Antranik Varosian – Page 15 – Armenian Directory & News

NATO must expand presence in Arctic, says Stoltenberg

August 30, 2022March 12, 2026 Antranik Varosian

12:18,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 29, ARMENPRESS. NATO must prioritize its military presence in the Arctic, the military alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday, DW reports.

Stoltenberg’s comments come amid heightened concerns in the West about Russia’s increasing military activity in the polar region.

In an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Stoltenberg said the Arctic was of “great strategic importance” to NATO.

“NATO must increase its presence in the Arctic,” Stoltenberg was quoted by DW as saying.

He said the defense alliance is “already investing in maritime reconnaissance aircraft to be able to get a clear picture of what is going on in the far north. But we will continue to step up our efforts.”

Stoltenberg said that Russia has recently intensified its activities in the resource-rich area by “reopening Soviet-era bases” and “stationing and testing new state-of-the-art weapons there, such as hypersonic missiles.”

China, too, is increasingly interested in the Arctic, he added, noting how the region is becoming increasingly important for shipping due to climate change.

Russian, Azerbaijani PMs meet in Kyrgyzstan

August 28, 2022March 12, 2026 Antranik Varosian

10:44,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 26, ARMENPRESS. Russian and Azerbaijani Prime Ministers, Mikhail Mishustin and Ali Asadov, held a meeting in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan, on August 25, the Azerbaijani media report.

During the meeting the Russian and Azerbaijani PMs discussed the development of the bilateral relations in different areas.

Four people arrested in Surmalu explosion investigation

August 27, 2022March 12, 2026 Antranik Varosian

11:19,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 26, ARMENPRESS. Four people are under arrest in the investigation into the Surmalu trade center explosion, the prosecution announced.

Two of them are suspected in violating fire safety regulations which caused death and the two others are suspected in involuntary manslaughter.

The August 14 blast killed 16 people and injured over 60 others.

1 person is still presumed missing.

Eurasian market irreplaceable for Armenia’s economy

August 27, 2022March 12, 2026 Antranik Varosian

15:22,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 26, ARMENPRESS. The Eurasian Expert Club has presented another research: Armenia’s economic activity index has increased by 10.5% in the first six months, which was unexpected because leading international credit organizations were forecasting much lower indicators in late 2021 and for the first half of this year, Coordinator of the Eurasian Expert Club, political analyst Aram Safaryan said at a press conference in ARMENPRESS.

He said that Armenia’s GDP grew 8.5% compared to the same period of the previous year, which, he called, a major figure.

“The market of the Eurasian Economic Union is the most favorable for Armenia. In the past three years the EAEU role for Armenia has gradually increased. In case of a right work and positioning, our country could further increase its economic ties with this space”, he stated.

Safaryan noted that the development of commercial relations has already created ongoing processes, the most dramatic of which is the increase in poverty.

“In the end of the year we will have some cut in extreme poverty, but the World Bank and other organizations are alarming that in line with the double-digit economic growth we will also have an increase in poverty in the end of the year”, he said, adding that the overall poverty level in the country will rise from 27% to 48%.

“Our trade-economic cooperation with Russia is the largest investment in the strengthening of our country’s security, safety. The Eurasian market is irreplaceable for the economy of Armenia, and we should increase our efforts in the Eurasian market”, Aram Safaryan said.

Doctor, Professor in Economics, member of the Eurasian Expert Club, Tatul Manaseryan said that the Eurasian Economic Union is just giving an oxygen to Armenia in terms of ready-made products. “Russia has been and will remain a dignified and serious partner with Armenia in commercial relations”, he said.

As for economic threats, Manaseryan said that Armenia could have a serious participation to the cut of these threats during the session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council, particularly in the issue of ensuring food safety, information security and intellectual, financial security.

Doctor, Professor in Economics, member of the Eurasian Expert Club, Ashot Tavadyan stated that the Eurasian Economic Union is playing an important role from the perspective of Armenia’s economic growth.

“If in 2020 we were exporting the 25% of our production to EAEU, now we are exporting the 30% of our whole production”, he said, adding that there is a serious gap in the trade balance in Armenia.

“Last year the import exceeded the export 1.7 times, but this year it is 1.82 times. Unemployment in Armenia is in double digits. There are also serious problems in terms of migration”, he stated.

