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The military should be the last line of security, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Monday.
“There is also something else that used to be fundamental for us in the past: the military was the first line and primary means of ensuring security,” he said at the Comprehensive Security and Resilience 2025 International Forum in Yerevan.
“To put it mildly, it was the first, second, third, and fourth line. I’ve previously said that we hadn’t even realized what burdens we had placed on our troops. Then we came to understand — unfortunately — that if the number one tool for ensuring security is the military, it means you don’t really have any security tools.
When the army is your primary tool for security, you could say you have no security at all,” Pashinyan said.
The Prime Minister emphasized that the military should not even be the second, third, fourth, or fifth security tool.
“The army should be the last tool in the security system. And the more tools you have before it, the better.
If the military is the sixth, that’s already bad — it means you only have five tools before it.
You must be able to make the army your 15th, 20th, 50th, or even 100th tool. This doesn’t mean you are belittling the army,” Pashinyan said.
He continued:
“If we want our army to defend us, first of all, we must defend the army.
If we want the soldier to protect us, we must protect the soldier. The hundred layers of security that come before the army exist to protect the soldier and the country.
In this sense, we are building our security strategies on legitimacy. Indeed, legitimacy is our first tool for ensuring security,” he said.