• am
  • ru
  • en
print version
24.07.2009

“THINK TANKS” AND NATIONAL SECURITY

   

Gagik Harutyunyan

Gagik_Harutyunyan (original)In modern age the security of civilazational-national and state structures, mainly their efficiency and compatibility, is more than ever determined by the quantity and the quality of intellectual resources of those systems, their capabilities on organization and reasonable usage in accordance with their interests. It is also known that besides traditional scientific-educational structures, institutes of academic character and higher education institutions the special research centres are also considered to be important factor of intellectual resources’ organization. It is remarkable that in the West those “think-tanks” are often called “thought fabrics”, organizations “generating national interests” or “creating ideologies” and thus they acquire more dynamic sense. It is also characteristic that within the structure of established “think tanks” the educational centres, which aim is to reinforce national elite with ideologically, creatively and professionally well-placed personal, can be found.

Structure and aims of classical “think tanks”

The purpose of the classical “think tanks” (it is traditionally assumed that such “think tanks” were created after World War II and acquired in the societies the institutional status of “think tanks”) is the presentation in the context of national security (NS) of the new ideas, long-term projects, concepts, various strategic and tactical elaborations and expert consulting to state-political (often even spiritual) structures and the companies, which present the national capital. For example, American RAND Corporation elaborated the notions of “information war”, “net-centric informational system”, their further conceptual development and transformation into applied technologies. It is supposed that due to such elaborations the US take a leading stand in global plane.

The efficient activity of “think tanks” can be carried out in the communities where the following conditions are available:

  • realizing of the importance of the intellectual resources factor in state and political and economic systems in the context of the NS; the will and ability to provide that sphere with all the necessary resources1;
  • the determination of the direction of the activity of the “think tanks” by the state and political system in accordance with the national interests2 as well as the organizational capability of the system to implement the results of the work of “think tanks” in practice;
  • the availability of the appropriate academic and higher educational environment, which nourishes the “think tanks”;
  • the availability of efficient mechanisms providing the inter-relations of the links “think tanks” – state, national capital – academic and higher educational science.

As a rule “think tanks” of this or that state constitute a network and work in accordance with mutual complementary principles. It is true that such collaboration is rather efficient and very often it has synergetic effect.

Let us mention that the creation of the “think tank” systems is rather laborious and long-lasting process, which demands the formation of appropriate “schools” and traditions, implementation of various methods of creative personnel preparation (e.g. American RAND prefers to promote gifted researchers from the school) and, which is we think most important, the acknowledgment of the necessity of such “think tanks” by the society.

We can also state that the “think tank” system was established and it received the most developed and institutional character in the United States. At the same time almost in all established countries there are similar structures, which have features characteristic for their societies.

According to the expert approaches the level of the strength of the “think tank” system is the most important indicator of the NS of that society. Even if we consider this statement from the formal point of view it is reasonable. The intellectual resources are one of the most important components of informational security (IS), and the ignoring of the IS factor in the informational age makes the NS system of any society extremely vulnerable.

Soviet and post-Soviet realias

Speaking about the issues of organization of Armenian intellectual resources one should not forget about the Soviet scientific system, in which the research institutes working in the RA were included.

A number of organizations worked in the USSR, which having the peculiarities characteristic of the Soviet system, in one way or another carried out the activity characteristic of the “think tank”. In some cases academic institutes played the role of such structures. One of them is the Institute of the USA and Canada, which works till now. Those “think tanks”, being situated mainly in Moscow, directly worked for the political authorities of the state – “the centre”, the absolute monopolist in the sphere of home and foreign policy. The authorities of the Soviet republics simply carried out the directives of the “centre”. They had no need to have such “think tanks” and even if they had they could not have such structures. Thus, with the exception of rare cases there was no culture of the organization or the creation and activity of “think tank”-alike structures in the Soviet republics3. In this context the studies in the line of the Armenian Diaspora took the special place: the “centre” realized their importance and, naturally, the “orders” regarding this sphere were sent to Yerevan.

Think tanks in the 3rd republic

After the collapse of the USSR the Soviet scientific system also collapsed. It is suffice to mention that today in the 3rd republic $20-30 million are assigned to the science, while in the 80s of the last century the backing of that sphere was about $600 million4. At the same time today there are about 30 think tanks-alike institutions, which, however, receive orders and appropriate material backing from other countries or international organizations. The activities of such institutions are oriented on their clients and thus they are not always in our interests. But this does not mean that we should ignore their work and not to use it in the interests of our state. This mainly regards the sociology and economic spheres, the complex analysis of which may be useful. Quite different matter is that those results are not always clear to the society.

Since 2000, when the economy of the republic began to recover, on the initiative of separate representatives of some levels and elites of the authorities the “think tanks”, which carried out national orders, have been established. Let us mention that in the initial stage of their activity there were many hostilities, among which the following should be mentioned:

  • the distrust of state, national, political and business structures to the intellectual, and particularly domestic intellectual production5,
  • the unsatisfactory condition of the national science, especially in the spheres, which are topical from the point of view of the NS, by which, in its turn, unsatisfactory level of analytical community is determined,
  • the general deficit of the culture of the formation and management of the “think tank” structures by the political elite and expert community.

Today the situation improved partially, despite the fact that some adverse circumstances (mainly unsatisfactory condition of the national science) continue to be of permanent character. At the same time, the observed progress can hardly be considered as satisfactory. Among the existing problems the following can be distinguished:

  • the results of the elaborations of the “think tanks” on objective or subjective reasons do not influence essentially the activity of state and political elite and the society, i.e. our “think tanks” have not turned into institutional structures yet;
  • theme orientation of the “think tanks” working in the RA is sometimes not optimal in the context of the national interests; their complex activity can hardly be called coordinated one. In spite of their small number “think tanks” in the RA do not collaborate sufficiently and the network style of their activity has not been formed yet;
  • the efficiency of the theoretical and practical elaborations carried out in the context of the NS is determined by the importance of the adoption and the implementation of the various methods, while the acquisition and training of the appropriate personnel demand heavy expenses and it is not always that you can get the state support,
  • The most part of the national capital representatives do not realize the necessity and importance of the “think tanks”.

1This does not exclude the possibility that some “think tanks” on a definite stage of the formation and development may start to carry out commercial projects on the basis of their innovational elaborations or create for those projects appropriate branches and companies. Mainly, a number of “strategy” computer games, which are used now, are the result of such an activity.

2It is remarkable that in analytical literature you can find the opinion that “think tanks” in some countries also pursue corporative ends, which, in some cases, can be more preferable than the national ones.

3It should be mentioned that there was quite different situation in the sphere of natural sciences: due to separate persons and national peculiarities there were scientific centres of all-USSR or sometimes even world level in the Second republic.

4At the same time there is an impression that even those scares means are not used properly mainly in the spheres of humanities. Sometimes non-actual or even marginal studies are financed, meanwhile the study of the fundamental problems of the Armeniancy scattered all over the world had been ignored until recently when Ministry of Diaspora was formed. It is remarkable that despite the cut of the amount of the financing the number of those who acquires academic degrees has not been cut. Today this process receives quite different, non-scientific interpretation.

5Such realias in expert community are qualified as the expression of the “importer” psychology. But in the respect to the Armeniancy the same distrustfulness is characteristic of the representatives of the national and economic structures of the Diaspora.


Return
Another materials of author