American Armenian political scientist Richard Giragosyan: the three countries of the region are losing the military balance not in favor of Armenia.
According to him, the countries may lose the balance more in the future on the account of increasing the military expenses of Azerbaijan. The political scientist assures that the efficiency of expenses on the part of Azerbaijan would be more if the minister of defense were not Safar Abiev and highlights that the reason he is in office such a long time is the fact that he is highly corrupted. “One of the parties supporting the militarization of Azerbaijan is the U.S. That process is going on in Georgia too, although with smaller capacities,” he said. According to R. Giragosyan, in parallel with the regional processes Armenia should take certain steps in several directions. “The first thing to do is the dynamic continuation of reforms in the military system. In this light the field of military intelligence is very important. It is worth mentioning that the death of the leader of this field, Basenc Azoyan, affected the military forces of Armenia and especially the military intelligence system,” he said.
He thinks that the second step towards military reforms shall be changing the technologies. The analyst thinks that the diplomatic and political work of Armenia in different international institutions is very important so that Armenia may get corresponding military support from such institutions. “Now the Armenian army has just a defending function and may be the guarantee of stability in Caucasus,” he thinks. Meanwhile he thinks that it is very strange and unacceptable that Armenia hopes for security guarantees from NATO or Russia.
As a former commander of US army special detached forces, Richard Giragosyan thinks that it is very important for Armenia to create special detached forces and mobile military forces. “Armenia is not in good relations with its neighboring countries and it should have the opportunity of quick response. Armenia is like Israel with its geopolitical location and geopolitical situation and such detached forces and groups can be formed in accordance with the Israeli example,” thinks Giragosyan. He is also surprised at the fact that the Armenian military forces are indifferent to aviation. In this light the only consolation is that aviation is not developed in Azerbaijan either. “Weak enemy is not a good enemy yet,” believes the analyst.