«Ստրատեգիա» - Հրաչյա ԱՐԶՈՒՄԱՆՅԱՆ

Rachya Arzumanyan's article is devoted to the problem of shaping an Armenian vision of strategy and war in the 21st century, and to substantiating the need for a purposeful concentration of the intellectual potential of the Armenian World on the development of a national strategy.

Introduction and Methodology

The author proceeds from the thesis that the theme of military culture and strategy, perceived by Armenian society as abstract and narrowly specialized, is in fact the foundation for formulating basic values and a vision of Armenia's role in the world of the 21st century. Drawing on the works of Western strategic theorists — John Lewis Gaddis, Paul Kennedy, Paul Hirst, Colin Gray, Barry Posen, Russell Weigley, Jeremy Black — as well as classics of military thought (Clausewitz, Sun Tzu), Arzumanyan builds an argument for the necessity of the Armenian nation turning to the world's treasury of strategic thought.

Key Proposition

The article's central thesis is that without a formulated national grand strategy, neither meaningful political action nor an adequate response to new challenges is possible. Referring to Samuel Johnson's aphorism about "danger as a school of strategy," the author draws a parallel with the tragic experience of the Meds Yeghern as empirical proof of the catastrophic consequences for a people lacking a vision of the future.

Military Culture as the Context of Strategy

A separate section examines the concept of strategic culture as a historically formed system of values, norms, and behavioral patterns that determines a people's attitude toward war and force. It is noted that:

culture is more inertial than politics and economics, and is primary in relation to them;
the interruption of the Armenian military tradition is linked to the prolonged loss of statehood;
the relict preservation of certain traditions (particularly in Artsakh) played a role in the national liberation movement of 1988–1994, but was insufficient for a conscious continuity.

The Western Vision of War and the Armenian Experience

Analyzing Russell Weigley's concept of the "American way of war" and its applicability to Western military culture as a whole, the author concludes that the experience of the Artsakh war of 1988–1994 demonstrates that Armenian military practice belongs to the Western paradigm oriented toward the destruction of the enemy's armed forces, which gave rise to characteristic problems of postwar settlement.

Strategy as the Link Between Politics and War

Special attention is given to distinguishing strategy from tactics: whereas tactical tasks are amenable to algorithmization and permit a trial-and-error method, strategic problems are unique, have no guaranteed solution, and require a qualitatively different, synthetic mode of thinking that unites the military and political dimensions (following Clausewitz and Churchill).

Conclusion

The author concludes that the formation of an Armenian strategic tradition requires the conscious, systematic study of the world's heritage of military and strategic thought, as well as the restoration of continuity with the strategic culture of Armenian statehood — a task that remains among the priorities for the future development of the Armenian World.