By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies
Armenia always supported the idea of restoring communications and developing economic relations with Azerbaijan as a tangible way of confidence building. However Azerbaijan has to give up its inflammatory and disruptive rhetoric about the "Zangezur Corridor", and its thinly veiled threats to take over the Syunik province from Armenia.
The 10 November 2020 tripartite statement signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia ended the war in Nagorno Karabakh, but evidently, did not bring peace to the region. A range of complex issues remain to be settled – the future of Nagorno Karabakh, relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the security dynamics of the broader region. Given the Russian military presence in Karabakh, the region's future now mostly depends on the Kremlin, and neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan has much room for manoeuvre here. The status of Karabakh will remain a topic in bilateral Russia–Azerbaijan and Russia–Armenia discussions, but Moscow will do whatever it thinks it is necessary to do. READ MORE
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 19.07.2021
| External Relations
By Lilit Galstyan, Senior Research Fellow, Academy of Political Studies, Yerevan
The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union have ushered in hopes of humanity's happy and harmonious future. The ideas such as "End of history" became very popular both within academic circles and with policymakers. There was a widespread belief that the entire planet would live under liberal democracy, and inter-state conflicts will become bad memories from history. However, the beginning of the XXI century crushed these hopes. Russia - West relations started to deteriorate after the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, while the 2014 Crimean crisis brought bilateral relations to the lowest point since the end of the Cold War. Meanwhile, the astonishing Chinese economic growth and the emergence of the multi-million middle class did not bring about political changes in China. READ MORE
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 19.07.2021
| External Relations
By Alan Whitehorn, Professor Emeritus in Political Science, The Royal Military College of Canada
Despite signing the November 9, 2020 ceasefire, Azerbaijan and Armenia have not been able to agree on an actual firm ceasefire. There are too many border incursions and military incidents, despite the existence of decades-old soviet boundaries between republics that were firmly regulated in the former Soviet Union. Peacekeepers are too few and not located in enough areas to address all of the border incidents. READ MORE
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 07.07.2021
| Security
By Eugene Kogan, Tbilisi-based defence and security expert
Local domestic military aerospace expertise has been honed over a period of almost 60 years. Israel’s procurement of US-built fighter aircraft and Israeli technicians and aeronautical engineers developing subsystems and avionics for the jets has enhanced their skills and expertise.
Rafael Advanced Defence Systems’ cooperation with Raytheon has taken military aerospace expertise to the next level. The triple combination of buying from the United States, developing subsystems locally, and teaming up with the US has contributed to successful arms exports from Israel. The Ministry of Defence International Defence Cooperation Authority (known as SIBAT) realised in November 2019 that the international arms market was undergoing serious changes and certain adjustments would be needed in order to remain competitive and increase the market share of Israeli defence companies. READ MORE.
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 07.07.2021
| Security
By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies
China was on everyone's lips at numerous summits and international gatherings in the last days and weeks. "China will be among the key world players throughout the 21st century; it will be the number one economic power, and all have to accept and adapt to this reality. Many are not happy with this prospect and would like to prevent it from becoming a reality, but no one has the necessary capacity to contain China, despite the fact that many want to, for the moment for doing that has passed."
While many states make efforts to eventually overcome the outcomes of the COVID 19 pandemic through a large-scale vaccination process, and seek to return to the pre-2020 life, geopolitics, somehow pushed to the corner by the disease, returns to the spotlight. Recent weeks saw a chain of global summits – G7, NATO, and the USA-Russia meeting. The world leaders discussed many topics – climate change, the restoration of the transatlantic alliance, relations with Russia. However, the most repeated word in all these gatherings was China. “Rise of China”, “China's challenge”, “assertive China”, “China-led world order”, “China hegemony in Asia” – this is perhaps not the complete list of China-related phrases. READ MORE
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 07.07.2021
| External Relations
By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies
Russia – Turkey relations are probably among the most discussed topics of Eurasian geopolitics. Experts and pundits are frantically searching for the correct terms to describe them – cooperation/competition, the marriage of convenience, and frenemies – all these words are used in endless efforts to grasp reality beneath the surface of high-level meetings and smiley handshakes of the leaders. The two countries interact in different regions – Middle East, Northern Africa, Black Sea basin, Central Asia, Western Balkans, and South Caucasus. In all these areas, they have overlapping and colliding interests, which have created a complex web of relationships. READ MORE
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 27.06.2021
| External Relations
Hayk Kotanjian, Lieutenant General (ret), Professor of RA, RF, USA (strategic security studies), Lazarev Club Board Member
The strategic emphasis of the 4th session of the Lazarev Club has been imperatively demanded by the need to find and pursue new ways to prevent the loss of the Armenian national statehood. The end-product of those efforts should be built upon the coincidence of the strategic interests of security and sustainable development of our two fraternal peoples and allied states - Russia and Armenia. The existential importance of brainstorming on the problem of life and death of the state, as well as its innovative development, was exacerbated by the challenge of the upcoming formation of new authorities following the results of the early parliamentary elections. READ MORE
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 27.06.2021
| External Relations
By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies
Sunday's parliamentary elections in Armenia are hotly contested, and the electorate is actively engaged in the campaigning. But the election is likely to lead to further uncertainty and continued instability.
