CC BY
5In this Issue
New waves of globalization and regionalization, accompanied by the competitive struggle of world and regional powers in the geopolitical space, contribute to the emergence of new challenges and security threats to the national interests of all states, including Armenia. One of these threats is the situation of 'no war, no peace' or 'war, no peace' as a new form of hybrid wars, therefore, the study of the phenomenon of modern 'hot wars' and 'cold peace', the characteristics of their most important aspects is of political scientific interest and is the focus of attention of modern social and humanitarian research.
Modern 'hot wars' and 'cold peace' are quite complex phenomena, since by their nature they imply the use of military and non-military technologies simultaneously or alternately, depending on the object of influence. Military technologies include the use of special forces, private military companies, terrorist and extremist groups, partisan detachments and others. Non-military technologies or tools include intelligence and subversive activities of special services, information wars, cyber wars, sanctions wars, media resources, Internet space, social networks, etc.
Modern warfare can include traditional warfare, guerrilla tactics, terrorist attacks, criminal violence, and coercion. All these various activities can be carried out by different methods or even by one department, but with one goal in order to obtain the greatest synergistic and psychological effect. In this context, an example is today's hybrid events in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and other hot spots in which the army, terrorist groups, private military companies, criminals, and protest potential are involved, etc.
At the present stage, within the framework of their geopolitical and geo-economic interests, modern wars are waged among world and regional powers, thereby ignoring the UN Charter and violating international law, moreover, on the territory of another state, while denying or accepting their involvement in everything, taking into account exclusively their national interests. The basic principle of modern wars is that they are never declared and combine various types of combinations of overt and covert actions, provocations and sabotage.
Despite the fact that back in 2015 the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 goals (Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)) were approved, the world community once again shows its inconsistency and lack of commitment to this extremely important topic. In the conditions of modern wars, it becomes very difficult to fulfill the obligations that were strengthened in the document by the 193 United Nations Member States. But the most important thing is that, along with other obligations, the United Nations Member States also assumed obligations to ensure and protect peace, the guarantor of which should first of all be the Five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
In 'From Conflict to Peace? Stateness Assessment of the South Caucasus countries at the crossroads of political processes from 2017 to 2022', Violetta Manukyan analyzes the possibility of transition from conflict to peace, taking into account the stability of statehood of recognized and unrecognized countries of the South Caucasus at the crossroads of political processes from 2017 to 2022. According to the author, the
war and conflicts in the South Caucasus, around Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Assetia not only pose a security threat to direct participants in military escalation, but also, beyond this framework, pose a threat to the entire region. The issue of resolving these multi-layered conflicts is complicated by the fact that the positions of the parties involved in the conflict are completely opposite, and none of the parties to the conflict at this stage of negotiations is ready to make serious compromises and concessions that would lead to a future resolution of the conflict. Added to this is the complex relationship of the parties involved in their settlement, which is in the sphere of interests of the EU, the USA and Russia. According to the author, the concept of statehood and the methodologies for its assessment have conceptual and functional significance, since the features, difficulties and opportunities for assessing the statehood of recognized and unrecognized states are revealed. Using the Peace Index, the article assesses the levels of statehood of the three recognized countries of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, as well as the three unrecognized states of the South Caucasus: Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia from 2017 to 2022.
The author examines the recognized countries and the conflict of the unrecognized countries of the South Caucasus from the point of view of achieving stable peace and international law, studying it in such legal frameworks as: national legal and international legal principles, the UN Charter, as well as the Charter of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In his research, the author also studies ethnic conflicts in post-Soviet countries, based on economic factors, believing that they are able to explain the causes of wars and ethnic cleansing to a greater extent than political and social transformations.
In his article 'The role of nuclear and renewable energy in ensuring the energy security of Turkiye in the face of new challenges of geo-economic development', Mikayel Avanesyan, based on a comparative analysis, determines the strengthening of Turkiye's role in the internationalization and globalization of world energy, as well as the growth of energy interdependence, developing large-scale cooperation in order to ensuring energy security.
The article examines the political aspects of interaction between Turkiye and Russia in the field of energy policy and the impact of their interaction on regional political stability at the present stage. According to the author, it is a fact that in modern conditions the energy problem in the international arena manifests itself as a global factor influencing the state of the world economy, used as a political instrument of influence in interstate relations and restraining European integration. In the context of the changed balance of power in Eurasia, Turkiye is increasing its rapid activity in the post-Soviet space, with the countries of which it had historical, cultural, and ethnic ties. The supply of energy resources from the region to world markets was the most important area of this activity. In addition to the fact that the diversification of routes for transporting energy resources from the Caspian Sea region to world markets with the help of Russia strengthens its geopolitical status, the perception of Turkiye not as a conductor of US interests in the region, but as a regional partner of Russia, which cannot but cause justified concern for the US and the EU.
The article notes that by developing cooperation with Russia, Turkey is taking decisive steps for the strategic development of nuclear and renewable energy with the help of Russian companies. At the same time, the author should keep in mind that all this is happening in a country in which three-quarters of the various energy resources are provided by imports and for which Russia is already the largest supplier of energy resources. The article also notes that the prospects for the development of bilateral cooperation in the energy sector will be influenced by third parties and, above all, the West. The influence of third forces and its nature will be determined not only by the development of relations with Russia, but also by Turkey's overall course towards acquiring the status of a powerful regional force in the process of globalization.
