YEREVAN (Realist English). Expert on management, founder and coordinator of the development of the strategic program “Armenian Country” Harutyun Mesrobyan in an interview with Realist News Agency shared his opinion on the mission of the Armenian people, the problem of Armenian political thinking and anti-crisis management, and also proposed a variant to transform the governance system in Armenia.
What is missing from the Armenian political thinking?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: The main problem is that we are extremely weak in the systemic thinking and the tunnel thinking prevails, which is why we practically do not have lateral thinking vision. As a result, we are unable to see the whole picture and easily slip into parochial views.
That is why today many politicians are against the persona of the Prime Minister, but Nikol Pashinyan is not the cause of our troubles, but a materialized consequence. And when they fight only with the consequence (I repeat – only), without removing the cause, new consequences appear, which they have to fight endlessly, for centuries being like a squirrel in a wheel.
What is the systemic thinking that we lack?
Every person has two bases of thinking: analytical and synthetic. Analytical is a causal relationship, synthetic is image–based thinking. Both ways of thinking are needed. Simply put, if a person has received the humanitarian education, synthetic thinking dominates, and if one got the engineering education – then the analytical thinking prevail.
But the systemic thinking is when a person simultaneously has both thinking processes functioning, self-adjusting to a specific problem, since solving problems requires, for example, in one case, the use of 60% analytical thinking and 40% synthetic, and in the other – vice versa. Such a customizable flexible thinking system is called systemic thinking.
I understand that you want to talk about Armenia, but please understand that to consider Armenia in isolation from everything, as a “thing in itself”, means not to see much. And you also need to know that there are two basic approaches to analyzing any situation: compositional and decompositional. The second is when you go from the general to the particular. We should always initially think decompositionally and only then switch to a compositional approach. But we often use only a compositional approach, that is, from the particular to the general, which is unacceptable, since in this case we do not see the situation as a whole, with all its internal and external relationships.
Back in 2010, you rightly stated that in order to overcome the demographic crisis in Armenia, it is necessary to eradicate oligarchy and social injustice. And only after that to develop a program of immigration and reproduction. What has changed over the past years?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: For the first time in the five-thousand-year history of the Armenian people, a program for the strategic development of our state is being developed.
Since 1988, when the Karabakh Movement began, I have tirelessly told various leaders that after the possible collapse of the Soviet Union, we will become independent again, as in 1918, and it is necessary to develop a strategic program for our newly independent state, but I have always received a sacramental answer: “Now is not the time for that!”. Babken Ararktsyan, who became the speaker of the Armenian Parliament in 1991, said this phrase to me for the first time in 1988, and I constantly heard the same phrase from many, until 2020. And when it became clear to me that our state was finally falling into the abyss (and indeed, on September 27 of the same year, Azerbaijan attacked Artsakh, and, consequently, Armenia, and a 44-day war with a tragic outcome began), I got tired of convincing and on the eve, in July, personally initiated the development of a strategic program for the development of our state.
An elementary example shows the importance of such a program: when a third-rate businessman wants to get a small loan from a bank, even for one retail outlet, the bank rightly demands a business plan from him. So Armenia is less important than some kind of a shop??? This is nonsense, and to put it in pretentious language – not comme il faut.
This is our national tragedy. And it is then measured in the loss of territories, lives and dreams. We seem to understand everything, but Yerablur [a military cemetery] is expanding, the number of refugees is growing. Does a five-thousand-year-old nation have the right to treat its future so carelessly? We have a business plan for our own business in the form of one retail shop, but not for the whole country!
And so, in July 2020, I initiated the process of developing a strategic program for the development of our state and in December 2021, the work, at its first approximation, was completed.
In order to strengthen the practical value of the program, since January of this year, through the involvement of several dozen experts from Armenia and Turkey, an expert assessment of all 10 areas of the developed program has been carried out, which, just a few days ago, has been completed. After a two-week break, their complex adaptation and synchronization with each other starts, so that the program becomes holistic, practically feasible and acquires a systemic look.
Then, roadmaps of transitional steps in all 10 directions will be developed to prepare the state for the practical start of the program. According to our estimates, the transition stage in practice will take about 4-5 years, since our country is falling into the abyss and it takes time to bring the country out of this dive to the starting conditions for launching the strategic development program itself. These works are planned to be completed within a year.
