INFORMATION OPERATIONS: HISTORY AND MODERNITY

Gagik Harutyunyan

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The article reviews the evolution of information realities and their current situation. The information wars and operations, their significance in modern politics and other areas have become subjects for extensive discussions. However, the essence of such wars is often perceived and interpreted in somewhat simplified manner, which in turn makes it difficult to resolve extremely complicated problems of information security. Meanwhile, a new kind of information warfare is emerging, which requires comprehensive and thorough study.

ABOUT PROBLEMS IN ARMENIA’S CYBERSECURITY

Samvel Martirosyan

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In the modern world cybersecurity is one of the crucial areas of national security, as cyberattacks may cause failure of the most important functional units of the country.
Armenia is also targeted by cyberattacks that include both general attacks of global nature and specific attacks against Armenia, the latter being mostly conducted by hacker groups of Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Under such circumstances Armenia must develop its cybersecurity by implementing a number of preventive measures.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ARMENIA’S HISTORICAL AND CIVILIZATIONAL LEGACY IN INFORMATION SECURITY

Eduard L. Danielian

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The Armenian historical legacy, which is a product of Armenia’s historical and civilizational system of values, has an important role in the information security.
The murder of 1.5 million Armenians and destruction of Armenian historical legacy that were the result of Turkish genocidal policies, are heavyweight evidences for condemning the Armenian Genocide and especially for supporting the claims on the Armenian native country lands in Western Armenia and Cilicia, which constitute the larger part of Armenia. The historical and geographical terminology of Armenian Highland, including the entirety of toponyms of Armenia, belongs to the pivotal layer of Armenian ethnolinguistic mentality. The Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh are nation-state guarantors for defending Armenia’s historical and civilizational legacy in its entirety, which has ethno-protective significance in the critical area of national security.

THE KARABAKH CONFLICT IN THE CONTEXT OF DISINTEGRATION OF THE USSR

Alexander Manasyan

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There is probably no other topic that can more adequately uncover the behavior of the Soviet leadership during the processes of disintegration of the USSR than the Karabakh problem, which at the time popped up in the superpower’s political agenda. Certainly, it did have international political aspects. However, the conflict that started early 20th century and re-unleashed in 1988 became a mirror, which reflected the USSR’s internal political, national and economic problems and the behavior of the country’s leadership in tackling those. It turns out, their actions and specific steps undertaken were not always aimed at solving the problems arisen. The history of Karabakh conflict in 1988-1991 provides enormous volumes of material showing that the actions of the Center and personally the general secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR were not driven toward alleviating and resolving the conflict, but rather, they were aimed at intensifying it, which undoubtedly was intended to work as an accelerator of the USSR’s disintegration, as it actually did.

UNIVERSITY AFFILIATED HUMANITARIAN ANALYTICAL CENTERS OF ARMENIA

Vardan Atoyan, Sofya Ohanyan, Arpine Malqjyan, Shushan Movsisyan

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The current political, economic, social and cultural challenges highlight the importance of the university affiliated analytical centers, especially humanitarian research centers. In the Republic of Armenia higher education was for long considered as a system for reproduction of the existing knowledge. However, this concept is changing, and the Armenian universities are gradually turning into research institutions. Currently there are 28 university affiliated humanitarian analytical centers in Armenia. They all act as think tanks, but differ in structure, transparency, research areas and by their nature.

ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF GREECE

Vahram Hovyan

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The Armenian community of Greece incorporates almost the whole rich gamut and variety of Armenian cultural, spiritual, public and political life. Almost all political, spiritual and social layers of Armeniancy are present here along with their structures. The internal diversity of the Armenian community in Greece can be seen mostly in three dimensions – social, political and spiritual, and the article reviews these dimensions.

THE LESSONS OF THE LAST WARS OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Artsrun Hovhannisyan

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Among the wars and military clashes of the late 20th century there are two that seem important and archetypal for us in terms of their nature and peculiarities of military operations.
In 1998 a new war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Ethiopian army initially had no much success, but later it turned into a war of attrition for both belligerents.
Another war that went on in parallel in northwestern part of India can also be a learning point for us.
We believe the problems discussed in the article and its conclusions are up-to-date for us, too. There are many questions and issues that correlate with those related to readiness of our army and possible scenarios of military operations.

ASYMMETRIC WARFARE AND SEPARATISM AS MAJOR WAR TYPES IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Serob Sujyan

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The article presents characteristic traits of modern wars, in which asymmetric warfare and its integral components of terrorism and separatism play important roles. Correspondingly, the information and economic wars are also on the rise. The beginning of the 21st century is a period of asymmetric warfare and active separatist movements. Armed or unarmed struggle for independence and autonomy is ongoing in about 300 places of 95 countries.

AGENCIES FOR PROTECTION OF COMPETITION AND PROBLEMS OF PRICE INTERVENTIONS

Arman Manaseryan

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In modern world the agencies for protection of completion in the countries with rich history and traditions of market economy use their available resources for preventing disruption of competitive environment by companies with large sales volumes and dominating market position, and for enforcing accountability measures. However, in doing so, they not so much combat against potential abuses in price hiking, but mostly reveal and eliminate barriers for market entry of new companies. In terms of pricing manipulations and their impact on competitive environment, the unjustified price decrease or perpetuation is even more problematic than an unjustified price hike, as the latter may actually make the market entry for the new companies more attractive.

COMPARATIVE CROSS-COUNTRY ANALYSIS OF THE INDEX OF DEMOCRACY LEVEL

Arusyak Aleksanyan

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In the article the author measures and presents the Index of Democracy Level of Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Moldova in 2012 and 2013, and makes comparative analysis. The author also examines and compares the mentioned countries by their indices of political, economic, social, educational, and public health factors. The study is aimed at identifying whether the countries that have chosen the European and Eurasian integration have similar or different levels of democracy.