September 3, 2013
President Serzh Sargsyan’s announcement that Armenia will join the CIS Customs Union – the precursor to a planned Eurasian Union—has drastically changed both the political situation in Armenia and Armenia’s relations with Europe. At least on the surface. The appearance is of a U-turn in Armenian foreign policy after 20 years of independence, abandoning the previous balanced approach, or “complementarity.” If in the past Armenia balanced its security and economic ties with Russia with a variety of ties with the West, now it appears to be supplementing its relations with Moscow by adopting the Putin era Russian values too.
From the history of Armenia’s foreign policy
Armenia’s first post-Soviet leadership took a balanced stance towards Russia versus other international influences. For example, they also espoused the idea of establishing good neighborly relations with Turkey. Moreover, they were able to curtail the anti-Russian elements of nascent Armenian nationalism, which had to be taken into account and even encouraged, given the conflict with Azerbaijan.
The first stage in crafting that balanced policy culminated in the signing in 1993 of a strategic agreement with Russia, a full-fledged treaty on friendship and cooperation. At that time, the intention was that relations with all actors on the global scene should be equally prioritized, starting with neighboring Turkey and Iran, then Europe, the US, the Middle Eastern countries with significant Armenian diasporas, and the rest of the world. But at this stage, the discussions were about bilateral relations rather than about membership of supra-national structures, despite Armenia’s membership of the UN, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States. This phase ended in 2001 when Armenia (simultaneously with Azerbaijan) became a member of the Council of Europe. This was a major policy statement by Armenia, a declaration of acceptance of Western values.
Since then, successive Armenian governments have declared ever more vocally that Armenia is a part of Europe geographically and culturally, and has to find its place within Europe. What did they mean by this? Clearly this is a statement of values. The population at large, however, and some political groups, did not necessarily see Armenia’s value system so much linked to the European one, for various reasons. Some argued that Armenia is very close to the Middle East, where many diaspora Armenians live. Therefore, the conclusion was, it makes sense to develop strong ties with this part of the world. But attempts to do so met with mixed success. Armenia was able to develop good relations with Iran and many Arab states, but not with Turkey or Israel. It also quickly became clear that the Middle East did not offer opportunities for membership in supranational structures, unlike Europe, where the European Union was contemplating expansion to include the former Communist states of Eastern Europe.
Factoring out the Middle East, the real alternatives remained north (Russia) or west (Europe). In the military and security dimension, this equated with a choice between remaining part of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty, or seeking to become a full member of NATO, with which Armenia developed very good diplomatic relations and cooperated actively within the Partnership for Peace program.
Security vs. Values
Armenia opted for a military-strategic alliance with Russia, even though Russia never gave any formal guarantee that it would support Armenia if Azerbaijan launched a new war over Nagorno-Karabakh, which essentially meant Armenia’s only real security need remained unmet. In 2010, Armenia concluded an agreement extending for a further 40 plus years the lease of Russia’s military base.
At the same time, Armenia continued to deepen its relations with the EU, advancing from a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) to the Eastern Partnership (EaP), and embarking on the process of an Association Agreement (AA) and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA).
President Sargsyan’s September 3 announcement was a bombshell precisely because there had been no previous indication that he was contemplating such a U-turn. While the Armenian leadership could have been more frank in its diplomatic exchanges with the EU, the EU’s approach too was flawed. On the one hand, it largely closed its eyes to Armenia’s very significant democratic shortcomings. Its motto was ‘let Armenia join the club and then it will gradually improve its record because of the inevitable reforms’. On the other hand, it probably did not raise the issue of Armenia with Russia boldly and vocally enough while preparing the AA process, or demand periodic clarifications from the Armenian side; or at least offer any significant incentives to Armenia to join the AA when it became obvious that Putin did not see this process as a choice of economic and market interests, but rather as a geopolitical choice that implied a rejection of Russia as a unique “state-civilization” and the values its stands for.
The primary explanation cited for Sargsyan’s volte face is Russia’s ability to jeopardize Armenia’s security, whatever the latter does. In opting for greater independence from Russia, Armenia risks losing its security “umbrella.” On the other hand, acquiescing to dependence on Russia does not preclude the possibility that Russia might act contrary to Armenia’s security interests, and Armenia will be defenseless, having lost its standing vis-a-vis Europe (although not the US).