How the program under development called and what is its structure?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: The official name is the Strategic Program “Armenian Country”, which consists of 10 directions:
1. Formation of a system of meritocratic public administration, that is, the antipode of the kakocracy in which we live (“kakos” in Greek means unworthy, “kratos” – power, and “meritos” – worthy).
2. Stable and sustainable maintenance of statehood.
3. Formation of the army as a factor for guaranteing security. I will add that our state cannot but be militarized, like Israel or Switzerland, that is, to function in a mobilization logic.
4. Formation of an active foreign policy. For more than 30 years, Armenia has been operating in a reactive mode, only responding to challenges. This program contains a set of measures that ensure the replacement of a reactive foreign policy with an proactive one, that is, the gradual transformation of the state from an object into a subject.
5. Formation of the legal system.
6. Formation of a competitive economic model.
7. Harmonious development of territories.
8. Ensuring a positive demography.
9. Consolidation of the Diaspora and systematization of its activities.
10. Formation of a competitive national generation.
It is obvious that predatory capitalism has corrupted Armenia. What system should replace the current vicious model?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: All this has been developed in the program. It is necessary to clearly distinguish where free market relations should be and where they should not be. For example, strategic enterprises at the state level should stand apart, and the service sector – welcome, market conditions. These mechanisms are spelled out. In addition, the country should be militarized and, as a result, a mobilization approach should be applied in all spheres. For example, in Israel, not serving in the army is a bad sign. Society under the auspices of the state rejects such people. There, women and girls also serve in the army.
One nuance that shows that there are different economic models that take into account the mental characteristics of the autochthonous population. When we talk about monopolists and oligarchs, I would like to give an example of South Korea, which, in a sense, took an example from Japan. After the Korean War, it economically rushed forward. But how? The state gave part of the strategic directions to the oligarchic structures, which, in turn, had to solve certain strategic and social issues of the state. Thus Hyundai and other world-famous South Korean large companies rushed forward, but under the strict supervision of the state.
And in China, for example, the CPC (Communist Party of China) is at the head of the state, but if you are an oligarch, then the first thing society and the state expect from you is: You must take your small Homeland under real guardianship, along with the needs of the local population.
This is all cultivated methodically, purposefully and from childhood. There is no other way, otherwise social rejection immediately begins and, as a result, social tension.
I will summarize what was said in one parable, where an English gardener is asked: “You have such treated and well-groomed lawns, everything is if measured with a ruler, smooth, trimmed, what is the secret?” The gardener answers: “We just watch the grass every morning, pull out weeds, prune. And so for 300 years in a row.”
We had to cultivate such things methodically and purposefully from the first days of independence, that is, from September 21, 1991. Do you understand? And what have we been doing for more than 30 years? As vivid examples of our degradation, I like to cite the incredibly high-rated low-grade television program “Half-open Windows” or the equally low-grade film “Super Mom”, the number of views of which on YouTube in Armenian has exceeded as much as 17 million! And this is despite the fact that according to various estimates, the total number of Armenians in the world is about 10 million people.
Can you give some examples from your professional activities in crisis management?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: I am a specialist in the field of management, especially anti–crisis, having received a higher education and defended a dissertation on management in the Soviet times.
Before proceeding to the examples from my professional activity, I want to note one important detail.
I apply strict anti-crisis management and in this regard, there were sometimes very grotesque situations. For example, once the chief accountant of an organization that I was improving stood up when I appeared and jokingly shouted “Heil, Hitler!”, thereby hinting at my management methods. In fact, anti-crisis management cannot but be tough, because this is the only way to achieve tangible results when the situation is critical. In the Anglo–Saxon school of management, this is called robust management.
That is why, before giving my consent to the rehabilitation of an organization, I and the customer, up to the state, agree on the following: what results I must achieve and in what time, but during the recovery period, no one should interfere in my anti-crisis management, including the personnel policy. In reality, knowing our mentality, the last condition is very important. In short: full carte blanche on the part of the customer and full achievement of the results agreed with him on my part.
And now I’ll turn to the examples.
In 2001, by a court decision, a commercial bank, which was declared insolvent, was transferred to my sole sanative management. I accepted the bank with a real balance minus $18.5 million. And after 3 years and 4 months, the bank already had a positive balance of $4.5 million, that is, the bank’s balance sheet was straightened by $23 million and the Central Bank of Armenia recognized it as healthy. This is the only case of a complete recovery of the bank in Armenia during the years of its independence.