Armenian PM: trade turnover between Armenia, Georgia up 97% “despite challenges”

August 20, 2022March 12, 2026 Antranik Varosian

Aug 19 2022

Agenda.ge, 19 Aug 2022 – 16:55, Tbilisi,Georgia

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Friday said a “noticeable growth” was observed in the Armenian-Georgian trade and economic relations “despite challenges”.

We have a 97 percent increase in trade turnover”, Pashinyan said at the opening ceremony of the Bridge of Friendship on the border crossing between the two states on the Debeda River.

The PM also said the trade and economic ties had a “great potential”, noting the transport sector as an example of an area where the neighbouring countries should deepen cooperation.

Georgia a key transit country for Armenia – Armenian PM

There are opportunities in manufacturing, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, IT, telecommunications, energy, tourism and other fields. It is clear that communication routes are of key importance for trade and economic relations, which enable integration with the world economy and provide vital connections at the national, regional and international levels”, he said.

Pashinyan added “additional efforts” and “joint continuous work” were needed for easier cargo traffic between the countries, and emphasised the importance of rail freight and ferry shipments in particular.

What is genocide?

August 15, 2022March 12, 2026 Antranik Varosian

Aug 9 2022

Live Science

Tom Metcalfe – Tuesday

Acts of genocide — trying to partially or completely destroy an entire people or group — have been committed countless times in prehistory, and numerous times since. For example, Egyptian hieroglyphs on a memorial stone from the late 13th century B.C. give what may be the earliest-known mention of the people of Israel, along with the erroneous claim that the pharaoh Merneptah killed them all; and in 88 B.C. Mithridates, the king of Pontus, ordered all Italians in his lands killed, resulting in perhaps 100,000 murders and the brutal Mithridatic Wars with Rome. Many times the Romans also committed genocide against their enemies: During the destruction of Carthage in modern-day Tunisia in 146 B.C., for example, an estimated 62,000 people were executed and 50,000 enslaved; and in the Gallic Wars of the first century B.C., Julius Caesar claimed that his armies killed more than a million Gauls and Germans (historians now think the real number was much lower). Many millions are also thought to have died in colonial genocides at the hands of European powers, especially in the New World and in Africa.

However, genocide has only been internationally recognized and become a major world concern in the last 80 years, alongside the industrialization of warfare and the large-scale atrocities that occurred in the 20th century. The term genocide is now almost defined by the Holocaust and other mass killings during World War II, when six million Jews and about 12 million others — including Romani, Russians, and Poles — were murdered during the Nazi German occupation of Europe.

The concept of genocide originated in the 1920s, as a way to describe the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1916, which may have killed more than 1 million people, according to Britannica. And new reports of genocide have marred every decade since, from the communist mass killings in Russia since 1918 and in China after 1949; to the wars in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the massacres in Rwanda in 1994, and the killings in Sudan that have been ongoing for most of the 21st century.

The word “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish international lawyer who in the late 1920s read about the massacres and other brutalities perpetrated on Armenian Christians by the “Three Pashas” government of the Ottoman Empire’s nationalist “Young Turks” movement. Lemkin discovered that no laws existed to try the Young Turks leaders for their crimes. During World War II, Lemkin escaped Poland following the invasion by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and he lectured in Sweden; but 49 of his relatives — all Jewish — were killed during the Holocaust. In 1944, after emigrating to the United States, he wrote the book “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe,” a legal review of the Nazi occupation, in which he introduced the word genocide. The Greek prefix “genos” means “race” or “tribe,” while the Latin suffix “cide” translates to “killing,” according to the United Nations.

“His idea came out of his horror at the Armenian Genocide, and then he saw it being done again in the Holocaust,” said Gregory Stanton, a former U.S. State Department diplomat, former professor of genocide studies at George Mason University at Arlington, Virginia, and the founder of the nonprofit group Genocide Watch. “[Lemkin] realized that international law was totally inadequate to deal with this problem; there needed to be a whole new name for it, and there needed to be a convention, an international treaty.”

