Revolutionary Governments, Recklessness, and War: The Case of the Second Karabakh War

Abstract

Revolutionary politics is an environment characterized by pressures for adverse selection. It elevates the most radical, conflict-prone, risk happy types, who in addition are poorly educated and inexperienced in government. They are vulgar anti-materialists who think reality can be bent to their will with sufficient effort and perseverance. Revolutionaries are possessed with grandiose ideas and salvation projects, which typically do not tolerate compromise and bargaining. Nor any cost seems too high to them for the realization of such ideas. When revolutionaries take over in a country that has a conflict with another state, these propensities are likely to affect their management of the conflict as well with potentially catastrophic consequences. The argument is illustrated with the diplomacy of Armenia’s revolutionary government, which led to the Second Karabakh War of 2020 and the Armenian side’s catastrophic defeat.