Another example. A few years later, I took over a large chemical industry plant for rehabilitation, which at that time has been idle for 8 months. I managed to restart the plant in 40 days, and in 13 months to pay off all the salary debts accumulated during these 8 months of downtime, whose staff was more than 2 thousand people. We also managed to reach the break-even point and reduce the real balance from minus $130 million to minus $30 million.
And the last example. A few years earlier, it was not possible for 2-3 years to open a joint Armenian-German financial and banking college, which was planned under an intergovernmental agreement between Armenia and Germany. After I started crisis management, in 10 months the college opened its doors, which had a trained teaching staff, with more than 10 developed curricula in all subjects.
I specifically cite 3 examples from my professional activity, but in different fields, in order to convey a simple idea: anti-crisis management methods are universal and in all cases I necessarily develop a recovery program.
What, in your opinion, is the main problem of the Armenian governance system?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: In its absence, since governancepresupposes the presence of many mandatory components, but the existence of a strategic development program of the state is fundamental.
Many management models are based on certain patterns. From which country can and should modern Armenia take examples?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: There are three distinct nations in the world whose diaspora is several times larger than the autochthonous population of their state. These are Armenians, Jews and Irish. As I have already noted above, according to various estimates, the total number of Armenians in the world is about 10 million people, and about 2.5-3 million live in our country. Therefore, we are obliged to take note of the approaches used by the Irish and the Jews.
For example, the Irish came up with the “Golden Fund of the Nation” model. In 1970-80-ies, they set themselves the task of making a breakthrough in the IT sphere. At the state level, they began to reach out to Irish specialists around the world in this field: Intel, IBM, etc., offering them cooperation with Ireland in this field. Someone refused, someone agreed to lobby for the interests of Ireland in their corporations, but at the same time keeping their jobs, and someone agreed to move to Ireland and help on the ground. This approach is the “Golden Fund of the Nation”. To date, a third of Ireland’s exports are in the IT sector. And the same approach can be applied by Armenians in various spheres, because there is the major resource – the Diaspora.
I will name another drawback of ours – the complete lack of feedback, that is, when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. You have noticed that during our entire conversation, I periodically draw parallels outside of Armenia, because we cannot just shut ourselves in. Let me give you an example: imagine that you are Russia and have decided to be Armenia’s partner to the maximum and on a permanent basis, as they say, for centuries, but at the same time, naturally, you want to be sure that Armenia will not change its foreign policy vector. Can you? No, because you won’t understand what Armenia wants in the long run. In short: when a state does not have a clear strategy, it cannot have permanent allies, but only situational ones.
I’ll give you a fresh example. What the new Armenian government did in 2018, immediately after coming to power, was to open a criminal case against the CSTO Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov. And now imagine that Turkey opens a criminal case against NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. What would the US do with Turkey?
In your opinion, what is the mission of the Armenian people?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: Life according to the Holy Books and, therefore, civilization, originated on Earth only twice. The first occasion is the paradise, Eden, which was located between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, which originate in the Armenian Highlands. The second accasion is Noah, whose Ark stopped at Mount Ararat, which is the highest point of the same Armenian Highlands.
Don’t you think it’s strange that the Holy Books associate the origin of life and, as a consequence, civilization on Earth with the Armenian Highlands? And twice! As they say – two out of two!
This cannot be a simple accident, especially in such a conceptual issue as the origin of life and civilization on planet Earth. It can be assumed that the Armenian Highland has some kind of internal existential charisma associated with the birth of life and civilization on Earth. And if we recall that there is a concept in jurisprudence – “reasonable suspicion”, then we can reasonably suspect that Armenians and Armenia may be the guardians of the Source of Life and, as a consequence, of the entire Civilization. That is, this may be our mission from Above as our nation, and in the future as our state.
The difference between a watchman and a keeper is colossal: the watchman does not carry in himself what he guards, but the keeper does. When they say that a woman is the keeper of the hearth, it means that she supports the spirit of the hearth, she does not guard the hearth with a rolling pin and a knife, that is, creates an aura that supports the foundations of the hearth. And if this is so, then we, the Armenians, should seriously think about how and how far we, in our modern hypostasis, have distanced ourselves from our destiny from Above. In this regard, let me remind you that we are talking about the biblical evidence of the origin of life and civilization on planet Earth.