Lemkin’s concept of genocide as a crime under international law was a basis of the Nuremberg trials — a series of trials of former Nazi leaders in 1945 and 1946 conducted by an international tribunal of Allied countries and representatives of former Nazi-occupied countries; and his campaigning led to the establishment of the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, a treaty that made genocide an international crime in 1951. The treaty defines genocide as “any act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.”

The convention lists examples of genocidal crimes, including: killing members of a group; causing them serious bodily or mental harm; inflicting conditions calculated to bring about a group’s physical destruction; imposing measures to prevent births in a group; and forcibly taking their children from them to be raised elsewhere. The Genocide Convention is the definition of genocide used by intergovernmental bodies such as the International Criminal Court at The Hague in the Netherlands.

Critically, Stanton said, the international agreements against genocide don’t include the persecutions and killings of people for their political beliefs or membership of an economic, social or cultural group, although these have been a feature of many genocides throughout history. “The aim [of genocide] is to destroy a group,” he said. But the major nations at the UN, including the U.K., the U.S., Russia and France, didn’t want such a broad definition: “These powers realized that if these things were in there, they’d all be guilty,” Stanton said.

According to Stanton, when the convention was first agreed, Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union at the time, was one of the biggest opponents to a broader definition of genocide, probably because tens of millions of his perceived political opponents had been killed since the imposition of communism in Russia in 1917, and tens of millions more would die before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991; a 1990 study by the American political scientist Rudolph Rummel estimated that more than 61 million people were murdered by the Soviet Union. “The Soviet Union probably killed more people than any other entity, except possibly Communist China,” Stanton said; Rummel’s 1990 study suggested that up to 102 million people had been killed by Chinese communists.

No leaders of the Soviet Union or China have ever been put on trial for genocide, but Stanton said that rulers and officials from other countries have been prosecuted under the existing laws. For example, from 1975 to 1979 the communist Khmer Rouge movement, led by Pol Pot, ruled much of Cambodia and murdered between 1.5 and 3 million people, according to the University of Minnesota. Many decades later, from 1997 to 2012, two of the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders were tried and found guilty of war crimes by a joint United Nations and Cambodian tribunal; the crimes included genocide based on Khmer Rouge persecutions of Cambodian ethnic groups, such as the Cham and ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese and Thais.

Communists have also been the victims of genocide. According to a case study at Yale University, more than 400,000 people were killed during the Indonesian genocide in 1965 and 1966, in which the Western-aligned government targeted Communist Party members and sympathizers, as well as ethnic and religious groups. And during a civil war from the 1960s to the 1990s, the Guatemalan government persecuted ethnically Maya people for their presumed support of communist guerrillas; up to 200,000 people were murdered, according to the Holocaust Museum Houston.

People across the world have committed genocide due to ethnic differences. A study published in 2015 in the journal The American Historical Review suggested that the U.S. caused the deaths of more than 4 million Native Americans before 1900. The U.S. has also been accused of genocide against Black Americans, according to a study by University of Washington historian Susan Glenn. The term genocide has also been used to describe the persecutions and mass killings of Indigenous ethnic groups in Central and South America, including in Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Argentina.

Massacres of ethnic groups were also committed in Europe during the breakup of Yugoslavia and its aftermath in the 1990s. The Holocaust Museum Houston estimates that Bosnian Serbs murdered tens of thousands of Muslims and Croats in acts of genocide, some of which were euphemistically called “ethnic cleansing.” The total includes the victims of the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, when Bosnian Serb forces killed as many as 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys — the worst massacre in Europe since the Holocaust.

In Rwanda in central Africa, Hutu extremists murdered an estimated 800,000 people and raped hundreds of thousands of women, most of whom were from the country’s ethnic Tutsi minority, over 100 days in 1994. Ethnic differences have also played a role in Sudan’s Darfur genocide, where it’s estimated the Sudanese government has caused the deaths of more than 200,000 people, while millions of people have been driven from their homes. The conflict has been called the first genocide of the 21st century and is still ongoing.

Accusations of genocide have been levelled at Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. According to Stanton, although Russians and Ukrainians share common origins, they are now different national groups and also different ethnic groups because their languages are slightly different. “Genocide is the intentional destruction, in part, of a national group — and the Ukrainians are definitely a national group,” he said. The situation in Ukraine is complicated by memories of the Holodomor, also known as the “Great Famine” — a human-made famine that in 1932 and 1933 killed up to 5 million people throughout the Soviet Union, including Ukraine. Its effects were worsened in Ukraine by harsh political decrees, and it’s estimated that at least 3.9 million Ukrainians died there between those years, according to Britannica. The Holodomor is now widely recognized as a genocide committed by the Soviet Union against the Ukrainians.

