The Integrators

By David Davidian

The following fictional Red Cell scenario is intended to stimulate alternative thinking and challenge conventional wisdom, tying together events in operational fiction with national realities.

The time was 1986, just after the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, when Dr. Anahit from Armenia’s Mergelyan Institute of Mathematical Machines, representing a group of Soviet Armenian scientists, sent the first report to a corresponding group of diasporan Armenian sociologists and  anthropologists. The proliferation of black marketeers across the disintegrating Soviet Union was beginning and the three Southern Caucasus Soviet republics were no exception. 

It was clear to Dr. Anahit’s group that the Soviet Union was in its death throes. Corruption was on the rise, across the board deficits, the United States vastly outspending the Soviet military, and eastern European movements such as Poland’s Solidarity were gaining momentum unabated. Armenian scientists whose expertise was used in Soviet military, space technology, software, computer and weapons design understood the end was near for the party of Lenin. What was to come next must not be left to chance or human frailties.

The challenge for Armenians was enormous. The Turks decimated Armenian civilization in 1915; no family was left unaffected by that genocide. The 1918 Armenian Republic declaring independence from Tsarist Russia was by default; the country was probably the largest open-air orphanage in recent human history. Armenia was denied its place in modern history, for what remained of this orphanage was swallowed up by the Soviet Red Army. Indigenous nationalism was severely suppressed in the Soviet Union, and in the case of Armenians, because of warm relations between Lenin and Ataturk, there was an extra effort against Armenians. The Turkish genocide of the Armenians was still an open wound, yet it was expressly forbidden for Armenians even to write their family memoirs. Turkey did its best to steward the semi-Turkic, semi-Iranian Azerbaijanis towards a fully Turkic identity as a counter to Armenian national expression.

Historically, Armenians have done relatively well under the rule of others. Much of the commerce in the eastern Ottoman Empire was in the hands of Armenians. Armenians were drawn like a magnet to Tiflis, the political center of the Russian empire in the Caucasus, so much so that almost all the mayors of Tiflis over centuries were ethnic Armenians. Armenians were among the top Baku oil barons typified by Alexander Mantashev, who by the turn of the twentieth century was known as the “king of oil” in partnerships with Nobel and others. Mantashev financed the Baku-Batumi oil pipeline. Having seen an oil field only once in his life, that being Baku, Calouste Gulbenkian, known as Mr. Five Percent, became the richest man in the world at one time with his Middle Eastern oil deals. It was clear to Dr. Anahit and others that Armenian existence was once again to change. There was only one chance to manage this change in the interest of Armenians, who were quite agile at personal success yet lacked collective governance and “diplomatic” acumen. Such characteristics were not the result of some genetic flaw, it’s just that time, and geopolitics resulted in less than a critical mass of expertise working towards a national strategic goal. In 1965, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, unprecedented protests erupted, mainly in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, that eventually resulted in the commissioning of the construction of the Armenian Genocide Memorial. Dr. Anahit and her colleagues were children when these protests took place, but later witnessed the results of a determined population confronting the Soviet party machine. While the dynamic between a Soviet society and the “party” was somewhat different between that same society and the rulers of an eventual sovereign state, the precedent remained.

Dr. Anahit and those she represented called themselves The Integrators. The local goal was to transform the society having (1) lost some sense of its indigenous culture, (2) having adopted a Homo Sovieticus identity, (3) assuming that if the Soviet systems was bad, that capitalism must be good, and (4) given Armenia’s geographic placement in the world, it was not going to be life as usual with others, such as Moscow making the rules; Armenia was not situated in Central Europe and (5) the black market – with all its characteristics – was beginning to take hold as the rule of law was yet to be put in place. Further, as the 1988 Armenian Earthquake demonstrated, unrestrained avarice is alive and well. The unprecedented amount of earthquake relief material coming into Armenia combined with lack of relief coordination opened the doors for graft and organized theft.  The Integrators documented how medical equipment and medicine shipped into Armenia by the outside world was soon seen for sale on the streets of Moscow. At times, more trucks seemed full, driving south to the Armenian capital from the earthquake zone than were heading north with relief supplies. The Integrators began exposing this corruption and soon were in a direct collision with the up-and-coming and profiting Armenian mafia.

