Նատօ-Ի Ընդլայնումը Որպես Հայաստանի Հանրապետության Արտաքին Անվտանգային Քաղաքականության Կարեվոր Կողմնորոշիչ/Nato Enlargement as an Important Determinant of the Foreign Security Policy of the Republic of Armenia

Armenia-NATO cooperation, especially within the framework of peacekeeping missions, pursues goals not so much to ensure security for Armenia as to enhance Armenia's international role, and this path also greatly contributes to Armenia's European integration. The Republic of Armenia, in cooperation with NATO, implements its foreign policy of "engagement" and "complementarity". The purpose of this article is to analyze NATO's enlargement policy and the goal of its implementation, the process of countries' membership and the stages they went through, the importance of enlargement for the region and the countries, as well as to assess Armenia's security interests and position towards developments conditioned by the enlargement policy in this context. To achieve the stated goal, the following objectives were put forward: to assess the importance of NATO in the post-Cold War world, to uncover the reasons for NATO's expansion policy, to analyze Russia's role in the NATO expansion process, as well as to study NATO-Russia relations and developments in the new security environment in Europe. For Armenia, the need to establish relations and cooperate with NATO was well-founded and justified both in terms of the logic of the international political realities of that period, as well as in terms of adopting a new and important direction in the security and foreign policy of the newly independent country. Armenia cooperates with NATO in the areas of crisis management and civil protection to develop Armenia's crisis preparedness and disaster reduction capabilities in the fight against natural disasters and various threats. The goal of the Armenia-NATO partnership is to facilitate the process of implementing reforms in the defense and security sectors, as well as to develop Armenia's capabilities for cooperation with partners. One of the important priorities of Armenia-NATO cooperation is to ensure and strengthen democratic control of the Armenian armed forces. From the perspective of Armenia's security, the theoretical and practical developments of Armenia-NATO relations can be distinguished in the following strategic directions: 1. The development of relations with that organization objectively stems from the interests of the Republic of Armenia, particularly in terms of diversification and separation of sub-sectors in the security sector. 2. It gives Armenia the opportunity to build relations with leading European and Atlantic countries on the foreign policy platform as well: to assimilate their positive experience in the field of security and military planning. 3. In the areas of military-political reforms in the Republic of Armenia, skills transfer, education, and training for officers and commanders are being carried out. 4. Cooperation with the Alliance complements the areas left out of the agenda of the RA-RF security cooperation. 5. This partnership enables the Republic of Armenia to play a more active role in local manifestations of the international security architecture, and thereby creates a basis for gaining experience in peacekeeping brigades. 6. In particular, the IPAP component regulates civil-military relations, outlines the fight against corruption in the army, makes public awareness in the security and military-defense sectors more effective, provides effective support for the preparation of conceptual documents, transfers new technologies and skills, and provides consulting in the field of cybersecurity, and makes the crisis management toolkit more effective.