A White Paper to Build a Security Architecture

Abstract

What has Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 Artsakh War revealed? In order to diagnose a number of misconceptions, failures and dysfunctions that exist in Armenia’s statehood and society, three scholars recently published a White Paper entitled, “The Karabakh War of 2020 and Armenia’s Future Foreign and Security Policies”.

Taline Papazian (a French-Armenian political scientist), Robert Aydabirian (a French-Armenian executive and analyst) and Jirair Libaridian, (a retired Armenian-American historian and diplomat) have all been intimately, and in different ways, involved in the life of Armenia and Artsakh in recent decades. The result of intergenerational and pan-Armenian collaboration, their work sets the stage for a fundamental debate that is essential for the recovery of the Armenian state.

The collective work of Papazian, Aydabirian and Libaridian makes it possible to give an account of the reasons for the defeat of 2020 and to draw the necessary conclusions for a collective start. In the months following the disastrous 44-day war, the authors conducted in-depth surveys with 70 respondents from various professions and disciplines in Armenia, Artsakh and the diaspora. The respondents are both representative of the “old” and the “new” diaspora; some have held and continue to hold positions of responsibility in Armenia and Artsakh. Others are academics, officials, philanthropists, former diplomats and veterans. They all share a concern for the future of the Armenian nation and state. The results of this survey led the authors to make recommendations and conclusions that reflect several points of view.

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