It's apparent that U.S. wants escalation, because this 50 man joint military exercise obviously means nothing in practice, but effectively bears a message to Russia, trying to force their hands in accommodating Armenian requests to intervene, in fear of growing Western influence in Armenia. And any such intervention will escalate, and may result in a distraction for some of the Russian forces away from Ukraine and another by-product might be a confrontation with Iran by Azerbaijan. Now how likely is this? 5%-10%. The empire has enough leeway, patience and money to gamble on these odds, and not care when the bet doesn't bear fruit. The Empire does gambles like these all the time; they lose the bets, and their detractors celebrate, not understanding that the empire does these gambles because they can afford it, not because they think they're gonna win. So this time also they will lose the gamble, because it's a tall order: Russia will not fall for it. Nothing will come of it.
Also on a side note, Iran who pretends to be against Azerbaijan because of Israeli cooperation, seems a little bit too silent about Armenia's cooperation with the Great Satan. So it was not about Israel, after all.