Armenia\u2019s security system has suffered a series of severe shocks in recent years. The 2020 war, the military and security crises that followed, violations of Armenia\u2019s sovereign territory, and the loss of Artsakh have fundamentally reshaped the country\u2019s strategic environment and exposed deep systemic weaknesses in its security and defence architecture.<\/p>\n
These developments cannot be understood simply as the consequences of a single war or a single military defeat.<\/strong> Rather, they reflect deeper strategic, institutional, organisational, conceptual, and mindset-related problems that have accumulated over time. Restoring Armenia\u2019s security therefore requires more than acquiring new weapons or strengthening individual capabilities. It requires a fundamental rethinking of how security is conceived, organised, and delivered.<\/p>\n Against this background, the ARAR Civilizational Research Foundation is launching a new strategic research and applied policy project focused on the military and military-strategic dimensions of Armenia\u2019s comprehensive security.<\/strong><\/p>\n The project aims to study and design a security and defence system tailored to Armenia\u2019s distinctive geographic, demographic, military-political, and resource constraints, while also identifying and exploiting its potential for innovation. The proposed system will be grounded in non-conventional approaches to strategic deterrence, systemic resilience, modern warfare, and the opportunities created by emerging technologies.<\/p>\n At the heart of the research lies a fundamental question: How can a small state with limited territory and resources build a defence system capable of making military aggression costly, difficult, protracted, and strategically unpredictable for an adversary?<\/strong><\/p>\n The project will develop the concept of an \u201cArmenian Deep Deterrence System\u201d<\/strong>, bringing together three interconnected dimensions within a unified comprehensive security and defence framework: Deep Strategy, the behavioural and systemic transformation of the Armenian Armed Forces, and the creation of Virtual Strategic Depth.<\/strong><\/p>\n The research is not intended to produce yet another security concept or a catalogue of weapons and military platforms. Rather, it seeks to design an integrated military-strategic architecture adapted to Armenia\u2019s specific conditions<\/strong>, in which military capabilities, governance, technology, defence production, societal resilience, and strategic thinking function as components of a single interconnected system.<\/p>\n In the public and communications sphere, the Armenian Deep Deterrence System may also be presented under the more accessible designation as \u201cArmenian \u2018Shrew\u2019 Strategy\u201d<\/strong>. This captures the underlying logic of an Armenian model of long-term deterrence: compensating for limited geographic and strategic depth by generating systemic resilience and asymmetric advantages; increasing the costs and uncertainty of potential aggression; preventing an adversary from translating material and geographic superiority into rapid military success; denying the power dominance; mitigating the power disbalance through asymmetric innovative solutions; and thereby strengthening Armenia\u2019s power capacity for survival, resistance, recovery, and sustained deterrence.<\/p>\n Dr Eduard Abrahamyan<\/strong> will lead the research. He is currently a teacher in International Relations at University College London (UCL), a Gulbenkian Postdoctoral Fellow at King\u2019s College London, and a member of the international interdisciplinary working group \u201cConnectivity and Conflicts\u201d and the research initiative \u201cSecurity and Military Strategies of Warfighting Small States.\u201d<\/p>\n For more than a decade, the ARAR Civilizational Research Foundation has worked on security-related issues and the challenges facing Armenia<\/strong>. In recent years, comprehensive security has become one of the Foundation\u2019s central areas of work, based on the understanding that national security cannot rest on the armed forces alone. It emerges from the interconnected capabilities and responsibilities of the state, society, institutions, the economy, knowledge and education, technology, and individual citizens.<\/strong><\/p>\n ARAR is committed to contributing to public and professional debate about the future of Armenia\u2019s security. The Foundation\u2019s leadership and experts are prepared to provide professional analysis and expert assessments, contribute to informed public discussion, and help foster a deeper, knowledge-based, and substantive security agenda for Armenia.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Armenia\u2019s security system has suffered a series of severe shocks in recent years. The 2020 war, the military and security crises that followed, violations of Armenia\u2019s sovereign territory, and the loss of Artsakh have fundamentally reshaped the country\u2019s strategic environment and exposed deep systemic weaknesses in its security and defence architecture. These developments cannot be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n