The legitimacy strategy is important also for army reforms because the concept of a “strong army” has always guided throughout the history of the third Republic of Armenia. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this in his address at the Comprehensive Security & Resilience International Conference – 2025 that kicked off Monday in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan.

"We [i.e. Armenia] have constantly said that we need a strong army. But this is also one of the topics that we need to ask ourselves: And what does a ‘strong army’ mean? Stronger than whom? Stronger than one conditional adversary, than two conditional adversaries, three or four? And what will be our reaction if it turns out that a conditional adversary has three to four super-strong parties engaged? Does it turn out that our strategies are zero?

And by saying a ‘strong army’ do we mean together with strong allies, or without them? If together with them, dozens of questions arise here too. Therefore, there is a vital need to clarify the concepts here, too," the Armenian premier emphasized.

He asked what task the state sets for the army.

“Here is our next strategic rewording, which sounds like this: Armenia’s army has nothing to do and no task outside the internationally recognized territory of Armenia. The task of the army is to ensure the defense of the internationally recognized territory of Armenia.

This legitimacy strategy has yielded unimaginable results in just two to three years. For example, previously the arms procurement markets for Armenia were severely limited. [But] now, in fact, they are unlimited. These limitations have disappeared due to the legitimacy strategy,” Pashinyan said.