The Integrators had to move fast with their program. That program was to demonstrate that Armenia’s mandate was not to create a state that would only benefit a few, but that with an alternate strategy, not only would Armenian citizens benefit but with the right controls and law enforcement, even those considered oligarchs would have a larger demanding market with more disposable money. Of immediate need was to publish sociological studies on how Soviet Armenians viewed themselves, the world, and have them be exposed to diaspora Armenians who comprised more than half the ethnic Armenians in the world. The same was done with teaching diaspora Armenians the realities of Homo Sovieticus and how not to assume that all Armenian think alike. Centers in the United States and Europe studied closely the experience of Jews returning to Israel as a guide. Jews from around the planet were taught, with intense socialization, what an Israeli Jew is as part of their compulsory military training. Armenians were more desperate than Israel was in the late 1940s and 1950s. Time was a factor since life for Armenians in Azerbaijan deteriorated, starting with increased organized fighting in Armenian-inhabited Nagorno-Karabakh and anti-Armenian pogroms began across the breadth of Azerbaijan. Since early 1988 Armenians were fleeing violent repression in Azerbaijan into Armenia and other parts of the Soviet Union. Up to 350,000 Armenians lived in lands under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan. By early 1990 Baku was forcibly emptied of Armenians. The Integrators knew well the quality of Baku’s urban educated Armenian intelligentsia and in many cases, it was higher than in Yerevan itself since it took extra effort for any Armenian to succeed in Azerbaijan. The Integrators knew of the relatively primitive manifestation of developing nationalism as the Soviet central rule was deteriorating, and its expressions would be in Armenia. The same reaction was seen in Azerbaijan and Georgia, to the north. In newly independent Georgia, its first president Zviad Gamsakurdia declared “Georgia for the Georgians,” while Azerbaijan was expelling Armenians en masse, thus defining their national transformation. The Integrators had huge issues, including the fact that the KGB still had its hands in centers of power, even in post-Soviet Armenia. Armenia was flooded with refugees from Azerbaijan, ranging from concert pianists, doctors, nurses, chemical experts to mixed marriage couples and typical “entitled” Soviets.

In contrast, things were proceeding much better in the Armenian diaspora, but after three post-genocide generations instilling a sense of idealism, reality hit hard. Anybody daring to show interest, such as a desire to invest in Armenia, were educated by social experts on just what a post-Soviet environment would look like and how to be well prepared for success. Most diaspora Armenians with interests in Armenia traveled in groups with street-smart members, some even with private security. This caused quite a problem for the “anointed” oligarchs by Armenia’s first elected president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Further, Ter-Petrosyan, who came to power on the wave of Armenia’s fight for sovereignty in Nagorno-Karabakh also had ideological issues with the Armenian diaspora stemming from his family’s communist roots in Syria and inviting senior advisors with personal –and pathological – axes to grind with the Armenian diaspora.

The privatization process that began across Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union was as varied as states themselves. While in some Eastern European states, privatization of state property was available to outsiders, in the Caucasus and some post-Soviet states, only citizens were allowed access to vouchers. Vouchers were given, for example, to factory workers, but usually more to managers and apparatchiks. Since the average citizen didn’t know what to do with vouchers, they sold or traded them. Managers began this process, but diasporans ran in and bought many vouchers for more than the up-and-coming oligarchs could afford. The oligarchs lost a nasty constitutional battle to diasporan lawyers, some of whom had helped write some of Armenia’s constitution. The Armenian government claimed only Armenian citizens were allowed vouchers, claiming “Armenia’s enemies” would buy up Armenia. However, there was no specific law that stated citizens could not sell their vouchers, which they were doing anyway.  The anointed oligarchs were forced to send their thugs from stopping diasporan Armenians at Yerevan’s airport.

The Integrators used every opportunity to educate the Armenian public on issues ranging from capitalism to grand strategies. Every court battle turned into a forum for transparency in government, even though much of Armenia’s parliament was run by the nouveau riche. There were many assassinations, many bombings, many protests. By 1995 there was so much diaspora investment in Armenia that it was nearly equal to the combined wealth of the anointed oligarchs. 

Many Baku Armenians were being integrated into Armenian society, but they usually lived together in what the oligarchs called Turk Neighborhoods. The oligarchs at first resented “others” for being professionals, taking away wealth they could have accumulated themselves. But with at least 50,000 more professionals and an equal number of other mouths to feed, it became clear, even to a Cowboy Capitalist, that one should not eliminate one’s market. Armenia sought out and found most of the thousands of scientists and engineers lured away by the Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF). Most of these individuals were employed in the nuclear, chemical, or bio-weapons industries, but many others designed functional control systems for missiles and space stations.

Armenia eventually released a few regions it gained by 1994 to Azerbaijan, and much of Nagorno-Karabakh has been integrated into Armenia. With active diplomacy, a demanding citizenship, and a diaspora that falls over itself to serve and invest in Armenia, Armenia’s diplomatic image greatly outsized itself.

In disgrace, Armenian President Ter-Petrosyan was voted out and in its place was enough critical mass to form the basis for a representative government with transparency. Further, given the synergy between the Armenian diaspora and Armenia, the Armenian diplomatic corps was unrivaled given the size of the country. It is still unknown the extent of the Armenian secret foreign service given the enlistment of local Armenians globally. Such capabilities were effectively demonstrated in capturing and extraditing to Armenia Syrian “Turkmen” who tortured and killed Armenian families in and around the town of Kessab, Syria. By 2005, 20 million tourists visited Armenia a year, most visiting pictures of “aliens” on rocks in the wonderland of the Khndzoresk Alien Park. During one summer there were more tourists in this park than in Pisa, Italy.