The official campaign for the 20 June 2021, early parliamentary elections in Armenia started on 7 June 2021. Twenty-five political entities are contesting the elections – 21 parties and four alliances (blocs). No election in the modern history of Armenia has seen such quantity and diversity of contenders. However, despite this impressive number, only a few participants have a real chance to overcome the threshold to enter Parliament – 5 percent for parties and 7 percent for alliances. READ MORE
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 16.06.2021
| External Relations
By Eugene Kogan, Tbilisi-based defence and security expert
The bilateral Israeli-Greek military and defence industry cooperation was not created in a vacuum, but is a by-product of the steadily deteriorating Israeli-Turkish relations which include two important events: the famous World Economic Forum incident in Davos on January 29th, 2009 and the Mavi Marmara incident on May 31st, 2010. The Davos incident was further aggravated by the Mavi Marmara incident, which left ten Turkish citizens dead after clashing with Israeli commandos as the latter boarded the ship which was trying to break the Gaza blockade. Moreover, the military component of Israeli-Turkish relations, which used to be the backbone of the relations, is still missing and is unlikely to reappear in the near future. READ MORE.
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 16.06.2021
| Security
By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies
The Azerbaijani military incursion into Armenian territory may have significant geopolitical implications. The muted reaction of the CSTO and Russia triggered another wave of anti-Russian sentiments in Armenia.
On 12 May 2021, news coming from the Syunik region shocked Armenian society. Several hundred Azerbaijani soldiers had crossed the Armenian border and penetrated up to 3.5 km into Armenian territory near the "Black Lake". The Armenian government did not confirm this immediately, however, late in the evening on the same day, Armenia’s Security Council convened in an extraordinary session, and the prime minister declared that Azerbaijani Armed forces had entered Armenian territory. READ MORE
EGF Editor |
Опубликовано на EGF: 29.05.2021
| Security
EGF Head of Research, Dr. George Vlad NICULESCU, co-edited a new volume on “Understanding Contemporary Information Landscape Handbook (UCIL)” with the Austrian National Defence Academy and the PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes: “The idea of this Handbook sprang forth from a policy recommendation issued at a past Regional Stability in the South Caucasus Study Group (RSSC SG) workshop: “Create, with the assistance of PfP Consortium volunteers, a Reference Curriculum on Media Literacy, emphasizing the impact of modern communication techniques and social media on human biology, psychology and behaviour. The aim would be to raise awareness of the media as a tool of hybrid warfare, and how to build resilience to it at individual level.” Looking with an academic eye at the final product of our last three years of work I’d conclude that this Handbook is a great success as a valuable education tool for students and teachers in media studies, politics, international relations. READ MORE
EGF Affiliated expert Benyamin POGHOSYAN has recently co-authored with Rananjay Anand, Co-founder and President, Indo-Armenian Friendship NGO, a new op-ed on “Time to transform Armenia – India cooperation into a strategic partnership” published on civilnet.am. The authors concluded: “Armenia and India should establish by the end of the year an annual 2+2 dialogue mechanism, which would involve the participation of their Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs. […] The second step in transforming relations into a strategic partnership should be the establishment of a joint group for Armenia-India Diaspora cooperation, which will coordinate and facilitate the contacts between the two diasporas.” READ MORE
EGF Affiliated Expert Nika Chitadze has edited and co-authored a new book on “The Russia-Ukraine War and Its Consequences on the Geopolitics of the World”. READ HERE
On February 7, 2023, the Founder, and former Executive Director of the EGF Dr Marat TERTEROV moderated, and the Head of Research, Dr George Vlad NICULESCU participated in, the first panel of the web-conference on “The War in Ukraine: What Consequences for the Countries of Our Neighbourhood – East and South: What New Challenges for the EU?” organized by the Institute for European Studies of the Saint Louis University Brussels. Click here to read George’s speaking points, here for the conclusions (in French and in English) and here for the summary of presentations (in French only) of the web-conference.
Between 16-18 November 2023, Dr Marat TERTEROV and Dr. George Vlad NICULESCU participated in the 26th workshop of the Regional Stability in the South Caucasus Study Group of the PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes on “New Security Arrangements for the South Caucasus”, held in Reichenau a/d Rax (Austria). Please click here for the programme and agenda outline, here for Marat’s and here for George’s speaking points.