Armenia’s Mossad moment: Superior Intelligence a must
By Sassoon Grigorian
If Armenia is ever going to overcome or neutralise its geopolitical vulnerability and external threats, it must have a superior national intelligence agency.
The history and importance of national intelligence organisations span centuries, evolving from ancient court spies into sophisticated modern agencies that shape global politics, security, and power.
In the modern era, national intelligence organizations evoke images of espionage and spies, but they are important in detecting and neutralizing external threats, from foreign invasions to cyberattacks.
They have a multitude of functions including providing insights into adversaries’ intentions, aiding in diplomacy or military decision making, tracking networks to prevent attacks, defend critical infrastructure and conduct offensive cyber operations against adversaries, monitor global financial flows, trade negotiations, and technological espionage.
Small states like Israel have robust intelligence capabilities, such as Mossad and Shin Bet, which are renowned for their ability to pre-empt threats and conduct counterterrorism operations. Furthermore, Israel is a leader in cybersecurity and uses offensive and defensive cyber capabilities to counter threats. Their intelligence organization effectiveness gives it an upper hand ability to not only deal with threats, but pre-empt before they occur, and have been critical in eliminating leaders of organizations they view a threat to their country.
Mossad is considered one of the most effective, feared, and respected intelligence services in the world from a unique combination of strategic culture, national doctrine, elite human resources, and political will.
It has a clear national mission – ‘Never Again’. Mossad operates within a national security doctrine shaped by existential threats. Its core mission is to prevent threats before they materialize, and operate globally with a deep moral license from the public and its government. It has elite intelligence capabilities, known for deep-cover agents, fluent linguists, and cultural infiltration skills. Recruitment is highly selective, prioritizing intellect, resilience, and adaptability over size or rank.
Mossad collaborates with Israel’s thriving cyber, AI, and surveillance industries, it is an early adopter of emerging technologies and operates hand in glove with the internal intelligence unit Shin Bet. Also, like other effective intelligence organizations, its work overlaps with its global diplomatic presence.
Armenia’s predicament is not dissimilar, surrounded by adversaries in Azerbaijan and Turkey, in a volatile region. Faced with catastrophic intelligence failures in the 2020 and 2023 Artsakh wars, Armenia clearly needs to shift from reactive, and defensive posture to agile, proactive, aggressive and intelligent led statecraft.
Armenia’s intelligence is going through a transition. Previously Armenia solely relied on the National Security Service (NSS) which used to handle both internal and foreign intelligence, modelled after the old Soviet KGB. It’s focus now is internal affairs. In 2023, Armenia established Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS). This civilian agency operates under the direct supervision of the Prime Minister, marking a departure from the Soviet style NSS model. The FIS aims to modernize Armenia’s intelligence capabilities, focusing on external threats and aligning more closely with modern intelligence practices.
This month (November), Armenia took major step to strengthen its national security by approving draft legislation to establish a new foreign counterintelligence unit within the National Security Service (NSS). The move marks an expansion of Armenia’s intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities.
In a cruel twist of irony, Armenia published its National Security Strategy in July 2020, just two months prior to its defeat in the Artsakh war of September 2020. The ‘National Security Strategy of the Republic of Armenia’ was adopted as a guiding document for defining the main directions, threats, challenges, and prioritising security policy.
It’s blatantly clear that a new Strategy and doctrine is required. A critical element is for Armenia to develop a national intelligence talent pipeline. Armenia is fortunate to have in its availability a multilingual population and diaspora.
The Artsakh war demonstrated it cannot ever again be compromised on intelligence. Azerbaijan showed it had and has the upper hand. This is Armenia’s ‘Never Again’ moment.
Sassoon Grigorian is author of Smart Nation: A Blueprint for modern Armenia second edition. This is an amended extract from the book.
