Statecraft & Governance

There has been extensive debate about Washington’s strategic policy goals and growing investment in Armenia's security architecture. To understand the strategic framework guiding this engagement, the concept of “defense diplomacy” is introduced in this month’s security report.

A cursory review of public discourse and limited research on Armenia's security environment reveals a “levels of analysis” problem. This month’s security report introduces Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) to alleviate this serious analytical shortcoming.

Armenia must utilize the concept of de-hybridization to mitigate Azerbaijan’s non-linear warfare, which ranges from kinetic diplomacy to complex hybrid operations. Nerses Kopalyan explains what a strategy of de-hybridization for Armenia should look like.

In order for Armenia to mitigate, anticipate, and deter Azerbaijan's threats and potential attacks, it must understand and qualify the mechanisms that define the Aliyev regime’s propensity for bellicosity, and gauge its “coercive credibility”.

In Armenia, establishing a Western pivot was crucial to achieve an independent foreign policy and enhance security capabilities, paving the way for diversification in foreign and security relations. This process involves pivoting first, diversifying, and only then adopting hedging strategies.

As Armenia proceeds to diversify its access to armaments and advanced weapons systems, the development of a comprehensive, well-structured, and expert-driven procurement program will strengthen Armenia’s initiatives and support the strengthening and democratization of its defense sector.

Noting the instrumentalization of warfare as the dominant and preferred strategic tool of the Aliyev regime, a rationalist explanation of war is introduced in this month's security briefing to address the causal mechanisms shaping Aliyev’s incentives for being conflict-prone.

An institutional theory of security is necessary for Armenia so that it escapes institutional underdevelopment and the culture of inchoate security thinking inherited from the Soviet legacy, writes Nerses Kopalyan for the December 2023 security report.

Regional dynamics in November demonstrated acute developments that are on track to produce unanticipated realignments, altering Armenia’s security environment and enhancing its security and foreign policy diversification.

Armenia’s Western pivot is neither ideational nor conceptually geopolitical, it’s a matter of survival. The objective of the Western pivot is not about replacing one dependency structure with another, but rather, rupturing the entire logic of dependency and establishing sustainable security independence.