Military cooperation between Armenia and the U.S. widens

On March ۱۹ official sources of Armenia's Ministry of Defense reported that Armenian Minister of Defense Seyran Ohanian and a delegation led by him went on a working visit to the United States.
The delegation members will meet with Governor of Kansas Sam Brownback. The National Guard of the State of Kansas is Armenia's partner in the military sphere. While in Kansas, the delegation will also have meetings with President of the Senate Stefan Morris, Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike O'Neil, and Adjutant General of Kansas Lee Tafanelli.
Then the delegation will travel to Washington where Minister Ohanian is scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency David Petraeus, Deputy Secretary of Defense Joseph McMillan, and Under-Secretaries of State Philip Gordon and Andrew Shapiro. The sides will discuss issues related to Armenian-American cooperation in defense sphere and regional security.
Meetings are also scheduled to take place in New York: the delegation will meet with High Representative for Disarmament of the UN Secretary General Angela Cane and acting Head of the Department for Peacekeeping Operations of the UN Secretary General Dmitry Titov.



In the past ten years this is already the third contact at the highest level of the defense ministries of Armenia and the United States.



In ۲۰۰۱, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Yerevan as part of his regional visit.



In October ۲۰۰۵ Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sargsyan (the incumbent president of the country) paid a five-day visit to the U.S. at the invitation of the American side. During his visit Serzh Sargsyan met with Donald Rumsfeld and made a speech entitled "Armenia: the Security and Development Prospects in the South Caucasus" at the National Press Club in Washington. S. Sargsyan also visited the U.S. Central Command Base in Tampa, Florida, where he had meetings with top officials of the National Security Council and Armenian servicemen participating in exercises of the Kansas National Guard.



Besides, in ۲۰۰۷ Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan - ex-Minister of Defense and the next president of the country - paid an official visit to the U.S. The head of the government S. Sargsyan met not only with Vice President Robert Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but also with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. At the meeting with Robert Gates, Serzh Sargsyan discussed issues of bilateral military cooperation. The Armenian Prime Minister pointed out the high level of Armenian-American relations and thanked the American side for the help given to the Armenian armed forces. He also called on the United States to equally distribute the military assistance between Armenia and Azerbaijan. For his part, Robert Gates appreciated Armenia's role in the Anti-terrorist Coalition and its participation in the peacekeeping contingent in Iraq, after which the sides discussed the possibility of Armenia's taking part in Iraq's reconstruction and its possible peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.



Such is the story of military contacts of Armenia and the United States at the level of defense ministers.



More than a month before the start of Seyran Ohanian's visit to the United States, the Armenian Defense Minister received Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, Deputy Director for Plans, Policy and Strategy of the U.S. European Command. The sides discussed organizational issues concerning joint Armenian-U.S. military exercises as well as other issues of mutual interest.



During the visit Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery also met with Deputy Head of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces Lieutenant General S. Galstian. Issues related to the international missions of Armenian peacekeepers were discussed. Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery also visited the brigade of Armenian peacekeepers of the Armenian armed forces.



A number of experts and electronic media outlets in Yerevan welcome the widening of military cooperation between Armenia and the United States.



For example, in the opinion of Ruben Mehrabian, a commentator of http://۱in.am and an expert of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS), in conditions of the ongoing blackmail on the part of Russia, the visit of Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian to the U.S. should be assessed positively and viewed as an event of probing nature.

R. Mehrabian believes that Seyran Ohanian's visit to Washington shows that the circumstance that the Russian Federation imposes participation in various Russian projects (the Eurasian Union and so on) on Armenia is not dear to the heart of the Armenian authorities. And this is natural as the existing situation poses a threat to the future of Armenian statehood. At the same time, according to R. Mehrabian, it is obvious that the interests of Armenia and the U.S. in the region indentify.

The expert also takes the view that the range of issues discussed at the U.S. Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency is interconnected. It is not ruled out that issues related to reassessment of dangers will be discussed at the meeting with D. Petraeus.



Most probably, as far as Armenian-American relations are concerned, the contacts show a stable tendency to grow in their frequency and level. This is confirmed by the statements of Washington and Yerevan officials to the effect that the Armenian-American relations are currently at the highest level.



All this is taking place against the background of criticism leveled at the heads of the defense ministry by some representatives of the mass media and non-governmental organizations who accuse S. Ohanian of inability to combat crime and violence in the army. It is suggested that Seyran Ohanian, who "responds to the criticism in the spirit of traditions of Soviet Russian propaganda", should:



- create a more efficient management system;



- in order to solve the problems, the Armenian army command needs to intensively use the Western experience of armed forces command as the Western system is the best with respect to efficiency and fighting capacity;



- however attractive the Soviet Russian system is (at least by its morale), from the viewpoint of good sense it is an undeniable fact for the heads of the defense ministry that the problem can be solved only by becoming familiar with Western experience and applying it in Armenia. In this sense, the relations with the U.S. command as an undisputed leader in terms of efficiency and fighting capacity are of vital importance to Armenia, if, of course, these protocol relations become relations for practical application.



Indeed, in the past ۲۰ years the Western military system and science have displayed a number of impressive achievements in several local and quite large-scale wars in different regions, including in Balkans and the Greater Middle East.



Yet, the problems that the Western military system has encountered directly or indirectly in recent years have not been displayed. In particular:



- During "the five-day war" in August ۲۰۰۸, the Georgian army suffered a crushing defeat from the Russian army. The war revealed a multitude of deficiencies in the combat training of the Georgian army;



- the number of war crimes committed by U.S. servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan shows that as far as discipline is concerned, things are not going as well as are presented;



- since October of ۲۰۰۱, NATO troops and their allies in Afghanistan (including the Armenian unit forming part of the German contingent) - a total of over ۱۳۰,۰۰۰ troops (۹۰,۰۰۰ of which are U.S. troops) together with government troops (over ۱۰۰,۰۰۰) of Hamid Karzai have been fighting against the Taliban (۳۶,۰۰۰), the Movement of Taliban in Pakistan (۴۰,۰۰۰-۴۵,۰۰۰), Quetta Shura (۲۰,۰۰۰) and other Afghan forces that are allies of the Taliban (they total ۱۲۰,۰۰۰), and on the whole, have suffered a defeat, controlling only ۲% of the territory of Afghanistan. By comparison, for ten years (in ۱۹۷۹-۱۹۸۹) the Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan (consisted of some ۸۰-۱۰۰,۰۰۰ troops)together with Afghan government troops (about ۱۳۰,۰۰۰) was fighting against Mujahidins - the armed Afghan opposition (over ۱۴۰,۰۰۰) and in ۱۹۸۶ controlled about ۳۰% of the country's territory.



The aforesaid indicates that the Western experience of building armed forces is important and useful for Armenia and the heads of the Ministry of Defense. But it does not mean that Armenia should reject the Soviet and Russian experience of military construction and combat operations (including in Chechnya and Afghanistan) - an experience that some hotheads severely criticize and disregard