Stanton also regards the persecution since 2014 of ethnic Uyghurs in China’s far west Xinjiang province as an ongoing genocide. BBC News reported in 2021 that an unofficial U.K.-based tribunal determined that the sterilizations and birth control measure forced on Uyghurs by the Chinese government were acts of genocide, although no mass killings of Uyghurs were known to have taken place. The tribunal in London heard from more than 70 witnesses and determined that China had detained or imprisoned more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinyang, while former detainees alleged torture, forced sterilizations and sexual abuse.

China has denied the accusations, however, calling them politically motivated. But Stanton is not persuaded: The Chinese government “has violated every single one of those acts of genocide,” he said. “China is trying to wipe out their [the Uyghurs’] culture.”

Experts warn that there are more genocides to come. Stanton is especially concerned about some parts of India, where political, ethnic and religious tensions threaten to break out into mass violence; and parts of West Africa, where countries such as Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Mali are experiencing Islamist insurgencies led by ethnic Fulanis, who mainly target Christian civilians with almost daily killings, kidnappings and rapes, according to a 2017 study in the journal CTC Sentinel.

Stanton said that by studying telltale aspects of a society, it’s now possible to identify potential genocides before they happen. The nonprofit group Genocide Watch lists 10 stages of a genocide, including elements like the separate classification within a country of distinct ethnic, racial, religious or national groups; legal and social discrimination against those groups; efforts to dehumanize them, perhaps by attaching negative names or through hate speech; and the organization, polarization and preparation of genocidal groups, perhaps leading to the persecution and attempts to kill people . The last stage Genocide Watch lists is denial, when the perpetrators of genocide pretend it never happened.

But Stanton said it’s often difficult to persuade political leaders to act in response to the signs of an impending genocide. “How do you engage the consciousness and the will of policymakers to act on these warnings, to actually do something to stop the process?” he said. “That is something I don’t think we’ve really solved yet.”

Take a free online course at Coursera on “Introduction to International Criminal Law,” which includes a dive into the Nuremberg trials with Michael Scharf, a professor at the Law School of Law at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.
Or see how the United Nations describes genocide.
You can also read about genocide’s history at Cornell Law School.

Originally published on Live Science.

Retired general Seyran Saroyan dies

August 14, 2022March 12, 2026 Antranik Varosian

11:54,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 13, ARMENPRESS. Retired Armenian army general, former MP Seyran Saroyan has died, the Public TV’s newswire reported.

Saroyan, 54, began his military career in the late 1980s, serving in the military during the First Nagorno Karabakh war.

He was elected Member of Parliament in 2007 and again in 2012 and 2017.

Saroyan’s awards and decorations include the Courage Medal (1994), Combat Cross Class II (1996, 2002 (NKR), Marshal Baghramyan Medal (1997), For Services to the Fatherland Medal Class I (2006), Andranik Ozanyan Medal (2004) and others.

The cause of death wasn’t immediately reported.

Forecast: Azerbaijani provocations will not stop with the surrender of Berdzor

August 13, 2022March 12, 2026 Antranik Varosian

ARMINFO

Armenia – Aug 9 2022

David Stepanyan

ArmInfo.All recent actions of Azerbaijan in Artsakh are a consequence of military realities between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Hovik Aghazaryan, MP from the Civil Contract parliamentary faction, expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.

“Baku, realizing that the Artsakh problem is still far from being resolved, and the post-war realities are not limited only to its statements, according to which “there is no more Karabakh problem”, moreover, “there is no Karabakh itself”, today resorts to military provocations, with the hope of achieving the results of the 44-day war,” he said.

According to the parliamentarian, it is within the framework of this logic Azerbaijan is in a hurry to solve the Lachin Corridor issue, striving to quickly complete what was started on September 27, 2020, although according to the same statement of November 9, three years have been allocated for this. And as an argument, it presents the bypass road built in the direction of Teghi and Kornidzor.

