Tag: Security Report

In this episode of “Examining the Context” podcast, Nerses Kopalyan unpacks Russia’s evolving strategy to undermine Armenia’s democracy, focusing on hybrid tactics, electoral interference, and soft power ahead of the 2026 parliamentary elections and explores how these pressures could shape Armenia’s political future and societal resilience.

Drawing from Moldova’s recent experience, Armenia must brace for a coordinated and covert Kremlin strategy aimed at electoral interference and destabilizing its democracy ahead of the 2026 parliamentary elections. Nerses Kopalyan explains Russia’s evolving hybrid warfare tactics and “traceless manipulation” operations.

Ilham Aliyev considers the new regional balance of power his greatest geopolitical success and the preservation of this power disparity with Armenia his highest priority. As Armenia rearms and seeks to develop deterrence capacity, Aliyev deems this a threat to his grand strategy, thus heightening the probability of strategic strikes against Armenia.

Armenia faces distinct security threats from Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Russia, with Russia posing the most complex and severe challenge through cyber operations. This month's security briefing explores the concept of subversion as a tenable risk-mitigation strategy against these threats.

In this episode of “Examining the Context” podcast, Dr. Nerses Kopalyan notes that public discourse in Armenia incorrectly attempts to situate the country’s security context within the larger international constellation. He argues that a more cogent and empirically substantive approach can be established through the concept of Regional Security Complex Theory.

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.

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.

Armenia's precarious security situation is compounded by its underdeveloped institutions and infirm infrastructure. For the February security briefing, Nerses Kopalyan writes that in this context, the entirety of Armenia’s social and governmental approach must revolve around building resilience.

Taking into consideration the security context in January and guided by a strategy of deterrence-by-denial, Armenia must develop a “porcupine doctrine” to deter Azerbaijan’s objectives and the destabilizing designs of the Aliyev regime.