The merger and division of departments is an old Armenian tradition, characteristic of unstable states like ours. At one time, if you remember, the Ministries of Internal Affairs and Defense were united as a result of some reorganization within the ruling elite.
I believe this was a mistake: the functions of the police and the special services are very different, and they should balance and control each other. In non-democratic regimes, counterbalancing often manifests as palace intrigues. Consider the conflict between KGB President Andropov and Head of Internal Affairs Shcholokov in the early 1980s in the USSR, which ended with the latter’s complete defeat and suicide. But even in a democracy, natural competition exists.
There was a time when the Ministry of Finance and the Tax Inspectorate were also merged in Armenia, which I again find unacceptable. The money collector and the money spender should not be within the same system.
After 2018, agriculture was “dissolved” into the economy, also an inexplicable structure called the MESCS was created. The issue isn’t so much about economizing resources but, in my view, about the difficulty of finding four loyal people compared to just one.
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For the same reason, I believe counter-intelligence has been “integrated” into intelligence. Institutionally, this seems inappropriate. Conventionally speaking, the departments of Müller and Schellenberg cannot be identical—the natural balance is disrupted (do you remember the “Seventeen moments of Spring”?). By the way, Andropov also appreciated the famous Soviet series because it masterfully presented the structural nuances of the special services.
Of course, there’s also the objective issue of the old National Security Service staff’s connections with Russia. But this is a complex and delicate problem that cannot be solved through mergers alone.
If the government changes, I am confident this step will be reversed. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Aram Abrahamyan