According to the parliamentarian, one way or another, the land connection between Armenia and Artsakh cannot be interrupted. Regardless of whether or not Armenia will build a bypass, alternative road in Artsakh on time. At the same time, Aghazaryan expressed confidence in the continuation of Azerbaijani provocations in Artsakh and on the border with Armenia after the surrender of Berdzor.

“The reason for such a forecast is still the same – Baku is dissatisfied with the results of the last war. Accordingly, it will continue to put pressure on us through shelling, regardless of the terms of Berdzor’s handover, while continuing to promise its society to get to Sevan, Meghri, Yerevan, etc. Accordingly, regardless of everything, we must be ready to launch a worthy counterattack at any moment,” he stressed.

Recalling that the surrender of Berdzor was originally agreed on November 9, 2020, Aghazaryan stressed that the Armenian government does not intend to make any other territorial concessions, primarily on the issue of the so-called corridor through the Syunik region of Armenia. According to him, today it is only about the possibility of communication between Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan in accordance with the legislation of Armenia.

Russia records 23,771 daily COVID-19 cases, new high since March 26

August 11, 2022August 11, 2022 Antranik Varosian

12:59,

YEREVAN, AUGUST 10, ARMENPRESS. Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 23,771 over the past day to 18,770,657, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Wednesday, TASS reports.

In absolute terms, the growth rate has been the highest since March 26, when 24,072 daily cases were recorded.

As many as 2,666 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Russia over the past day, up 3.6% from a day earlier. The number of hospitalized patients increased in 41 regions, while in 38 regions the figure decreased. The situation remained unchanged in six regions. A day earlier, 2,574 people were rushed to hospitals.

Moscow’s COVID-19 cases surged by 8,608 over the past day versus 4,781 cases a day earlier, reaching 2,877,323, according to the anti-coronavirus crisis center. St. Petersburg’s COVID-19 cases increased by 2,894 over the past day versus 2,639 a day earlier, reaching 1,575,669.

COVID-19 recoveries

Russia’s COVID-19 recoveries rose by 14,552 over the past day, reaching 18,075,720, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Wednesday.

A day earlier some 13,092 patients recovered.

COVID-19 death toll

Russia’s COVID-19 death toll rose by 56 over the past day, reaching 382,902, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Wednesday.

A day earlier 60 COVID-19 deaths were registered.

AW: Do Armenians have a future as an independent nation? Part 4

August 11, 2022March 12, 2026 Antranik Varosian

Ara Nazarian, PhD Opinion 0

Celebrations on the streets of Yerevan after the declaration of independence (Sept. 21, 1991)

Author’s Note: Continuing on with the theme of education, the fourth installment focuses on the the need to build an economy based on education, research and innovation to tap into the global value chain as a sustainable path for the country’s future. This will require strong will, detailed planning, sacrifice and transparency and accountability, all in short supply in the current realities of the Armenian nation. We either sit idly by and become a Turkish vilayet, as dreamed by the current collaborator regime, or be a nation worthy of having our own country, one that meaningfully contributes to the world.

Armenia is fortunate to have had a strong educational and scientific basis from the Soviet era. Unfortunately, much of this infrastructure has not been maintained, updated or upgraded. As a result, universities use outdated curricula, majors and concentrations, textbooks and faculty to train the next generation. Sprinkle in the existing corruption due to low salaries and anemic support, crony appointees who lack proper vision and/or world class expertise to plan and implement the future of higher education in the country, and you end up with the currently ranked institutions.

What are we to do? This is no question that Armenia has traveled an arduous path since her independence, having survived an earthquake, a forced war to stand up for her kin, closed borders and the ensuing post-Soviet chaos and consolidation of wealth and resources.

During this period, Armenia has emerged as a regional hub for Information and Communication Technology (ICT), relying on its human capital and the strong educational traditions and academic and commercial institutions of the Soviet era. Notable intellectual and economic nodes of excellence, such as Engineering City, have been designed and implemented in Armenia to connect Armenia to global value chains (GVCs) in the engineering space. Developing the Armenian National Engineering Laboratory (ANEL) for all universities engaged in training engineers in Armenia was the first successful step to inspire both private and public sector policy makers.

