EVN Security Report: June 2024

A cursory review of the range of public discourse, and to a lesser extent, the minimal scope of research, on Armenia’s security environment, reveals that Armenia faces a “levels of analysis” problem. The majority of public arguments in Armenia incorrectly attempt to situate its security context within the larger international constellation, thus conflating three different levels of structural developments: relationship between global powers, great power competition, and the international political system. In Armenia’s foreign policy discourse, there is a persistent tendency to conflate the regional system with the international system, resulting in a latent obsession with the idea that Armenia’s security problems are inherently linked to great power competition and potential structural changes in the international system. Unfortunately, this modality of thinking at times exaggerates Armenia’s relevance to the international political system, while, at the same time, creating systemic levels of misunderstanding as to how Armenia should position itself within the changing international system. To alleviate this serious analytical problem, and to provide guidance from the extant scholarship on the subject, this report introduces the concept of Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT). By providing a well-developed conceptual and analytical framework through which Armenia’s security context can be correctly situated, a more cogent and empirically substantive approach may be established.

RSCT, as a paradigmatic approach, posits that conceptual and empirical treatments of international security must be studied and examined from a regional perspective. More specifically, RSCT diagnoses geographically clustered patterns of security interactions between states and qualifies the degrees of interactions to gauge security interdependence. Definitionally, a regional security complex is a system in and of itself, a micro or sub-system within the larger global political system, that contains its own security dynamics which, generally speaking, are relatively independent from global security dynamics. Thus, RSCT views security as primarily a regional phenomenon. However, it is not solely defined by regional borders, rather, by the clusters of security interdependence and levels and patterns of engagement between states and actors. The fact that these actors tend to be in the same regional vicinity creates an overlap between geographical clustering and security interactions. Thus, a state’s security concerns are primarily generated in their immediate geographical vicinity, thus structuring a regional security complex. This is known as “adjacency,” which contends that since the intensity of security interdependence within a regional security complex is much higher than interactions with outsiders, adjacency generates more potency for security, because threat levels travel more easily over short distances than over long ones. 

In more precise terms, a regional security complex is a set of units whose major processes of securitization and desecuritization are so interlinked that their security problems cannot be reasonably analyzed, modeled, or resolved apart from one another. In this context, the RSC of the South Caucasus is defined by the security arrangements, that is, meaningful security interactions based on degree of interaction density (i.e. flows of enmity or amity) between Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Russia,with the intermittent presence of Turkey and Iran. Thereby, a security region is primarily identified by visible patterns of enmity or amity that are demonstrable through security interdependence. Since the process of securitization and desecuritization in the international system primarily manifest themselves in regional clusters, the member states of an RSCT must qualify their security context precisely at the regional level, even when the exogenous presence of adjacent middle or great powers are present. In this context, the presence of the United States, EU, and France in Armenia’s RSC, and the adjacent presence of Iran and Turkey, as “unstructured security” actors, does not change the level of analysis when empirically and theoretically assessing Armenia’s security environment. 

This brings us to the process in which RSCT accounts for the role of actors with global security interests, which are generally qualified as superpowers (U.S., China) hegemons (U.S), or global middle-powers (France, U.K., Russia, etc.). The role of global security actors, as an intervening presence in regional security complexes, is defined first by the regional security dynamics, and then by the actor’s global security dynamics. Thus, the presence of the U.S., EU, and France in the South Caucasus’ regional security complex, for example, are first defined by this RSC’s security dynamics (i.e., containing Russia within the RSC, limiting Iranian presence, controlling Azerbaijan’s bellicosity, etc.), as opposed to global security dynamics (the United States’ Asia pivot and containment of China, France’s objective of “strategic autonomy” in Europe, Russia challenging the U.S. unipolar system, etc.). Thus, even with the presence of exogenous global actors, the regional security dynamics supersede the global security interests of the given actors. This does not mean that the global security interests are ignored or negated, but rather, when engaging an RSC, the global actor prioritizes the regional over the global, and while a link may exist between global and regional interests, in the domain of primacy, the regional is given priority. This important analytical framework allows RSCT to more coherently and substantively situate an actor in a regional security complex within the broader security environment.     

