Critical Evaluation: Strategic Deficiencies in the 2026 External Security Risk Assessment of Armenia
The most consequential shortcoming of the report is that it fails to situate Armenia within a clearly articulated grand strategy that encompasses, but is not limited to, territorial integrity, economic security, political stability, and alliances. While the document provides situational assessments and probabilistic judgments, it fails to answer basic strategic questions, such as: What kind of state Armenia seeks to be in the evolving international order, and what are the dynamic elements of that order? What core trade-offs is Armenia willing or unwilling to make within a context? What strategic end-state is Armenia aiming for in the South Caucasus? By not addressing these questions, the risks are described in isolation, rather than as deviations from or threats to a defined strategic trajectory. Intelligence assessments should ultimately serve strategy, but such strategy is a mystery.
With an over-reliance on tactical probability assessments, such as “highly unlikely,” “likely”, at the expense of structural analysis, the report does not sufficiently analyze why underlying structures persist.
While the report documents Azerbaijan’s belligerent narratives and increased military spending in detail, it stops short of assigning a strategic intent model, nor does it mention two hundred plus square kilometers of Armenian land occupied by the Azerbaijani army. Armenia’s Foreign Intelligence Service acknowledges the ambiguity but does not propose analytic hypotheses or decision trees, which are standard in mature intelligence products. This limits the report’s utility for policymakers who must plan under uncertainty rather than merely observe. However, this report will be interpreted by regional and global powers. What it lacks will not be justified as being limited by claims of national security, but quite the opposite.
Hybrid threats are presented as something that happens to Armenia, not as challenges that test specific weak points in state capacity. With everything appearing important, therefore, nothing is strategically decisive. This dilutes the report’s value as it appears more of a year-end report, considering its lack of strategic red lines and constraints.
Technology is described as a global phenomenon rather than as a determinant of Armenia’s survival strategy. Is all technology equally welcome as a harbinger of prosperity?
The report lacks strategic realism. It fails to confront Armenia’s narrowing margin for error in foreign policy or the limits of diplomacy without credible deterrence. Moreover, it overlooks the risk that prolonged pressure and constrained resources may gradually wear down the state’s ability to sustain its tactical, transactional foreign policy. In an intelligence culture, accuracy is necessary, but strategic usefulness requires uncomfortable conclusions.
The report answers what is happening and what might happen to Armenia, from an external viewpoint, but not what Armenia must become to survive what is happening. Instead, this report demonstrates that Armenia’s response to external threats is taking a fetal position, with peace being merely the absence of war and framed by a Washington declaration. Without defining peace as a condition to be secured and defended, the report implicitly treats it as externally granted and internally consumed, rather than actively produced and protected by the state.
Yerevan, Armenia
David Davidian is a Lecturer at the American University of Armenia. He has spent over a decade in technical intelligence analysis at major high-technology firms. He resides in Yerevan, Armenia. A compendium of his articles can be seen on shadowdiplomat.com
