EEU AND ARMENIA
15.12.2014
(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 Ô³Õ¡Õ£Õ”Õ¯ Õ~@Õ¡O~@Õ¸O~BÕ©ÕµÕ¸O~BÕ¶ÕµÕ¡Õ¶, ”ԹոO~BO~@O~DÕ¡Õ¯Õ¡Õ¶
մՔՔոO~BկայՔն սպառնալՔO~Dը”, ”ԳլոբոO~Bս”, #4
(25), 2012Õ©.; Ô±O~@Õ¡ Õ~DÕ¡O~@Õ”Õ¡Õ¶ÕµÕ¡Õ¶, ”Õ~DÕ”Õ”Õ¸O~BÕ¯Õ¡ÕµÕ”Õ¶
Ô¹Õ¸O~BO~@O~DՔա”, ”ԳլոբոO~Bս”, Õ©Õ”Õ¾ #4, 2012Õ©.; Õ~@Õ¡ÕµÕ¯
ԳաբO~@Քելյան, ”2023 թվականը մՔՔոO~BկայՔն
Õ¥O~@Õ¯O~@Õ” Õ¯Õ¡O~@Õ£Õ¡Õ¾Õ”Õ³Õ¡Õ¯Õ¸Õ¾ Õ¤Õ”Õ´Õ¡Õ¾Õ¸O~@Õ¥Õ¬Õ¸O~B
ԹոO~BO~@O~DՔայՔ հավակնոO~Bթյան շոO~BO~@Ք”,
”ԳլոբոO~Bս”, #10, 2014թ.O~I
2 See:
“Globus” analytical bulletin, No. 11-12, 2014
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