Armenia: The invasion threat nobody's talking about

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has recently warned members of Congress that Azerbaijan is on the cusp of launching an invasion of the last enclave of the historically embattled Armenian people. For historical context, the Armenians are a truly ancient race who once called all of Eastern Anatolia their homeland and settled as far as the Levant and the shores of the Mediterranean. But the passage of time has been less than kind to them. Today, all they have left is a tiny piece of real estate smaller than the state of Maryland.

Azerbaijan recently succeeded in the ethnic cleansing of some 120,000 Armenians from their homes in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. You'd think that would be enough for them. But the Azeris, cut from the same cloth as their more numerous Turkic cousins to the west, would like nothing better than to see the total subjugation and possible annihilation of the Christian Armenians. Buoyed by a higher population and awash in oil money, along with the final deterioration of Russia's role as a peacekeeper in the post-Soviet space, Azerbaijan has all the tools it needs to successfully invade.

Armenia is landlocked and it would be extremely difficult for even the United States to reinforce them military in the event that Azerbaijan attacks. But I am of the opinion that the US can and should deter an Azeri invasion, by way of lending them several nuclear weapons. It would be the most cost-effective way to guarantee peace in the Caucasus.

Eh wars... never ending wars...

I believe with most of what you said, but lending nuclear weapons is a dangerous task. could you explain how the US could make sure the weapons are not used for less than good purposes down the line?

The US already has a nuclear sharing program with certain allies. To quote Wikipedia:

"In peacetime, the nuclear weapons stored in non-nuclear countries are guarded by United States Air Force (USAF) personnel and previously, some nuclear artillery and missile systems were guarded by United States Army (USA) personnel; the Permissive Action Link codes required for arming them remain under American control. In case of war, the weapons are to be mounted on the participating countries' warplanes."

Also to quote Wikipedia:

"A permissive action link (PAL) is an access control security device for nuclear weapons. Its purpose is to prevent unauthorized arming or detonation of a nuclear weapon...The earliest PALs were little more than locks introduced into the control and firing systems of a nuclear weapon, designed to prevent a person from detonating it or removing its safety features. More recent innovations have included encrypting the firing parameters it is programmed with, which must be decrypted to properly detonate the warhead, and anti-tamper systems which intentionally mis-detonate the weapon if its other security features are defeated, destroying it without giving rise to a nuclear explosion."

In a nutshell, a small US garrison of maybe 300 guys, whose purpose is to guard the nukes and hand them over to Armenia in the event that it's determined Armenia has been invaded. If Armenia tried to just seize the weapons, the US would have a reasonable chance of thwarting this by destroying the warheads.

thanks! I'll give it some thought. seams like an interesting solution.