Building on the success of the Engineering City program and similar efforts and capitalizing on the Armenian human capital both within the country and throughout the Diaspora, we envision the implementation of an extended knowledge economy, encompassing research and development in mathematical, physical, environmental and life sciences, with special focus on interdisciplinary areas, as the growth areas of the future. The scientific core has existed in Armenia, and there is significant innovation potential. But the intermediate steps and the associated infrastructure to realize those innovations and connect them to the global value chain are missing.

An approach based on developing science and innovation hubs with perpetual funding sources and faculty endowments to facilitate the infusion of world class talent will lead to innovation and productivity and will lay the foundation to train the workforce that Armenia needs to compete and participate in the Global Value Chains (GVC) of tomorrow. The future of high technology is uncertain, because it evolves by disruptive discoveries. One of the key hallmarks of extractive political and economic systems has been their resistance to disruptive innovation, something that shakes the core of their extractive economic model and the stranglehold on key economic opportunities. Yet, this is exactly what Armenia needs to engage in, if it has any chance of a brighter future. In order to prepare a growing economy for participation in the GVC, it is far more advantageous to prepare a workforce, capable of exploiting opportunities, rather than trying to predict the exact nature and patterns of disruption that are likely to arise. Remarkably, a disproportionate fraction of these disruptive ideas relies on a fundamental set of skills rooted in the basic fundamental sciences and their interactions to create a reality that is bigger than the sum of its components. Therefore, Armenia must create critical capacity in these skills, so that the future workforce can both create and cope with disruptions. These skills include quantitative thinking, experimental skills, mathematical, physical and biological modeling, biomedical sciences and engineering, computational and data sciences, high-performance computation and advanced computer sciences, and incorporating state-of-the-art developments from research into applications and innovations as the final stop.

Armenia possesses the fundamental scientific knowledge base but lacks the infrastructure and the intermediate steps between basic research, technological development and implementation of that knowledge base into the economic engine in order to participate in the GVC and transform itself into a competitive country. For a small nation such as Armenia, there will be dividends from the knowledge-based economy only when the country acknowledges the need to and invests in the technological trends of tomorrow and becomes nimble and resourceful enough to adjust to changes in the global economy.

Therefore, scientific and innovation centers must be selected for:

Impact and transformational nature on the Armenian economy
Impact on the world economy and the global participation of Armenia
Significant growth potential for the future
Compatibility with resources available in the Armenian sphere
Synergistic and interdisciplinary nature and potential to form a vertically integrated ecosystem expanding from science to market
Potential for embracing GVCs, extending those GVCs to the region and the developing world and positioning Armenia as a GVC epicenter in consecutive phases

Multi-disciplinary sciences with interactions straddling the borders of different scientific fields have been the source of much of the worldwide innovation pipeline during the past decades. It has become abundantly clear that isolated hubs of excellence are no longer the driving force of the knowledge economy, and Armenia is no exception to this rule. Armenia’s segregated national academies governed by out-of-touch boards are not the answer to turn Armenia into a regional or world stage contributor in the next century. These academies and institutes work in a silo mentality, where turf protection is more important than collaboration, cooperation and joint pursuit of national interests. The time has come to do away with the models and kick science and innovation into a much higher gear. The goal is to adopt international best practices and a combination of parts from multidisciplinary sciences to create a sum that is much larger than its components. The idea of interconnected national laboratories for driving natural and social scientific advances for strengthening national infrastructure was initially developed in Germany (where it has evolved into today’s Max Planck Institutes), followed by the US government-funded national laboratory model. It has since expanded to the rest of the world. We must bring such a model to Armenia.

To support the innovation at the science and innovation centers, Armenia must establish a perpetual endowment fund to fuel the work. This endowment can start at the 100-150 million USD range and be supplemented over time with cash infusion from a variety of sources. The fund can be increased by contributions from the Armenian, Russian, US and French governments and private sectors. The large Diasporan networks in both countries must mobilize in support of this effort. The 2020 Artsakh War has left Armenia’s flanks open, and there are potentially relatively receptive governments in both countries that can be motivated to support such a cause. It will not be easy, nor will it be simple. But it must be accomplished; no excuses or justifications to avoid the needed heavy lifting. Now that the US Congress has acknowledged the Armenian Genocide, advocacy groups should set their sights on supporting transformative investments in Armenia. Advocacy efforts have run the gamut of combative relationships to lockstep movements with the lobbying governments. This is neither an indictment nor unique to Armenian advocacy entities. However, all must agree to commit fully to Armenia’s survival and future growth. This must be a red line that cannot be crossed, regardless of tactical and approach differences.