The second explanation has been Armenia’s vulnerability to possible Russian threats, such as expelling the hundreds of thousands of Armenian gastarbeiters, whose remittances account for some 25 percent of the Armenian population’s spending power, increasing the price to Armenia of Russian gas, or banning Armenian imports.
Certainly these dangers existed. However, if Serzh Sargsyan had felt himself the nation’s legitimate leader, he could have explained his dilemma to the Armenian people and discussed the options. And Armenians may well have agreed to hardship the way they did during the Karabakh war.
But Serzh Sargsyan did not choose that path, probably because he did not feel himself to be the legitimate ruler, and apparentlydid not ever want to be: he probably only wanted to be the self-appointed director of Armenia. Many Armenia analysts, even those who favor Armenia’s membership of the Customs Union, suspect Russia’s President Vladimir Putin may have personally threatened to undermine the Sargsyan clan’s monopoly on power and assets.
The European frontier
Unlike Georgia, Armenia was never at the forefront of the EU attention. It received less support, less encouragement, and fewer opportunities. To a significant degree this was due to the Armenia government’s policies of balancing, and by its very strong and deep security and other ties with Russia. However, Armenia was the weakest link in the AA and DCFTA geopolitical project, and it is little wonder that it cracked first. If Europe had wanted seriously to succeed, it should have put more effort into the process. Not only did it refrain from badly-needed criticism of the government, it also failed to explain itself adequately to the Armenian public, including its non-European—post-Soviet Diaspora and migrants.
There is no question that Ukraine, Moldova and even Belarus are in the heart of Europe. Armenia and Georgia are different: until the collapse of the USSR, the North Caucasus mountains were regarded as the border of Europe. It was only after the collapse of the USSR that the three South Caucasus states began to be regarded as geographically part of Europe.
The offer: surrendering sovereignty?
What is Russia really offering Armenia? Armenia’s migrants in Russia, despite the increasing ultranationalist wave there, have until now enjoyed a relatively privileged situation: they have worked hard and made money, some of them even becoming dollar millionaires.
Russia offers Armenia the unification of many of its structures and infrastructures, having already purchased the Armenian railway network and numerous obsolescent Soviet-era industrial plants. It has set up a joint gas company and owns major insurance companies, and two out of three mobile phone operators.
Does this give a sense of financial and economic security to Armenia? To a certain extent, yes. Today Armenians in the street are talking about the possibility of getting a pension system similar to Russia’s, which although very bad is still much better than the current Armenian one and more credible than the one proposed by the Armenian government after the cherished reform supported by the US government. Even though Russia too is undertaking a pension reform, remaining a part of the huge Russian market may seem a more straightforward social security chance for impoverished and desperate Armenian population than being locked in its own small and almost non-existent market. True, Russia is as oligarchic as Armenia is, and the influence of the Federal Security Service (former KGB) is far more pervasive, but the market there is bigger. The European market in that respect barely figured on Armenians’ radar screen. Public opinion surveys have demonstrated the populations’ desire to be with Europe value-wise, and with Russia security-wise and trade-wise.
Russia of course is not offering Armenia any values apart from its dominance. Despite deficiencies in state building, Armenia has become used to sovereignty over the last 20 years, and the demand by a Russian State Duma delegation that visited Armenia after September 3 for greater use of the Russian language at the expense of Armenian generated understandable irritation.
The lack of a shared border with Russia means that many goods which currently enter Armenia via other channels will increase in price, first because the Russian customs system is more extractive than even Armenia’s, which many in the street call a ‘system of robbery’ (Kazakhstan already complains about the Russian custom prices), and secondly because of dues that Georgia may extract for the passage of goods through its territory, especially if and when it enters the DCFTA.
So, despite a degree of some economic security deriving from closer association with Russia, poverty in Armenia could even increase. But the biggest danger is that Russia may curtail Armenia’s sovereignty even further, whether by exploiting its mineral reserves with no regard for possible ecological damage or by unexpected decisions to the detriment of Armenia. Armenians do not trust their government’s capacity to negotiate a balance with Russia in terms of the country’s sovereign right, which is why President Sargsyan’s September 3 declaration left the impression both at home and abroad that Armenia was surrendering a significant chunk of its sovereignty. Of course this was brought into perspective after Ukraine’s U-turn. But Sargsyan is still being referred to by independent elites and on Facebook not just as a non-legitimate ruler, but as a national traitor. And there have been few such in Armenian history.