In 'The imperative to shift Armenia's peripherality: contradictions of institutionalisation and functioning in conditions of democratic transition', Valentina Gevorgyan analyzes the main trends of the modern foreign policy process of Armenia, which is influenced by globalization, transnational political participation, geopolitical factors of the regional system of international relations, and internal political changes. The limited number of energy resources puts on the political agenda of the Republic of Armenia the issues of finding and using other resources to achieve foreign policy goals and ensure the national interests of the small state. The relevance of the topic of this article is determined by the fact that in the conditions of globalization and European integration, the system of interaction between participants in the regional and world political process is undergoing a period of transformation. The author pays special attention to the fact that state institutions and civil society organizations remain the most important actors, under the influence of the globalization process and the associated post-modernization cultural shift, they are forced to take into account group and institutional impulses emanating from horizontal networks of political participation. In this sense, a comparative study of the possibility of active participation in the global and regional political process of the Armenian state with limited resources, as well as the prospects for its use of new types of resources based either on information and communication components, or on the potential of civil society actors in international relations, seems very relevant.
In the article 'Historical rethinking of relations with the First Republic of Armenia and the United States of America: the dilemma of orientation and expectations', Gegham Petrosyan discussed issues of the history of the Armenian people from the point of view of the dilemma of orientation and expectations of the Armenian political elite in the conditions of state-building of the First Republic of Armenia. The author analyzes the events of the First World War and after the war, which became a real challenge to the unresolution of the Armenian issue, and its consequences for the Armenian people were ambiguous. Despite the efforts of the United States and its allies to protect the Armenian people, nevertheless, taking advantage of the outbreak of hostilities, the government of the Young Turks organized the Armenian Genocide and the mass deportation of the population of Western Armenia. The purpose of this study is an attempt to rethink the historical process of restoration of independent Armenian statehood at the end of May 1918 in the context of geopolitical events. The author highlights the characteristic features of the USA role in supporting the efforts of the Armenian political elite, thereby contributing to the preservation of stability in the
Transcaucasia. However, the First Independent Armenian Republic arose in an extremely unfavorable military and geopolitical situation. According to the author, Independent Armenia could not withstand the Turkish onslaught alone, since the troops of the Ottoman Empire crossed the pre-war Russian-Turkish border, invading Transcaucasia. The government of the First Republic of Armenia was forced to take into account the circumstances that arose, and the Turkish authorities were ready to recognize the independence of Armenia, but only if they renounced claims to the territory of Western Armenia.
In 'The smart power of Abenomics: shadows of Japanization and long-term challenges', Simona Chuguryan, Kristina Baculakova and Rudolf Kucharcik analyze the "Japanese economic miracle" and the policy of Abenomics in Japan, which was able to successfully borrow foreign achievements while preserving Japanese identity, their use in the process of forming a national economic model in coordinates of the market system are rooted in the national task of self-strengthening of the country. The authors argue the key role of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Japan, taking into account the effective reform of conservative industrialization, creating a two-level industrial structure, which can serve as a useful example for solving modern problems of further reforming and improving the economic system of modern Japan. According to the authors, the smart power of Abenomics lies in the fact that Shinzo Abe's rise to power in 2012 and his early initiatives fundamentally changed Japan's foreign policy and defense policies through the Abe Doctrine. In this context, the strengthening of the Japanese-American security alliance was important, which allowed the Abe government to solve complex foreign policy problems. From the conclusions of the article it is clear that the Abe government covers the maximum number of areas in which Japan has managed to achieve great success in the development of political dialogue, economic cooperation, and interaction in the field of security and defense. The European direction received significant development; a strategic partnership agreement was concluded, as well as an economic partnership agreement with the EU.
In 'Reconstructing the political future of Armenia: overcoming contemporary turbulence through role models', Garik Poghosyan notes that public life and the political system of Armenia cannot develop without foreseeing the future, without forecasting it. According to the author, as practice shows, the higher the level of development of forecasts, the higher their quality, and therefore the more reliable and effective, the more effective the planning of the political development of post-war Armenian society and its management. The author's political forecasting as a relatively new vision is of not only academic interest, since its necessity is also due to the fact that the components of post-war Armenian politics are dynamic in nature, that is, they are characterized by constant fluidity and variability. Without the ability to scientifically foresee the course and development of political processes, it is impossible to ensure the stability of the development and functioning of the political system of Armenia as a whole, to promote its painless adaptation to internal and external changes, adequate response to the impulses and demands of social groups and individuals, articulation and aggregation of their interests. And one of the parameters of a stable functioning political system of post-war Armenia, which any governance actor strives to achieve, is the predictability of the dynamics of its internal processes.
Obviously, to achieve the latter, as well as to ensure rational management of society, forecasting, based on taking into account known patterns and identifying trends in the political sustainable development of Armenia, is called upon, among other things.
This Second Issue of the Journal includes three book reviews on liberal hegemony, international reality, as well as political populism and Caucasian Albania. In this sense, the concept of regressive development has retained a strong position only within the framework of an illiberal and populist worldview. The decline in popularity of the theory of linear progress was facilitated by modern humanity's awareness of the impossibility of endless progressive upward development due to a whole complex of political, economic, natural, climatic and other reasons. Cyclic models are used in studies of political processes of a circular nature. Consideration of the problem of periodicity and recurrence of political development within the framework of the books under review allowed us to conclude that today the theory of nonlinear wave and cyclic rhythms of historical and political evolution, in which a synthesis of linearity and cyclicity is carried out, is popular among political scientists, transitologists and political forecasters. In its context, the processes of political modernization and transformation of transitional political systems and societies are studied.
Ashot A leksanyan Magda Arsenyan