Infrastructure and funding are of little use without the human capital. The Armenian nation must commit to funding 100 endowed STEM chairs over a five-year period to attract the best possible minds to innovate and help train the next generation of leaders and scientists and innovators. This will be a $100 million USD investment to be supported by the Diaspora and other resources. The developed world is producing talent at an unseen pace, attracting talent from the world over, eager to receive state-of-the art training. However, the developed world cannot absorb these graduates into innovative roles at the rate that it produces them. Armenia can offer paid positions with research funding to attract such talent. Armenia needs to attract the best innovative minds that it can, who need not be Armenian, but willing to work and produce in Armenia. The kind and hospitable nature of the Armenian people will be an important asset to make them feel at home and integrate them into society. Structures must be put in place, such as five-year contracts, to be renewed upon accomplishing set milestones, to incentivize performance and not provide tenure shelter. While this effort must do all it can to attract talented Armenian candidates from Armenia and the Diaspora, it is unlikely that there will be enough Armenian candidates for such positions with the right training and background. Therefore, opening our doors to a wider source will serve the best interests of the nation, both in the short and long-term.

While the initiation of this innovation campaign is essential for Armenia, it will not be easy, even with all resources in place. Armenia lacks the systems-level expertise or the capacity to undertake such a task. Proper engagement of resources is essential. The Diaspora has provided and will continue to provide financial support to Armenia, something that it has been primarily relegated to in the past 30 years, but it can be a much greater resource if Armenia ever chooses to engage it fully. Thus far, efforts have been more lip service and maintenance of a safe distance, but if the Armenian political elite are ever to right the ship, they need to meaningfully engage the Diaspora’s immense potential. There is extensive expertise in academic, innovation, finance and entrepreneurial spaces in the Diaspora, but no realistic plan has been put in place to properly engage this resource. Empty platitudes and notions of bringing all Diasporans to Armenia are not plans; they are meaningless slogans. There needs to be a real structure in place to meaningfully engage Diasporan resources. This means bringing together a professional and non-volunteer team with Diasporan and non-Armenian experts to outline the overall approach, provide a detailed plan of action and put in place the right teams to execute. Most recently, the National Assembly held a four-hour meeting on the future of high tech in Armenia. With the exception of a few minutes of coherent thoughts here and there, the majority of the session was devoid of any real meaning or plans, other than repeating the same tired speeches, backed by no effort. It is quite possible that most speakers forgot what they talked about by the time they got home. The reflexive grandstanding with no discernable meaningful action has been a hallmark of Armenian leadership and authorities.

This is as helpful and unrealistic as expecting most Diasporans to move to Armenia. There will be a need for a meaningful number of Diasporans to move to Armenia to offer their expertise toward developing the nation. But, this will not materialize by the few who have taken it upon themselves to move there and provide their services. Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld popularized the concept of known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. The Armenian political elite both now or before, through their actions, have shown little knowledge of this concept.

Diasporans have also been at fault by being content with their “cash cow” role and not willing their clout and expertise onto the leadership in Armenia to affect positive change. Showing up to galas and taking selfies with the powers that be have satisfied their needs by and large. Fear of taking difficult but needed/right stances, out of potential loss in pecking order or status with respective governments, has been another failing hallmark of the Diaspora. Armenia is undergoing unprecedented instability and upheaval, yet little is heard from the Diasporan “elites,” as they are playing the waiting game to see how best to hedge their bets, even as we are losing Artsakh and potentially Syunik in the near future. Diasporan organizations have been slow to adapt to the current times, treading in their comfort zone wheels and failing to engage meaningfully with Armenia or new Diasporans from Armenia. There has been a palpable separation between the traditional Diasporans and those arriving from Armenia, thankfully subsiding with the new generation. This was also in place when Middle Eastern Diasporans arrived in the US in the 70s and onward. Their integration took some time, but it was easier than those with Armenians from Armenia. There were more similarities among those groups than with Armenians from Armenia. Again, this is not unique to us, as Israel has experienced and is experiencing very similar rifts between its population and the immigrating Jews from the former Soviet Union. The divergent value systems and life experiences have been significant barriers for meaningful integration. It is fair to say that a significant number of Diasporan professionals stay away from Diasporan structures of all stripes and sides, because of their archaic and unprofessional approach. While these institutions have done significant and valuable work, they have been slow to adapt, evolve, embrace new realities and offer up-to-date solutions to the problems facing Armenia and the Diaspora. While the Armenian government bears the brunt of its inaction to properly outline a vision to engage the Diaspora and leverage its resources, Diasporans have not really stepped out of their comfort zone either.