I will give another figurative example: it is extremely difficult to stop the flow of large rivers where they already amaze with their size, but it is extremely easy to even destroy them at the root, blocking them at their very sources.
What is necessary today for the formation of the Armenian school of governance and on what principles should such a school be created?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: In the IV century BC, Alexander the Great, within the framework of the concept of his teacher, Aristotle, began to move towards India. Time passes, and Armenians accept Hellenism. What does this mean? That we already had problems with the elite in the IV century BC. Being not captured, they accept the philosophy, the confession of another state. Isn’t it strange?
Several centuries pass and Tigranes the Great tries to revive the Armenian Empire. He faces an almost insoluble problem – the elite and even his closest relatives furiously resisted him, but he still goes hard to recreate the empire. That is, for several centuries the Armenians have strayed so far from the course that the empire and Armenia have become incompatible. That is why the empire of Tigranes the Great lasted next to nothing.
After that, Armenia has been between different empires for 2 millennia: Great Rome – Persia, Byzantium – Persia, Byzantium – Arab Caliphate, Turkey – Persia, Turkey – Russia. When you lose the imperial spirit, then in life you become an object of control and will never be a factor, that is, a subject. Here is the nail of our problems! And the strategic program “Armenian Country” under development is an attempt to rebrand everything that we as a nation and state have long lost.
What can you say about imperial thinking?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: Now there are several centers of imperial thinking in the world. A resurgent China, although it is introverted and does not go for territorial expansion. Let’s move on to Turkey. Erdoğan is trying to revive the Ottoman Empire, but under a new guise, hiding behind the Great Turan project.
Signs of the revival of imperial thinking are also observed in Iran after the 1979 revolution.
Putin has been trying to revive the Russian Empire since 2007, after his famous Munich speech. Let’s move on to mainland Europe, where many empires finally “broke”: Sweden and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the XVIII century – in the fight against Russia, France in the 19th century – in the fight against Russia, Germany in the XX century – in the fight against Russia. Four attempts of the imperial mainland Europe over the past centuries have failed in Russia. And only Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire in the XX century collapsed by collective efforts, following the results of the First World War.
And now let’s move on to a topic that is extremely relevant in this context and at this stage of the global confrontation.
The Anglo-Saxons have a serious problem. The unipolar world is collapsing due to the fact that their striking power – the United States is gradually losing its position as a hegemon in the world. In addition, they have deep and age-old tensions between the United States and Great Britain. England began to turn into an empire in 1588, betting on its navy, when the Spanish fleet defeated the Invincible Armada near its shores. Since that time, periodic global and local conflicts for spheres of influence began between the Russian Empire and the Anglo-Saxons, which eventually transformed into a confrontation between the Russian Empire in its various modifications with the so-called “collective West” in its various configurations. A striking and classic example of this confrontation is the Crimean War of 1853-56.
At the moment, there is another peak phase of this global conflict. And since Armenians have had a problem with imperial thinking for a very long time, they are rushing between the sides of the global confrontation. And what happened during the global confrontation in the First World War, when the Armenians were rushing again? The Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Therefore, today, more than ever, we must behave extremely responsibly, which, unfortunately, I do not see either among the Armenian elite, nor, moreover, among the Armenian people.
The leading European countries are considering switching to economic planning. Maybe it’s time for Armenia to embark on the path of planning, too?
Harutyun Mesrobyan: When the people and the state do not have subjective thinking (not to mention imperial thinking), they cannot plan, because only the subject can plan.
In 1922, Armenia, like many others, became part of the Soviet Union. Who has planned in those 70 years? Moscow. Why has no post-Soviet state ever become a full-fledged state? Because they are all objects, and only Russia is trying to revive, since it is, in essence, an empire.
Our program is an attempt to make the Armenians a subject, but to move towards this programmatically and gradually in the short, medium and long term. This is extremely difficult, but considering the plans of some of our immediate neighbors, the alternative may be a kind of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
All my life, in fact, I have been moving towards this program, because with all my professional activity I have proved that it is possible to return from the other world. Moreover, in 1992, I himself was seriously wounded in the 1st Artsakh War and had a clinical death… I also returned from the other world, and an attempt was made on me three times, but… thank God – everything worked out. Therefore, with the help of the strategic program “Armenian Country”, I sincerely wish to return Armenia to its subjectivity and, for my part, I undertake to do everything to achieve this goal of my whole life.