The value trade: the ‘Western’ values
I have mentioned several times the difference in values. The system of liberal values espoused by Europe and the US are not foreign to any nation or any individual. They are about individual freedom, human rights, the right to opportunity, to business, to well-being and essentially, to happiness. While they focus on the individual rather than the group, they do not overlook minorities. They are about balance and compromise. They are about state’s functions being monitored, separated from each other, limited with clear laws and kept under control. They are about truth, freedom, tolerance and fairness. Of course the West behaves selfishly, and its critics do not hesitate to point this out. Particularly US is under heavy criticism for violating those very values that it rhetorically preaches and for trying to establish a global dominance.
The values of the Putin regime
Russian values today are mixed sociologically. While many in Russia adhere to Western liberal values, the values officially promulgated by the Putin regime are significantly different: they are about Russian uniqueness, and also about the threat to the Russian identity. They are about the West being an enemy to the Russianness and being imperialist. They are about the incompatibility of different cultures. They are about traditionalism in the Soviet or Tsarist Russian sense. At the same time, they are about the wild capitalism and the right of the powerful, the strong, and the mighty. They are about the motivation to material well-being as justifying anything and everything. They are about “the means justify the end”, about cynicism as prudence and wisdom, and about corruption as a very effective means of self-enrichment. They are about yesterday and today rather than tomorrow, about reverting to censorship and avoiding the truth, and about “you die today and I tomorrow”, this latter value being a part and parcel of the gulag culture and ideology, which to a very significant degree have determined contemporary Russian values and post-Soviet values in general.
When you live in Russia, this may not be visible on the surface. Russians and all other nationalities who live there may be as caring as people from anywhere else, or even more so. But this is what is being officially advanced, preached, and condoned.
The Armenian elites’ values have been and are greatly influenced by this value system, the only difference being that by default they lack the Russian neo-imperialism, but they are just as nationalist and as cynical.
Russia promotes its own values. It is not, however, totally against individual rights However, Putin’s Russia today increasingly inclines towards preferring group rights (particularly Russians’ rights, but not only: its spurious nationality policy is also built on juxtaposing the rights of different groups) to individual rights.
The question arises: why has the Putin regime chosen such a disastrous nationality policy? The answer is simple, it is part and parcel of Putin’s ‘cost-effective’ antediluvian management style: divide and rule. Being a bottleneck, he has no other way of holding on to power except by initiating ethnic clashes and then containing them very much in the way the KGB exploited the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. How many people will suffer or die and how that approach will damage the country’s future prospects is immaterial compared with the necessity of keeping power as long as possible. You die today and I die tomorrow.
The curtailing of freedoms, the attacks on Pussy Riot, NGOs, Greenpeace and gays, the nationalist outbursts, the appallingly deceitful anti-Western propaganda — all these are aspects of the system of “ideological totalitarianism in one country” that the Putin regime is constructing. This may be a reaction to Gorbachev’s perestroika and first years of independence that will last only a few decades, but history moves so fast these days that what in previous centuries could be seen as a glitch on the surface of progress, today, in the case of such a large and formerly powerful state as Russia, is a disaster of global dimensions.
Is Armenia adopting Putin’s disdain of Western values?
How easy it is to disseminate and indoctrinate this approach in Armenia is demonstrated by the recent gender law: in May-June 2013, the Armenian parliament adopted that law—fast and with no discussion, probably in order to convince the West that Armenia was fully committed to the AA—while the top leadership perhaps already knew it was not going to happen. This was a ploy that served several purposes: to demonstrate to Europe that Armenia is moving in the right direction; to initiate immediately afterwards a campaign against the law that tapped into anti-Western sentiment and so undermined Europe’s reputation in the public eye; and to demonstrate to Russia that not only geopolitically, but also value-wise Armenia is following the Russian path, and that European values are regarded here at the official level exactly the same way as in Russia. Consequently, the very concept of gender equality was discredited to the point that a new curse appeared in Armenia: f**k your gender. Hopefully, the Armenians’ historic capacity for humor and adaptability will help them to overcome this setback.
