Opinion

Armenia’s Existential Decision: Militarization

The fourth installment of a multi-part series, this article was originally published in Armenian by Mediamax, on June 18, 2022. Avetik Chalabyan’s legal representatives have published the co-founder of ARAR Foundation’s article penned at the Armavir Penitentiary Institution, where he is currently being held under trumped up charges. In the previous articles, I have tried to outline the prospect

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Ara Nazarian, PhD

Ara Nazarian is an associate professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a degree in mechanical engineering, followed by graduate degrees from Boston University, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He has been involved in the Armenian community for over a decade, having served in a variety of capacities at the Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society, the Armenian Cultural and Educational Center, Armenian National Committee of America, St. Stephen’s Armenian Elementary School and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.

10 Comments

  1. What a shame. A brilliant, in depth analysis over four parts of our catastrophic predicament and, thus far, only two comments. I suppose that people truly have become disengaged. Can’t say that I blame them.

  2. Mr. Nazarian,
    Armenians must choose their friends carefully and their enemies much much more carefully.

    For any strategy to be successful two necessary condions are economy and demography, Armenians unfortunately lack both. The best option for Armenians might be peaceful co-existance.

    1. Mehmet, I am not sure Armenia ‘chose’ its enemies, just as Armenia didn’t choose it’s geographic location. And if you read the article, you’d understand that peaceful coexistence is impossible while Aliyev/Erdogan duo are in power.

  3. “Prior to Nikol Pashinyan’s rise to power, Armenia was quite a militarized country based on some criteria (such as army to population ratio), where it was among the five most militarized countries in the world, and for years and decades the entire society bore that burden. Despite such militarization, Armenia lost the catastrophic 44-day war, and the shock of that defeat led many to question both the existing defense model and the need for militarization in general.”

    I have a hard time believing any of that.

    What I do believe is that the 2020 “war” proved that this so-called “Armenia” is full of traitors, which have not been held to account for their traitorous actions, and an idiotic segment of that society which enables them and who has no clue about anything going on in Armenia, much less the world, and who think that they know everything and they are better than every body else.

    All this talk about the future of the nation is futile and a waste of time, given the society that we have there and the idiotic and inept “leadership” it produces at every “election”. The diaspora has had or was capable of producing brilliant ideas for the nation for the past 30 years. Did we ever get an invite to bolster the security and prosperity of the nation together using diaspora resources and Armenia’s patriotic segment? All we saw was “give us the money we will take care of the rest”. Right, take care of the rest as in sell 75% of Artsakh to Azeris after causing the death of an entire generation of Artsakh youth who wanted to protect their (and our) nation, a very important part of it.

    And speaking of Armenia’s “military”, are we unique in this department as well? I say unique, not in a good way. Unique as in the only idiotic military in the world which doesn’t actually know what a military is. Or perhaps we don’t have a military at all, just a side, second-rate arm of Russia’s military.

    There is here one thing the current weak, inept and ridiculous clown show regime of Nikole is right about: we are weak now not because of our current politics but because of the “nakhkins”. Of course they stop at uncle Levon Ter Petrosian due to family ties, Armenia’s number one traitor who should have been given a military farewell for high treason a long time ago.

    So now let’s ask, did Armenia ever have a real military? If it did, there are two charges that I can definitely make: 1. That military is not/was not of Armenia, and for Armenia’s interests, and 2. A traitor organization which worked with the Pashinyan regime to sell Artsakh to the enemy.

    In a real military structure for any given nation, a traitor like Pashinyan and his gang of sheep would not have mattered for one second. His first act of treason against the Armenian nation would have been his last, and a military rule would then be imposed on the country. The fact that Bozo Nikole told the nation “What do we need Shushi for? It’s useless” – and lived to give away more lands – is proof enough for me that they are all working together. This means there is a gigantic number of ‘Armenians’ in Armenia who need to be dealt with, legally or otherwise and be charged with high treason. Armenia has a better chance of surviving a full scale Turkish invasion than to continue existing with its traitors from within.

    1. I truly agree with you plus the fact that Russia doesn’t give a f**k about armenia. We keep on saying that we lack resources but our greatest resource is our diaspora, the idiot nigol just has no clue and so did the previous batch of 3 idiots. We will prevail again but this time the cost will be higher than 1990-1994. Let us not lose hope and let us work individually to help armenia and artsakh. The idiot has already lost his clout but still he has a few morons who support him

  4. The terroristic war imposed on the Armenians in 2020 was not a war solely between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis of the artificial Azerbaijan republic invented on occupied Armenian territories about a century ago by criminal Soviets in collaboration with genocidal Turkey. This was the terrorist Turkish proxy war on the Armenians using Azerbaijani armed forces. This was a preplanned war and it was no coincidence that terrorist Turkey’s defense ministry had become the mouthpiece for artificial Azerbaijan in the weeks leading up to the war. It was also no coincidence that terrorist Turkey’s foreign minister Cavusoglu, who recently flipped the fascist and ultra-nationalist grey wolves’ sign at Armenian protestors, has openly claimed he is not just terrorist Turkey’s foreign minister but criminal Azerbaijan’s as well.

    In addition, half dozen other terrorist states and entities, directly or otherwise, participated in this war. Among them, terrorist Pakistan, Syrian ISIS terrorist paid-mercenaries recruited by terrorist Turkey and paid for by criminal Azerbaijani petrodollars, military assistance by some of the CSTO member states which pathetically Armenia itself is a member, AND the hypocritical and morally-bankrupt state of Israel which sold over five billion dollars’ worth of missiles and kamikaze UAVs (drones) to the enemy. To make matters even worse, the so-called Armenian military and strategic “ally” Russia turned a blind eye on our enemies and let this war take place.

