A NEW TYPE OF THREAT TO SECURITY OF ARMENIA
Hakob Badalyan, Political Commentator
Comments – 17 March 2015, 12:37
were given to Armenia for membership to the EEU were not effective,
and it is time to review those guarantees as to how effective they are.
Bobinski is not the first person who points out that security
guarantees are but lip service. Earlier those few experts and mass
media of Armenia had pointed this out who warned about the risks of
membership to the EEU, namely the void of the “argument” of security
which was the only “argument” of the government which surrendered
Armenia and the non-governmental pole that supported it.
The security of Armenia has not improved since September 3. Instead,
Azerbaijani sabotages at the Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact
increased in frequency. Russia is increasingly openly encouraging
those sabotages. And if so far Russia sold weapons to Azerbaijan
and ignored its obligations towards Armenia by the agreement, now it
is announced through the CSTO Secretary General that CSTO will not
intervene in an Armenian-Azerbaijani war because that would violate the
principle of peace settlement. It turns out that CSTO is a “mediator”
of conflict settlement rather than a military-political alliance of
security for Armenia.
The result of such “pacifism” and “impartiality” is the growing
brazenness of Azerbaijan at the border, ignoring the visible warnings
of the West because it enjoys Russia’s support.
On the other hand, the question occurs whether Azerbaijan will not
behave even worse if Armenia revises the only “argument” for membership
to the EEU. In this context, the question occurs whether the EU is
ready to give Armenia the guarantee of security which it does not
get from the EEU. Bobinski says it is difficult to speak about this
at this stage because first a document needs to be signed based on
which financial assistance may be considered.
Bobinski shifts the issue to the sphere of financial assistance. Does
this mean that the West somehow resolved Armenia’s problem of the
so-called military security and the important thing now is the
financial and economic component of security. Especially in the
existing situation when Armenia is facing huge risks due to the
economic plight in Russia.
The security of Armenia is now vulnerable not only in military terms.
Moreover, in military terms, security is, perhaps, the most secure
by far thanks to several factors. First of all, it is the Armenian
armed forces and its defense capability. Over the past year the
Armenian army has demonstrated its readiness to deal with military
issues of security. Of course, it is also understood that the army
is not capable of dealing with them under the military-political
and economic conditions in Armenia and around it. In other words,
the army cannot resolve these problems forever if the political
and economic sovereignty of Armenia is consistently surrendered to
Russia which has set to the division of the Caucasus with the help
of the Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance at the expense of Armenia and
Armenian interests. And currently Russia’s core goal is to withdraw
the Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact and Artsakh from the control
of the Armenian armed forces and deploy CSTO peacekeepers there.
The other factor of relative military security is the West and NATO.
It is not directly represented here but the West is using its military
and political potential to hold the Russian-Turkish-Azerbaijani troika
back from a large-scale military provocation.
The third factor is Iran which is also interested in maintaining the
regional status quo.
And the fourth factor is Azerbaijan and Turkey which currently agree
with Moscow on minor sabotages but cannot agree on the strategic
division of the Caucasian pie.
Thanks to these factors the military security of Armenia is relatively
more reliable, so far, than the financial and economic security. For
example, in August 2014 a semi-war at the line of contact for two
weeks did not harm Armenia as much as the financial shock in December
that lasted for less than a week. If this shock had lasted for say two
weeks, it is difficult to imagine what would have happened to Armenia.
Hence, it is urgent to undertake measures aimed at financial and
economic stability and security and create lasting mechanisms, ensure
diversification enabling Armenia to have a stable base of the general
security component and shift the security issue to a higher level
of defense.
At this new level Armenia will be able to boost the mechanisms
of comprehensive military security and modernization with the
Euro-Atlantic community.