But the most important point was that it became crystal clear that the West has not paid any serious attention to seriously indoctrinating that concept in this society. All the money given to the NGOs and the state over many years to address gender issues has not helped much. This is a major methodological shortcoming that should be analyzed.
The reason for this fiasco over gender equality is also related to nationalism as well as to the conflict: the anti-tolerance propaganda in Armenian schools, church, and the media, first of all directed against Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as religious minorities, needs a basis. This basis obviously is the concept of parochialism in nationalism, i.e. the idea that people belong to their nationality genetically. From this, an easy inference is made regarding any other aspect of people’s identity: they are genetically Armenian and genetically belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church and genetically are men and women and genetically are the enemy of and superior to Azerbaijanis and Turks (a phrase once officially pronounced by an Armenian president), and therefore any deviation from this approach is either illness, in the best case, or, in the worst case, an attack on the identity of the nation and therefore on the state.
And the West’s attempt to impose its values constitute such an attack, and thus a threat to national security. No change of identity is possible between men and women, Armenians and Azerbaijanis, and by extension between any other aspects of identity: if in the past women served men, this should continue. If in the past Armenians always fought Azerbaijanis, this should continue eternally; if in the past Turks perpetrated a genocide against Armenians, they will be always inclined to do so; if in the past children were beaten by their parents, this is the only way to raise a proper member of a traditional ethnic society. The traditionalist and parochial and revanchist-retrograde-conservative ideology is thus crystallizing, cemented by the state church and wielded by the ruling party.
What is to be done? (A very Russian question!)
Obviously it is easy for me to ask Europe to be more united when it comes to the former Soviet space. Yes, Europe is disunited and has many priorities, both locally and globally. Its members have diverging interests. But on the other hand, it is indeed a shame that it is losing the battle to Putin. Europe has developed its own Europe-speak, it prefers not to talk in geopolitical terms, whereas Putin does. What we have here is the traditional and very interesting clash between the bully boy and the good boy. The good boy talks about nice, liberal, mutually beneficial values. The bully strikes. The moment when zero-sum thinking meets non-zero sum thinking is very interesting. If the non-zero-sum guy does not think honestly in terms of zero-sum, he will lose to the one who thinks zero-sum. If the non-zero-sum guy starts thinking in zero-sum terms, he will lose his value system. If the non-zero sum guy believes that he can easily convert the zero-sum guy to non-zero-sum thinking, he is mistaken. The only way to do that is via pressure, coercion. Europe can wait for ten years until it develops alternative energy supply opportunities, but by that time the value system on its Eastern border may have become irreversible. Of course, Putin may be ousted or resign, but there is not much chance of that. He is probably currently thinking about how to build his succession so that he or his values stay in place forever. His staff are working on that plan day and night as I write.
The non-zero-sum guy should adopt the tit-for-tat strategy, which as far as I know is the only strategy which works well in dealing with ‘zero-sum-inclined’ people. Its essence is that for every case of non-cooperation, he should respond in kind, and for every case of cooperation too, until the zero-sum guy learns, over the long run, that cooperation is in his own interest. Appeasement will not work, just as it did not work with Hitler, Stalin, Saddam or Bin Laden.
US insufficiently supported Europe’s AA and DCFTA geostrategic plans. It should urgently help Europe regroup, reinvigorate its Eastern strategy, and move forward even more boldly than before.
The tit that started with September 3 and ended (if it did) with Ukraine also yielding to Putin urgently needs its tat.
Europe is asking what to do. The answer is that it should seriously reevaluate how it can best support those EaP aspirants who are now going to be ‘left behind’. Financial support over this period proved to be insufficient and/or not the right way to motivate Armenia and Ukraine. Financial support has to be reevaluated fast, effectively, and very thoroughly, and made available immediately. Europe and the US need to act decisively, in tandem, as they did in 1944-1962.
What can and should be done
There are many reform areas the West has a chance to move into. The technocratic approach of supporting structural reforms while ignoring values nearly led to a fiasco. The most important strategic aim is changing values. It is extremely difficult, but possible. George Soros did a lot in the former USSR by flooding the region with Xerox copiers. A similar approach is needed now. The younger generation needs a wide enough choice that they appreciate a credible alternative to the Russian university system. The indigenous cultures of the Eastern partners have to be supported—something almost never done by Western support systems apart from one-off Embassy-sponsored concerts, films or publications.
