Strategic Resilience of a Small State: Mirzoyan’s Remarks at the Warsaw Security Forum and Armenia’s Transition toward Diversified Security

On 13 October, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan took part in the roundtable on the EU Eastern Partnership during the Warsaw Security Forum. He delivered a prudent and coherent diplomatic narrative: Armenia has no intention of submitting an application for EU membership hastily, and accession remains a long-term strategic issue. The country is building a diversified security architecture and moving away from overreliance on a single security guarantor. At the same forum, Mirzoyan addressed Russia-Armenia ties, the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process. This statement is not an ad-hoc diplomatic remark but a systematic external articulation of Armenia’s geopolitical positioning in the post-Nagorno-Karabakh era. It reflects the balancing approach adopted by this landlocked small state to pursue strategic autonomy amid great-power competition.

The South Caucasus has long been regarded as Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia’s security framework for decades rested heavily on Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Following the 2020 and 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts, the Armenian government concluded that the former security mechanism failed to deliver expected protection, triggering a fundamental shift in its strategic perception. Yet this shift in strategic thinking does not amount to a full rupture. Mirzoyan’s core message in Warsaw was to reject binary bloc choices and discard the either-or logic in diplomacy.

On European integration, Mirzoyan’s remarks carried notable restraint. Although the Armenian parliament has passed legislation expressing a long-term intention to seek EU membership, the foreign minister deliberately cooled expectations at this international security forum by clarifying that Yerevan will not rush to file an accession application. This assessment rests on solid realities. First, the EU imposes rigorous criteria for enlargement, demanding sweeping reforms in judiciary, governance and market rules. Second, Armenia is still a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, and institutional conflicts exist between the two economic regimes which cannot be reconciled in the short run. Meanwhile, EU policies toward the South Caucasus mostly rely on lightweight instruments such as partnership agreements, border assistance and civilian observation missions. The EU cannot provide Armenia with hard security guarantees comparable to a traditional military alliance. Therefore, Armenia prioritizes deepening Eastern Partnership ties and advancing institutional and market alignment, treating formal accession as a long-term prospect. It avoids provoking frictions through a hasty application while preserving policy flexibility.

The diversified security architecture constitutes the core of his speech. In essence, diversified security means risk diversification. Armenia no longer stakes its national security on a single protector. Instead, it develops multiple security channels in parallel. To the west, it leverages EU partnership to absorb European expertise in border governance, rule-of-law development and political endorsement, while expanding defence dialogues and security training with the United States. To the east and south, it maintains stable communication with Russia and Iran to secure energy supplies, cross-border railways and regional connectivity. At the regional level, it presses ahead with Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks and Armenia-Turkey normalization, attempting to lock in border peace through bilateral treaties and reduce the risk of war at its source. By grouping Russia-Armenia relations, Armenia-Turkey normalization and the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agenda together at the forum, Mirzoyan sought to convey to his European audience that Armenia’s Western outreach is not an adversarial alignment against Russia, but a comprehensive regional diplomacy covering all neighbouring powers.

This balancing diplomacy comes with prominent constraints and inherent contradictions. Externally, Russia remains highly sensitive to geopolitical shifts in the South Caucasus. Russia retains a military base on Armenian territory. Russian-Armenian railway concessions, energy trade and labour migration bind the two sides deeply, leaving Yerevan unable to disregard Moscow’s concerns. Within the EU, views are divided. Central and Eastern European states support strengthening the Eastern Partnership, yet major Western European powers remain cautious about admitting South Caucasus states and are unwilling to offer robust security commitments.

Domestically, Armenian society is deeply split. Supporters of the government’s agenda argue that multi-vector diplomacy can end the recurring tragedies of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and open access routes for this landlocked nation. Opposition groups criticise the government’s compromises in border negotiations as concessions over historical claims and warn that the westward tilt will undermine Armenia’s traditional diplomatic foundations. Domestic polarisation will continue to restrict the government’s room for negotiation and diplomatic transformation. Should the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement stall in parliament, the entire diplomatic strategy risks collapse.

Within the regional order of the South Caucasus, Mirzoyan’s speech at the Warsaw Forum marks the end of the old order dominated by a single hegemon. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has concluded, and the OSCE Minsk Group has been dissolved, leaving the old mediation framework obsolete. Armenia and Azerbaijan are attempting to define new borders through bilateral negotiations. Armenia’s diversified security strategy is a typical product of this transition toward a new regional order. It demonstrates that for small landlocked states, strategic autonomy does not equal picking sides, and balancing is not mere fence-sitting. Instead, it represents an effort to maximise diplomatic and security options and hedge geopolitical risks under the constraints of limited national strength.

Whether Armenia’s strategic experiment succeeds hinges on two key variables in the long run. First, whether the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks can deliver results, and whether disputes over border demarcation, land swaps and cultural heritage protection can be codified in treaties. Regional peace serves as the prerequisite for all of Armenia’s multi-vector diplomacy. Second, whether Armenia can manage frictions with Russia while advancing cooperation with Europe, preventing a sharp downturn in bilateral ties. Any imbalance on either side would directly undermine this carefully constructed diversified security architecture.

In summary, Mirzoyan’s statement at the Warsaw Security Forum stands as a strategically astute declaration by a small state. Armenia has no immediate plan to join the EU, nor has it fully tilted toward the West. Instead, it chooses to gradually forge an independent diplomatic identity and build a multi-pillar security system. The geopolitical shifts in the South Caucasus continue to unfold. Armenia’s experience also offers an observational case for small and medium-sized states caught between major powers on how to secure room for survival and development.