Armenia is not Israel and will never become it
By Rashid Shirinov
Three consecutive years Armenia has been third in the report Global Militarization Index, annually prepared by the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC). However, this is not an indicator Armenia can boast about.
In the case of this poor South Caucasus country, the militarization does not correspond to the potential of its state budget. The arms build-up devours most of the country’s financial capabilities. Given that Armenia has big difficulties with funds as its economy is in a permanent crisis, the military expenses intercept the funds that could have been spent on social sector, agriculture and other suffering spheres.
Armenian media themselves confirm this. For instance, Zhoghovurd newspaper writes that the high level of Armenia’s militarization limits economic development by exhausting economic resources.
“Now there is an opinion that as a result of the “Nation-Army” program launched since last year and subsequent steps, Armenia can challenge Israel, which ranks first in the list of the most militarized countries,” the newspaper writes.
Russian political analyst and expert on international issues Evgeny Mikhailov, however, believes that despie excessive militarization Armenia will hardly be able to "become Israel".
“It is necessary to distinguish between the levels of militarization and of the armed forces,” he said in an interview with Day.az, noting that even though Armenia is shown as highly militarized, the country is very far from Israel in terms of the level of the armed forces.
“Armenia is not Israel and will never become it, and any comparison here will be absolutely inappropriate,” Mikhailov said. “The military power of Israel is supported by a literate economy. Moreover, it has many enemies. And who threatens Armenia?”
The expert added that if the country is afraid of Turkey and Azerbaijan, then it should know that these countries do not need Armenia’s territory: “If Armenia gave back foreign lands itself, it would live peacefully.”
It is obvious that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and occupation of over 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands is among the main reasons for Armenia’s present sorrowful situation. Armenia’s ungrounded illegal claims cut off the country from many regional projects and lead it into a deadlock.
Mikhailov also touched upon the controversial law the Armenian Parliament has recently adopted: “Today Yerevan has to refuse to postpone military service even for university students, and this is already the indicative of the imminent collapse, both economic and military-political.”
The “Nation-Army” program, restriction of students’ right to defer military service and many other ideas of the Armenian government are obviously aimed at the further militarization of the country, which will bring nothing but deterioration of Armenia's condition and more people dissatisfied with life in their poor country.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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