“During the war, I failed to overcome the uncertainty in the PM-Defense Ministry-General Staff command order and the obstacles arising from it. In particular, these are issues related to mobilization, the role and functions of the Security Council, the functions and official relations between the Armenian Armed Forces, the Defense Army and President of Artsakh, the organization of self-defense in Artsakh and the evacuation of the population,” former Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan said in his recent interview with Mediamax. Davit Tonoyan held that position during the war in which we had a humiliating defeat.
And truly, who was the one who organized the self-defense of Artsakh: Nikol Pashinyan, Davit Tonoyan, Onik Gasparyan, Arayik Harutyunyan, Jalal Harutyunyan, perhaps Samvel Babayan or Anna Hakobyan? The former Minister of Defense is correct in the sense that the constitution doesn’t provide any clear outline for this procedure, which can cause confusion. The order to carry out a specific command needs to be given from a certain point, and it must be carried out unconditionally by everyone.
By the way, that also includes the National Security Service, which, by the way, carries out the same military service.
But the current Armenian government’s and Prime Minister’s amateurism brought about uncertainty and confusion even more so than the legislative omissions. It’s a well-known pattern; the more ignorant someone is, the more confident they are, the less likely they are to learn anything, and the more likely they are to induce paranoia. The official mentality over the past 2.5 years was that the majority of our generals and high-ranking officers are traitors and enemies of the revolution. That mentality was successfully adopted by many people: “Nikol did the right thing by sending Anna to the staff headquarters in order to prevent treason.” It is difficult to win a war while having such thoughts about the state and army.
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Meanwhile, I trust that the vast majority of our generals, officers, and soldiers are patriotic, dedicated to their work, and brave. The political leadership simply needs to do the following:
A) Trust in their knowledge, listen to the information they provide, and not be guided by their own imagination and ambitions;
B) Set forth clear and feasible tasks.
The model that was used by our army has become outdated, and yes, both the current and former governments are to blame for this. The Soviet model according to which it is necessary to gather as many soldiers as possible and send them to the trenches cannot compete against NATO’s modern model, where military experts are tens of kilometers away from the military operations at their command headquarters and pressing the right buttons. I hope that Armenia’s next government will have enough knowledge to understand that.
Aram Abrahamyan
