Armenia’s Turn to India: Growing Ties Between the South Caucasus and South Asia

(Caucasus Watch) – The South Caucasus is growing closer to South Asia. India and Pakistan exert greater influence in a region that was once considered geographically distant and unimportant economically. Recently, it was revealed that Armenia was planning to purchase fighter jets from India. Although the news was later denied, it nevertheless marks a shift in the country’s defense orientation and signals the deepening strategic entanglement between two distant but increasingly interconnected geopolitical theaters: the South Caucasus and South Asia.

Although Armenia has been expanding its defense partnership with India for several years, the decision to acquire combat aircraft would have constituted a qualitative leap, revealing both Yerevan’s frustration with its traditional security provider, such as Russia, and its search for new partners capable of supplying advanced military technology without political preconditions. At the same time, such a move would have had immediate regional implications, especially as Azerbaijan embarks on its own fighter-jet modernization path by turning to Pakistan—India’s strategic rival—and, indirectly, to China through the Sino-Pakistani JF-17 program.

This potential military procurement dynamic captures a broader geopolitical realignment. For Armenia, India has become an increasingly attractive partner, offering weaponry that is both competitively priced and politically unconstrained. The relationship has matured rapidly: over the past several years, Yerevan has purchased Indian artillery systems, anti-drone platforms, radars, and surface-to-surface missiles. Moving into the realm of fighter aviation suggests that Armenia is seeking not only to replenish its depleted arsenal after the 2020 and 2023 conflicts with Azerbaijan—when the latter regained full control over the Nagorno-Karabakh region—but also to reorient its security thinking around suppliers outside the post-Soviet sphere.

The persisting distrust in Armenian-Russian relations only strengthens the appeal of an alternative security anchor. For India, the expanding partnership with the South Caucasus country offers strategic value far beyond commercial gains. New Delhi views its defense cooperation with Yerevan as part of its broader competition with Pakistan. Strengthening Armenia allows India to demonstrate its capacity to project influence into a far-flung region and to gain a foothold in the geopolitics of the South Caucasus at a time when the Middle Corridor and other connectivity projects have elevated the region’s global relevance. Armenia thus becomes a venue where India can signal its ambitions as a rising power.

Azerbaijan’s own choice of partner indirectly reinforces the Armenia-India alignment. Baku’s decision to pursue fighter jets from Pakistan—most likely the JF-17 Thunder, co-developed with China—places it firmly within a different strategic axis. Azerbaijan and Pakistan have long enjoyed close relations, rooted in historical solidarity and amplified by Pakistan’s support for Baku during the Karabakh conflict. The procurement deepens this bond while intertwining Azerbaijani defense modernization with Chinese aerospace development, given the existing Sino-Pakistani military cooperation.

This triangle creates a situation in which the military procurement decisions of the two South Caucasus countries reflect, and are increasingly shaped by, the rivalries of two nuclear-armed South Asian powers. This dynamic introduces a new layer of complexity into South Caucasus geopolitics. For decades, the region’s security architecture was determined largely by Russia, Turkey, Iran, and to a certain degree, the Western powers. The entry of India and Pakistan creates an additional set of external stakeholders with their own global agendas.

Armenia’s decision to buy Indian jets is not merely a shift in procurement; it is an insertion of South Asian rivalries into the Caucasus at a moment when the region is already undergoing a strategic transformation following the shift in the Armenian-Azerbaijani balance of power and Russia’s continuing distraction due to its war in Ukraine. The choice of partners by the South Caucasus countries also exposes existing geopolitical fault lines. Armenia, seeking distance from Russia and unable to rely on Western defense supplies, turns to India as a relatively safe and politically aligned provider.

Azerbaijan, consolidating its strategic partnership with Turkey and keeping close ties with Pakistan, gravitates toward a procurement network that reinforces its existing alliance structures. The result is an emerging pattern in which arms transfers reflect not only regional security needs but also global rivalry. Indeed, although Armenia and Azerbaijan are small states situated at the crossroads of Eurasia, the logic of their defense choices is now increasingly shaped by the concerns of distant actors—whether India’s desire to counter Pakistan’s influence, China’s interest in expanding arms exports, or Pakistan’s ambition to acquire a geopolitical footprint beyond South Asia.

By integrating Indian defense technology into its military modernization program, Yerevan signals that it intends to recalibrate its foreign policy and shift it more toward a multivector orientation. Whether India can provide the political deterrence Armenia historically expected from Russia is uncertain. Yet New Delhi’s willingness to supply high-end systems—at a time when other suppliers remain cautious—gives Armenia the ability to restructure its armed forces in line with contemporary warfare requirements.

In this way, the simultaneous procurement choices of Armenia and Azerbaijan illuminate a broader transformation. The South Caucasus, once a peripheral arena dominated by Russia and shaped by local disputes, is becoming increasingly embedded in global rivalries. Ultimately, Armenia’s decision to buy Indian fighter jets is thus not merely an arms deal, but rather a manifestation of a new geopolitical alignment, one that binds the South Caucasus more closely to South Asian fault lines while offering both risk