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Armenian Center for National and International Studies
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Yerevan 375033, Armenia
Tel: (+374 – 10) 52.87.80 or 27.48.18
Fax: (+374 – 10) 52.48.46
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July 27, 2005

ACNIS Faces Armenia’s National Security Challenges

Yerevan–The Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS)
today convened a policy roundtable on ways to meet the contemporary
challenges to Armenia’s national security under the light of new
geopolitical realities. The meeting brought together those formerly and
currently in charge of the sector, experts, social and political observers,
and media representatives.

ACNIS’s director of administration Karapet Kalenchian greeted the audience
with opening remarks. “Since they are considered as one inseparable entity,
and are dependent on one another, we therefore have joined the factors for
domestic and external security. If domestic security factors become
unstable, then external security weakens twice as much, and incomparably
greater efforts would be required in order to balance those threats out,”
Kalenchian noted.

A policy intervention by Ashot Manucharian, political secretary of the Union
of Socialist Forces and Intellectuals, encompassed the probable consequences
of domestic and external challenges which pose a threat to Armenia’s
national security. According to him, this topic is very urgent, because “our
country is again in the wake of serious changes,” and the key pressing issue
is to withstand the threats that today exist in the domains of economy,
security, external policy, and state-building. The value system which in the
last 15-16 years has been presented to society in a disfigured manner has
added particular acuteness to those challenges. “If in 1988 the
characteristic values of our people were prudence, patriotism, creative
pathos, and a sense of unity, today the main parameters are wealth,
mastering the mechanism of power, ostentation and bullying, all of which
portend catastrophic results,” Manucharian underlined.

In his address, ACNIS analyst Alen Ghevondian touched upon the role and
significance of the political derivative of Armenia’s national security.
“The importance of the political component of security lies in the fact that
when democratic processes are implemented in Armenia, and the country faces
the task of cultivating effective mechanisms for internal political
management, then from the vantage point of ensuring state security the
nature of those processes’ political structural element takes on landmark
significance,” Ghevondian pointed out. He also put the jeopardies to
political security into three distinct categories: dangers which threaten
the political order and which could stem from a variety of public activity
realms; dangers which flow from the political system toward the economy as
well as social and spiritual-ethical processes; and finally, threats to the
political order which originate from the very same political order.
According to the specialist, in practical politics these categories
frequently become combined.

Within the framework of the modern challenges of regional security directed
at Armenia, Yerevan State University lecturer Aram Harutiunian underscored
the external threats, because in his view the adverse internal stimulants of
security–emigration, corruption, perilous alienation of strategic
institutions, political killings, and social explosion–are much more
evident and renowned. Harutiunian expressed confidence that a change in the
current security system is extremely dangerous for the country. “As long as
the unlikely declarations being made from Baku in regard to its unconcealed
revanchism have not yet ceased, a major change in the developmental
directions of armaments, army-building, appropriated military technology,
and all related systems would result at this time in indices of
vulnerability which would bear destructive consequences for us,” Harutiunian
said, also attaching importance to consolidating Armenia’s place and role
within the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

The formal interventions were followed by contributions by Edward Antinian
of the National Progressive Party; Ruzan Khachatrian of the People’s Party;
Karlen Alexanian of the Democratic Fatherland Party; ACNIS analysts Alvard
Barkhudarian and Hovsep Khurshudian; former minister of state Vahan
Shirkhanian; Slavonic University professor Rozalina Gabrielian; National
Assembly staff member Mara Sahakian; National Press Club chairperson Narine
Mkrtchian; and several others.

Founded in 1994 by Armenia’s first Minister of Foreign Affairs Raffi K.
Hovannisian and supported by a global network of contributors, ACNIS serves
as a link between innovative scholarship and the public policy challenges
facing Armenia and the Armenian people in the post-Soviet world. It also
aspires to be a catalyst for creative, strategic thinking and a wider
understanding of the new global environment. In 2005, the Center focuses
primarily on civic education, conflict resolution, and applied research on
critical domestic and foreign policy issues for the state and the nation.

For further information on the Center call (37410) 52-87-80 or 27-48-18; fax
(37410) 52-48-46; e-mail root@acnis.am or info@acnis.am; or visit