There is also the argument that culture is values, values are retrograde, and therefore supporting indigenous culture will in fact make nations even more anti-Western. This is wrong. First, the indigenous cultures of these nations are very different from Russia’s, and accelerating the production of indigenous cultural products by these nations will work in a wonderfully effective way both as a counterbalance to the Russian de-sovereignization policy and as a tool to increase friendship and appreciation towards the West. Second, if there are more opportunities for cultural products, competition will evolve among them, and the most progressive ones will survive and win, thereby leading the change in the value systems.
The West’s professed refusal in the past to support any political force in Armenia was tantamount to upholding the lack of any alternative to the existing regime. The West should not, of course, start supporting political parties any differently from before, e.g. via the German foundations that encourage different political ideologies, such as liberalism, social democracy or conservatism. What the West can do is boost its support for educational programs and opportunities for building leadership skills among youth; for alternative media; and for the alumni of those who have studied in the West. Again, a note of caution is in order: some of those alumni became “more Catholic than the Pope,” and on their return to Armenia fit perfectly into the evolving value system. It has in fact been thanks to these alumni that Serzh Sargsyan has been able to present to the the West a more positive image of Armenia than the real situation. However, additional selection safeguards should be enough to generate a new game in town while supporting leadership training and opportunities for youth.
There are many other strategic opportunities that can be discussed in detail if necessary. But the West needs to draw serious lessons from the past. Armenia has proven very adept at watering down reforms, adopting the wrong reforms, implementing façade projects, and using Western money for the personal enrichment of those who are in charge of disbursing it. But it is not that difficult to prevent this from happening again, given, first, the political will from the West and second, a commonsense approach not straitjacketed by bureaucracy. Please note that the sums required are not enormous: as much, or possibly less than has been allocated to date, but used more effectively.
Discontent and mistrust: a challenge and an opportunity
Serzh Sargsyan’s announcement was so unexpected that it cast the political elite and civil society into a kind of stupor. Those politicians who had built their careers on criticizing the ruling regime for joining Europe and thereby jeopardizing relations with Russia felt outsmarted: their main weapon was gone. The pro-European forces, on the other hand, were mainly the ruling regime itself, and they felt totally disempowered, because such a U-turn meant that the directions they received previously from the top were no longer valid, but no new directions were forthcoming. The part of civil society which supported the European dimension because it was the game of the ruling regime became totally disoriented. The part of civil society and those political groups that are critical of the government in all respects realized how isolated they were and how small is the community of their supporters.
The handful of poorly attended public protests, at least two of which turned violent, were crushed by police. On-line, by contrast, criticism of the leadership reached maximum intensity. All the reasons for discontent from this government have now coalesced in the ideologies of a small number of disparate opposition groups, but they all lack leadership, a way to unite, and a concrete plan of action. Meanwhile, trust is deeply fractured in Armenian society, not just trust between the disunited opposition groups and the government, not just trust between the critical CSOs and the government, but also trust among themselves, trust between citizens and between citizens and the government.
The acuteness of discontent, even in the absence of united opposition, is nonetheless bound to generate a new opposition political leadership pretty soon. If Armenia indeed adopts the Russian way and curtails freedoms, this may happen even faster than otherwise. Thus the government’s options are limited: if they tolerate harsh criticism, sooner or later this is going to force them to act, or will result in the crystallization of a new opposition. If they react harshly, the front against them will unite even faster. While migrants continue to leave the country and the ranks of the discontented dwindle, the internet enables Armenians all over the world who have a stake in Armenia to unite in different ways on-line. The debates on-line accelerate, and the mainstream media try to catch up. Some characterize the situation as a slow “color” or Facebook revolution. I would characterize it more as a Fronde, typical for interim periods of indecisiveness. Given the economic and security constraints, the opposition and the population have agreed to avoid violence at all cost, while still trying to oust the leadership or force it to work in the public interest. This situation, again, means that the best way for the West to support Armenia’s further development is to support its culture, science, scholarship, innovation projects, i.e. the areas which can generate more self-knowledge, more reflection, a greater understanding of society, closer unification of the educated Armenian elite in any country, and more consolidation of the middle class, the driving force of the necessary changes ahead.
By Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan
