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15.12.2014

EEU AND ARMENIA

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(Possible Scenarios and Mythologems)

Gagik Harutyunyan
Executive Director, Noravank Scientific Educational Foundation

The Republic of Armenia (RoA) membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is a large-scale strategic process that relates to almost all areas of our society’s daily activities. Hence, it has to be stated that any claims that EEU is purely an economic union are groundless and the events in Ukraine make this evident. In the context of the Eurasian integration process we shall attempt to briefly present some considerations that are related to the military, political and information security areas of the Third Republic of Armenia.

Spread of Extremism and Possible Scenarios

For Armenia, as for any other country, the military/political security is a problem of primary importance. The problems of RoA, unfortunately, are not limited only to the factual war with Azerbaijan. Today the main trend jeopardizing global security is the growth of extremism, and part of this phenomenon has materialized in our Middle Eastern in neighborhood in the form of the Islamic State (IS). The creation of this state was facilitated (and in some cases continues to be supported directly or indirectly) to one or another extent by the Western powers, Turkey and some Arab countries. Interestingly, Qatar openly finances the IS, though naturally, nobody imposes sanctions on this country. At the same time, all the mentioned countries unitedly and stubbornly continue to struggle against Bashar Asad, who has been fighting IS since 2011.

These sponsors of IS, somewhat reminiscent of a “joint-stock company”, pursue different and sometimes even opposite goals. However, in any case currently the Islamists are just an instrument through which the “shareholders” try to achieve their far-reaching geopolitical objectives. At the same time the extremists are rapidly developing into a self-acting geopolitical factor and in future may bring global surprises to the world community. All in all, there is no longer any doubt this process will last long. In this respect it is remarkable that according to the U.S. president’s statement, the air strikes could last three years, while the active military phase of the US operation against Iraq was completed in three weeks; the operation started on March 20 and on April 9 they already toppled Saddam’s statue in Baghdad.

It can be argued that the chaotic situation will continue to dominate the region, and under such conditions the likelihood of so-called “bad scenarios” increases. For example, the extremism now spreads in Azerbaijan, which already has been labelled “semi-terrorist”, and citizens of which not only join the ranks of IS in Syria and Iraq, but also organize recruitment of new combatants in other countries, such as Georgia and Russia. Sharia laws are partially enforced in Nakhichevan, where unmarried couples are banned from walking together in public places. It known that the likelihood of a color revolution in this country is actively discussed in mass media. Meanwhile, as the experience of “Arab” and “Ukrainian” revolutions show, under such circumstances often the winners are not the democratic forces, but the extremists (no wonder the so-called Right Sector combatants call themselves “Christian Taliban”). Obviously, seizing the power by Islamists would change the situation in South Caucasus and bring a totally new twist to the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, which are already strained. Yet, as they say, this is not all of it.

The most dangerous scenario, perhaps, is the realization of the Turkish nuclear ambitions1. In this regard it is not out of place to note that this country is ruled by “moderate Islamists” and that transition from “moderate” to “extremist” Islamism sometimes occurs quite swiftly and smoothly. Undoubtedly, a radicalized Turkey armed with nuclear weapons would be not only a regional, but also a global threat. It has to be considered that unlike Israel or Iran, Turkey is a genocide-induced state, which has organized mass murder of Armenian, Greeks, Assyrians and Kurds. This means Turkey may not only threaten nuclear attack, but actually carry it out and this is a new challenge first of all to Armenia.

It follows from the above mentioned that in order to face these new challenges at least in the mid-term Armenia needs a powerful military/political ally and the protective nuclear “shield” of Russia. It has to be admitted that this circumstance is a decisive argument for membership in the EEU. According to the forecasts of the US National Intelligence Council, as well as other analytical centers, the current world order will qualitatively change by 2030, and no single power, including the USA, will dominate globally. This means in terms of security there will be no other dominant power with which becoming allies would be more beneficial to Armenia than being allied with Russia. However, this issue often is interpreted differently in the information space.

Information Security: Mythologems and Reality

From the very first days of the Third Republic of Armenia a number of new notions emerged in the information space, which came to replace the terminology entrenched during the Soviet times. Remarkably, these new mythologems were sometimes as far away from reality as the “masterpieces” of the Soviet propaganda. In particular, at the time it was very popular to cite the words of Palmerston that “there are no eternal allies and no perpetual enemies, only interests that are eternal and perpetual”. Evidently, the principles of the British prime minister are somewhat trivial in the context of realpolitik and effective in the tactical dimension, and this is well understood first of all by the British politicians. They know well what are strategy and geopolitics, and traditionally have been keen to maintain their main resource – the alliance of Anglo-Saxon countries (which, by the way, is not registered in the international legal framework). Such approach has to be adopted in our case as well.

It has to be admitted that we have historical enemies, and in the last two centuries of the modern history we gained an ally that liberated Eastern Armenia and waged more than a dozen wars against Turkey. Allied relations certainly imply also problems, but those are at the tactical level. Nonetheless, not only Lord Palmerston’s theses get engrained in the information space.

The opponents of Armenia’s membership in EEU quite often cite the advantage of “European values” and the necessity to follow those as a decisive argument. Consequently, in the information space this phrase has become a mythologem with uncertain content. It has to be noted that studying the value systems of various nations and societies is a quite deeply researched direction in modern sociology2. In particular, the experts of the field have come to a conclusion that the value system of Armenians is very close to that of the Eastern Orthodox Christian nations (first of all Georgians, Greeks and Russians). Certainly, there are commonalities with the other European nations stemming from common Indo-European language family, common Christian faith and other similarities.

At the same time, in discussions on the value system issues one should also take into consideration that the Armenian civilization is rather unique and is often classified as one of the so-called “local civilizations”. It is also known that one or another society acts most effectively in case of following a value system which is the closest to its own mindset. To the contrary, communities face serious difficulties when their so-called “civilizational code” changes and the society start living in an alien value and political environment. Hence, first of all we have to make efforts to follow our own values and enrich them in harmony with the time, rather than mechanically borrow values of Russian, Anglo-Saxon or another civilization. This issue should be approached with neither superiority, nor inferiority position, at the same time upholding our dignity. As for the “European values”, note that the European media often describe the IS combatants as young people disappointed in Western values. As once Angela Merkel noticed, in Europe the issue is not too much Islam, but too little Christianity.

1 Գագիկ Հարությունյան, «Թուրքական միջուկային սպառնալիքը», «Գլոբուս», #4 (25), 2012թ.; Արա Մարջանյան, «Միջուկային Թուրքիա», «Գլոբուս», թիվ #4, 2012թ.; Հայկ Գաբրիելյան, «2023 թվականը միջուկային երկրի կարգավիճակով դիմավորելու Թուրքիայի հավակնության շուրջ», «Գլոբուս», #10, 2014թ.։

2 See: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp.

“Globus” analytical bulletin, No. 11-12, 2014

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