As is clear, levels of engagement between member states of the same regional security complex are higher than levels of engagement with states from different regional security complexes. Therefore, conflating engagement modalities from a specific regional security complex with those of other complexes is a fundamental error in applying the correct level of analysis. Thus, in the case of Armenia, for example, attempting to connect Armenia’s security environment with the U.S.-China rivalry (global security actors), or the Iran-Saudi Arabia competition in the Sunni-Shia “cold war” (regional security complex), or the Arab-Israeli conflict (regional security complex) remains fundamentally flawed. Aside from the fact that these separate regional security complexes do not have much adjacency to the RSC that Armenia is in, attempting to situate Armenia outside of its RSCT indicates a lack of understanding with respect to structural and sub-system understandings of security. Armenia’s interests, for this reason, must be specific to only two factors: its immediate regional security complex, and the role of global security actors that are engaging in this specific regional security complex. The key is to qualify the presence of the global security actors within the security dynamics of the South Caucasus RSCT, rather than attempting to situate Armenia with the broader interests of these global actors. Thus, when assessing the current geopolitical pluralism in the South Caucasus, the presence of the U.S., for example, must be qualified within American interests in our RSC (not America’s global objectives); or, the presence of the EUmust be qualified within its objectives specific to the Eastern Partnership (and not the global posturing of the EU), or the presence of France, for example, must be qualified within its role as a security supporter of Armenia within our RSCT (not France’s broader grand strategy at the European or global stage).   

Since a regional security complex is a sub-system, it contains its own security dynamics, characteristics, and interactions density that are largely independent from global security dynamics. Sub-system analytics allows for the use of robust tools to study regional security complexes, such as regional balance of power, power distribution, structures of asymmetry, and interdependence. Thus, when situating Armenia’s security configurations, one does not concentrate on the global balance of power, but rather, the regional balance of power between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia; or when measuring power and capability, one does not concentrate on middle or great powers, but rather, on the power distribution within the region; and when assessing power or economic disparities, one does not concentrate on the broader international system, but rather, on the asymmetry, interdependence and connectivity between Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, and to a certain extent, Iran and Turkey.  

By utilizing RSCT as the conceptual framework in situating Armenia’s security context, the problem of conflating regionally-complex phenomenon with international and global developments are alleviated, as this reduces false causality and spuriousness. More so, it mitigates conspiratorial thinking or analytics that is not based on scientific models or frameworks, but rather on opinion and individual viewpoints. In more simple terms, to properly understand geopolitics and the geopolitical characteristics that affect Armenia’s security landscape, the application of regional security complex modeling and analytics is required. More so, RSC modeling allows for a more accurate and cogent assessment and quantification of threat and risk propensity, offering policy-makers and decision-makers important tools for implementation. 

To this end, a cursory application of RSCT modeling to provide a ranked threat propensity for Armenia produces a four-tiered framework:

1. Armenia’s highest and most immediate threat is from Azerbaijan
2. Armenia’s second highest threat probability is from the Russo-Azerbaijani Axis
3. Armenia’s third highest threat probability is from Russia
4. Armenia’s fourth highest risk outcome is collapse of Georgia’s democracy

With respect to levels of severity, the ranked outcome is as follows:

1. Armenia’s most severe threat comes from Russia
2. Armenia’s second level of threat severity comes from Azerbaijan
3. Armenia’s third level of threat severity comes from the Russo-Azerbaijani Axis
4. Armenia’s fourth level of threat severity comes from the collapse of Georgia’s democracy

Therefore, in the confluence of immediate threat propensity, the highest threat is first from Azerbaijan, and then from the mutual goals of the Russo-Azerbaijani Axis, followed by the individual interests of Russia. Georgia’s risk propensity is specific to the pending instability that would develop in the country should its democracy collapse, thus severely hampering Armenia’s physical access to the West. In the domain of risk severity, the magnitude of danger is highest should Russia decide to act against Armenia, followed by the military threat posed by Azerbaijan, with the third level of severity revolving around the hybrid warfare activities of the Russo-Azerbaijani Axis. Georgia’s severity level is similar to its risk level.

In conclusion, while a great deal of public discourse and punditry in Armenia revolve around the objectives of the West, the historic dangers of Turkey, the frustrations of Iran, the unreliability of the EU, or the uncertain goals of the United States, none of these assessments correctly or cogently situate Armenia within its regional security complex. While the role of these exogenous middle and great powers are important, the fundamental dynamics of regional security, and the levels of threat and severity, remain specific to the actors/units that are interlinked to Armenia’s security configuration. To this end, to properly understand and qualify Armenia’s security context, analysis and research must concentrate on the regional security complex, before addressing international and global complexities. 

Examining the Context

EVN Security Report

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