    Given all these facts, we can therefore never say or assume that Armenia lost this war to artificial Azerbaijan for if the two sides were left alone to fight their own fights, I have no doubt Azerbaijan would have suffered yet another defeat despite all its wealth, resources and all military purchases and that is because they don’t have the military know-how to do much and that is where NATO member terrorist Turkey comes in. Turkish terrorists with 70 years of NATO membership since 1952 under their belts, planned, provoked, conducted and dictated this war on criminal Azerbaijan’s behalf. If artificial Azerbaijan with all its might, using same weapons more or less, not only could not even put a dent on the Armenians only a few years prior to this war in the 4-day April “rehearsal” war of 2016 but suffered massive losses that set in motion a potential civil war in that terrorist cesspool soon after then how is it that same incompetent army could do what happened in 2020 war? That was not possible without terrorist Turkey’s direct military intervention. Armenia’s fake “ally” Russia played a major role in this as well. Given how this war came about and how different it was from the 2016 4-day war, I can’t help but to believe Russia was in on this. Think about it, how can Russia invade a “brotherly” country of Ukraine with nearly a quarter million force and turn this country into ruins with nothing untouched under the claim of NATO encroachment on its territory by way of absorbing Ukraine WHILE remaining deaf and mute when NATO member terrorist Turkish military was not only conducting joint military exercises with criminal Azerbaijan in enemy-occupied ancient Armenian province of Nakhijevan only 45 kilometers from the Armenian capital but had practically moved into South Caucasus and set up bases there? It makes no sense. Why this double standard? I think because Russia’s KGB leader Putin always considered all 15 former Soviet republics as Russian territory and by doing nothing, and by making pro-enemy statements in some cases, was trying to bring the 1994 Armenian-Liberated territories back under enemy control which they themselves had seized from the Armenians and handed over to the enemy in the first place. For Putin, the restoration of the Russian empire, aka now-defunct Soviet Union, required the preservation of inter-state artificial boundaries.

    Despite the fact that all our problems facing us today began not a few years or a decade ago but that they started with our liberation of enemy-occupied Armenian territories and victory in 1994 in the sense that instead of forcing our will onto the weak and defeated enemy and reuniting liberated territories with Armenia, our short-sighted leaders settled on a fragile ceasefire which gave the enemy a chance to get back on its feet and fight another day, every single post-Soviet Armenian leader, in one way or another, has contributed to what happened in 2020 either by not doing anything such as by not upgrading the military with state-of-the-art weaponry, leaving this entire conflict resolution to the double-talking spineless Europeans heavily invested in Caspian oil & gas and therefore unreliable, involving in the theft of the country’s precious wealth and resources for personal gains AND handing over the government to an unpatriotic, dysfunctional, incompetent and treasonous leadership. Today, given the nature of the despicable and racist leadership of the artificial Azerbaijan, a gas station disguised as a country, a leadership that openly considers as enemies all Armenians regardless of their place of origin and birth, rest-assured this opportunist coward enemy, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, is not interested in any peace deal and more so now that they have the full backing of terrorist Turkey. They want the destruction of the Armenian statehood. After all, what do our two Turkish and pseudo-Turkish criminal enemies mean when they falsely claim themselves as “two states, one nation” when they have absolutely nothing in common other than a common Armenian enemy? A false anti-Armenian slogan deliberately coined to brainwash their politically-ignorant gullible populations and to send a message to us that the two are one of the same when it comes to anti-Armenian criminal activities. You have to be mentally-handicapped not to realize that slogan is nothing but a euphemism for the elimination of the Armenian statehood.

    What Armenia needs today is a TRUE patriotic leader. One who will conduct effective pro-Armenian foreign policy both with friends and foes while fully militarizing the country. Our enemies only understand the language of force and must be approached and dealt with accordingly. You don’t sit around a table and talk peace with leaders who want your destruction. You dictate peace to them with force. All criminal and despotic leaders are bunch of bullies. The more you appease them the more belligerent they will become. You must hold your ground and punch the bully in the face to get his attention and respect. That’s the only way and if there is a will there is a way. I personally and strongly believe that Armenia at this point needs to militarize the entire nation, worldwide and not just Armenia, and acquire nuclear weapons. We are a small nation with limited resources living in a bad neighborhood and therefore we need ways to compensate for that. Weapons that will make our enemies shiver seems to be the best solution. Look at North Korea, a poor country with limited resources where people are practically starving yet they manage to scare the living hell out of just about all nations and why? Because they have a massive army and they are nuclear-capable. We must put the fear of God in the hearts of our enemies!

  5. Pashinyan is a weak and inept leader. He is willing to give away Artsakh and will most likely accept the current border with Turkey thus giving up all of our rightfull claims to Western Armenia. It is BS that Armenia cannot defend itself. Israel has managed to remain strong even when surrounded by hostile neighbors. And as previously mentioned in the comments, N. Korea, a decrepit country has the means to defend itself against all hostile forces. The Azeri will attack again. And next time they will take Armenian lands. Our country needs a president that understands that only with military might will we be able to protect our country. I wrote an article on this after the loss of the last war..
    https://www.asbarez.com/we-as-a-nation-need-a-comprehensive-defense-plan/

  6. Let us hope that under the facade of peaceful coexistence with our enemy neighbours we arm ourselves ready for another encounter or to give us some clout when we sit in meetings with our neighbours. Nobody will help us that’s for sure.

  7. Very brilliant,proactive analysis of situation.Thank you for offering solutions to the issues facing Armenian security. It takes knowledge of past and understanding of present to make prudent choices for future.I agree Armenia is best served downsizing regular infantry.Installing HI Tech platforms and recruiting and training versatile,but specialized combat units. Thank you

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