Wealthy oligarchs must also be part of the mentioned transformation effort. The current leadership could have negotiated a deal with the oligarch class to bring order into the system over time, with specific milestones, such as reforming taxation of their assets and income, establishing “voluntary” contributions of funds by the oligarchs to a national endowment, setting up sunset dates on their less than desirable economic practices and other options to transfer the economy from its extractive form into a more inclusive form over a reasonable period. But, they used the concept of “going after the corrupt elites” as bait to social engineer the populace. They simply built relationships with some of the oligarchs and brought their own oligarchs back to the fore, essentially a rinse and repeat cycle. Establishment of a national endowment fund with at least one to two billion dollars would return 150 to 200 million USD per year, a respectable number for Armenia. This fund would allow the oligarch class to contribute a part of their wealth back to the nation, be held accountable in a conciliatory setting and set the stage for a gradual change from an extractive into an inclusive economic model. The fund would grow over time to provide the nation with rainy day funds and help offset key expenditures for a variety of needs, education or otherwise. Armenia is a tiny nation, where everyone knows and/or is related to everyone. An all-out hostile approach would not bode well with the fabric of the society, as we have seen by now. The mob mentality and the prevalent dichotomy in the nation precluded the development of any meaningful steps, instead focusing on zero sum games to appease the base.

While a highly literate nation, the Armenian nation has shown that it is no different than most other nations, where a large segment of the population lacks critical thinking capabilities to separate fact from fiction and is easily manipulated through social engineering and drawn into gossip and conspiracy theories with little evidence.

The 2020 Artsakh War brought about an unprecedented level of financial contribution by Armenians worldwide. While a significant effort that offers a glimpse into the financial muscle of the Armenian nation, it was simply a drop in the bucket, given its one-time nature in response to an extraordinary event. Now imagine how far along Armenia and Artsakh would be, had a meaningful recurring contribution been set up 20 or 25 years ago, with a vision, concrete systems-level plans, quality execution and strict accounting, accountability and transparency. Instead, we settled for a small-scale plan with the Armenia Fund, embroiled with controversies and mismanagement from the get-go. How do we go about instilling confidence in people who part with their hard-earned money in support of a good cause? The result is the paltry 10 to 20 million USD per year collected as part of the telethon. We wax and wane about the clout and financial might of the Diaspora, yet we show little seriousness in tapping this resource properly.

Table 2

A cursory evaluation of the 31 largest Armenian Diaspora population centers accounts for 5.373 million Armenians, using best available data. A calculation of the number of Armenian households in each country (based on available census data) and using median household income per country puts the annual income of the Armenian Diaspora north of $40 billion USD (Table 2). This is a conservative estimate and yet a significant sum (more than three times the GDP of Armenia). Now, imagine if we can outline a vision for the future of Armenia and Artsakh, establish concrete systems-level plans, put in place a fund with quality execution and strict/best practices in accounting, accountability and transparency and ask the Diaspora to contribute 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent of its annual income to this fund recurringly. Doing so will help amass a war chest of 200 million to 600 million USD per year. Adding to this the contribution of Armenians from Armenia will bump up the annual sum to 220 million to 660 million USD. This fund can play a significant role in supporting the proposed innovation drive for Armenia and Artsakh and unburden state funds for other worthy efforts. Are we there? Absolutely not. Can we get there? Yes, but it will require significant effort, dedication, sacrifice and accountability, all in short supply both in Armenia and the Diaspora.

The financial contribution along with the professional expertise of the Diaspora must be harnessed and used wisely to lift Armenia and Artsakh.

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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.