reliance on a singular leader — what he half-jokingly termed the “King of Armenians” syndrome — inevitably breeds extreme polarization. When politics is reduced to personal allegiance, disagreement is no longer treated as a difference in strategy, but as treason. Theriault pointed to the casual normalization of the word “traitor” in everyday discussions as a symptom of a fractured political ecosystem where factions dismiss rather than persuade one another. This internal fracturing, he warned, has taken a particularly dangerous turn in the wake of the 2023 ethnic cleansing of Artsakh. Addressing the scapegoating of forcibly displaced people of Artsakh within Armenia, Theriault drew a comparison to the dynamics of internalized oppression and domestic violence. When a historically traumatized population faces immense external pressure — from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia or the West — and feels stripped of geopolitical agency, that frustration often gets redirected inward toward the most accessible, vulnerable members of their own community. “When you start scapegoating people in your society for the problems of the society, you are creating a really dangerous dynamic,” he said, reminding the audience that divide-and-conquer logic ultimately only serves the external powers actively seeking to weaken Armenian sovereignty. While much of contemporary Armenian discourse treats historical justice and the 1915 Armenian Genocide as abstract moral questions separate from today’s immediate security challenges, Theriault pushed back against this dichotomy. To understand Armenia’s current precariousness, he argued, one has to look at the concrete material and demographic consequences of unaddressed genocide. Recalling a demographic projection shared years ago by the late historian Richard Hovannisian, Theriault noted that had the First Republic of Armenia (1918-1920) been allowed to survive and develop naturally, standard demographic growth would put Armenia’s population today at roughly 25 million. “Suddenly, what does it mean?” Theriault asked. “It means you don’t have an existential crisis every time you have tension with a neighbor. You’re not always under threat.” He contrasted Armenia’s hypervulnerable reality with states like Germany or France, which suffered massive wartime devastation yet retained the demographic and material mass required to guarantee their long-term existence, and even Turkey itself, whose modern economy was built largely on expropriated Armenian, Greek and Assyrian wealth. For Armenia, the unrectified past is not merely a matter of emotional memory; it is the structural root of its present geopolitical imbalance. Acknowledging the survivalist instinct among some Armenians today to set aside historical claims in favor of immediate realpolitik, Theriault offered a clear distinction: “You can make an informed decision about the policy you’re going to pursue. That’s not the same as suppressing some part of your basic identity, your basic history.”  Faced with asymmetric power dynamics, how does a small state actually exercise agency? Theriault challenged the traditional concept of power rooted in domination. Small states survive not by overpowering empires, but by outmaneuvering them through tactical flexibility. Drawing on Continental philosophy, he advocated a “rhizomatic” approach to national strategy, likening it to root systems that spread horizontally underground and regenerate even when severed. “Think of the Hydra in Greek mythology,” Theriault said. “You chop off one head, and three more come up. That’s the kind of politics you want… where when one idea doesn’t work, you have five more that you can start trying, and you never give up.” “You can make an informed decision about the policy you’re going to pursue. That’s not the same as suppressing some part of your basic identity, your basic history.” Applying this framework to the current debates surrounding supposed demands from Baku and Ankara to amend the Armenian Constitution, Theriault urged a view of diplomacy rooted in calculated leverage rather than reactive fear. While cautioning against compromising foundational principles under external duress, he argued that a sophisticated state must maintain a wide menu of strategic options, using every available tool — especially international legal cases — as bargaining chips before negotiations. Crucially, this flexibility requires fundamentally reframing the relationship between Armenia and the diaspora. The rigid, Cold War-era division between homeland and diaspora is obsolete, replaced by fluid, transnational networks. Rather than viewing the diaspora’s uncompromising demands for historical justice as a hindrance to state-level diplomacy, Yerevan could strategically leverage that very rigidity. Citing the historical dynamic between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Theriault explained how the presence of a hardline external movement creates vital leverage for moderates at the negotiating table. “It gives you a kind of plausible deniability,” he argued. “It allows leaders to let other people say what they want to say… [so] the leader can be the peacemaker to get a compromise in the middle.” During the Q&A portion of the evening, the conversation turned to Azerbaijan’s aggressive international campaign against Armenian historical narratives. Theriault made a critical observation regarding the evolution of revisionism: The center of anti-Armenian propaganda has shifted from Ankara to Baku, mutating from traditional denial into total falsification. “Turkey’s denialism is sort of stale,” Theriault said. “What Azerbaijan is doing is not denial so much as creating an entirely false history, in which there’s not even a question of Armenians [being there].” Because the international community frequently misreads the Artsakh conflict as a symmetric territorial dispute rather than the elimination of an indigenous population, Baku’s revisionism gains dangerous traction. To combat this, Theriault stressed the absolute necessity of rigorous academic study groups collaborating with global indigenous movements, alongside an aggressive, unrelenting pursuit of international lawsuits. Even when court cases move slowly, he emphasized, they establish an unassailable factual record that counteracts media distortion. “What Azerbaijan is doing is not denial so much as creating an entirely false history, in which there’s not even a question of Armenians [being there].” Ultimately, Theriault’s address served as a timely reminder that navigating Armenia’s current geopolitical reality requires more than reactive survivalism. It demands building a resilient, participatory political culture capable of holding internal differences without fracturing—and recognizing that enduring historical justice and contemporary state sovereignty are not competing ideals, but deeply interdependent ones. The post Beyond the “King of Armenians” syndrome: A blueprint for strategic resilience appeared first on The Armenian Weekly.