One of the most dangerous yet successful projects The Integrators executed was to re-purchase, with the help of diasporan funding, selected items that Ter-Petrosyan’s regime allowed to be sold to Iran. Early in Armenia’s privatization program, with managers and directors purchasing citizen vouchers for nearly nothing (a voucher by itself cannot put food on the table), these eventual building owners made easy money emptying and selling en masse hundreds of tons of Soviet high-technology equipment, machinery, etc., to Iran and other places without even the slightest idea what they were selling off and how it may serve an independent Armenia. It turns out that about one-third of the equipment was in the hands of Armenian and diaspora experts to start an indigenous military industry. Slowly, the economy improved, and many ex-Soviet Armenians returned to Armenia. In addition, nearly 45,000 Armenians from the United States alone, many others from Russia, Georgia, France, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and several other countries took up Armenian citizenship after the foolish anti-birthright impediments were lifted. Lebanon’s Armenian footprint is now history, with most Beirut Armenians living in Armenia. This forced the US and other countries to consider the number of their citizens living in Armenia, forcing these countries to accept and enhance the state of Armenia’s sovereignty. Rather than recreate the wheel, policies established in Israel were used as the template for Armenia. The US allowed social security benefits to be extended to Armenia, with the French, and eventually EU’s social benefit and retirement systems following suit as well. As a result, Armenia’s medical system expanded and became the jewel of the region. In 2017 Armenia’s GDP exceeded that of Azerbaijan, even with its oil and gas reserves. Armenia was taken seriously in diplomatic circles. 

Combining the best of Soviet military technology and the help of diasporan military and defense expertise, advances in Armenian military technology, especially cyber technology accelerated; it was the envy of most small states. Dual citizen Armenians serve in the Armenian Army, equal to the best in terms of morale and command. Like Israel, and for the same reasons, Armenia is not part of any military alliance or bloc, specifically relying on itself and its extended nation. The defense of Armenian sovereignty was never compromised as the mantra was but to serve Armenia’s transparent Grand Strategy. 

In the fall of 2020, with Turkey nearly a failed state due to Erdogan’s economic policies, Armenia opened up a consulate in the eastern Turkish city of Kars. Turkey quietly ended their active denial of the genocide of the Armenians, it has not officially admitted it either. While Putin was disappointed with Armenia closing its base in Gyumri in 2012, all issues were resolved, even after Russia temporarily cut off gas to Armenia. Armenia’s native solar energy industry filled the gap in what appeared to be Armenia’s plan all along. Russia still supplies some gas to Armenia, as does Iran with larger diameter transport pipes. Also in 2012, Russia closed the Metsamor nuclear power station but was purchased by a diaspora conglomerate. It remained closed. Rumors persist that the spent fuel was secretly switched with dummy fuel elements, considering the heavily armed guards around the spent fuel pool. Even the semi-oligarchs that exist in all countries (except perhaps North Korea) including Armenia have demonstrated that it’s the best and brightest, and not nepotism, that has made society prosper for all. Armenia is one of the few small countries that have governmental services, supported by machine-learning, that reads every article and social media post searching for the best, brightest, and their ideas. 

Luckily, The Integrators were never eliminated by Armenia’s oligarchic interests because of the physical dispersion of Armenians globally. The Integrators were a critical mass of individuals who knew Armenians needed to fight for their own survival in a world that within a hundred years reduced the geopolitical footprint of Armenians to near oblivion. 

I met Dr. Anahit in 1991. She was a Solid State physicist at the Mergelyan Institute. During out discussions she asked me how electro-migration was overcome as semiconductor technologies approached 700nm. When I asked her why 700nm, she changed the subject to line reflections at a 40MHz clock. I asked her why she had not worked at 40MHz, and she again changed to the subject and asked me what I was doing in Armenia, even though I explained as best I could, as did a person that accompanied that surely was with the KGB. I told her I was invited to Armenia’s First “Businessman’s Conference.” She asked if I was a businessman. I said no. She looked at me with interest. I then was shown a part of the Elbrus Soviet supercomputer. I asked what they were doing with it. I was told even though it didn’t work; it was going back to Moscow. The brain power is evident in that institute and others like it. This brainpower was a national treasure. I was told about another project that involved magnetizing a surface vertically rather than horizontally. I asked if this technique was developed for hard disk storage devices. They said yes and that IBM had already purchased the technology. I asked how much was this sold for and who sold it. I was told it was sold for five thousand dollars by some manager. I asked if they considered licensing the technology. I shook my head dumbfounded, considering in the early 1990s, IBM disk storage devices magically had a two-fold storage density over its competitors. 

I returned to the businessman’s conference held in the building that housed the Central Committee of the Armenian Communist Party and as I walked into the main entrance I overheard a diplomat-looking man with green eyes talking to a diaspora reporter from Los Angeles asking him what will we do if Turkey started aggressive actions against Armenia. He said we would have to restart assassinating Turkish diplomats.

Armenia could have engaged in a socialization process where conspicuous consumption and lack of law enforcement enhanced wealth accumulation at the expense of all else, especially national defense and security. Armenia could have gone down the path of Ter-Petrosyan’s societal de-repatriotization to such an extent that those in the system will never demand transparency in governance, with Armenia becoming a regional backwater of small businesses ruled by those who viewed the world as solely dictated by economic determinism, where money was laundered not only in Caribbean shell companies but in the construction of random apartment and office buildings placed with no rhyme or reason across Armenia’s capital. The self-defense fervor that resulted in Azerbaijan signing a 1994 cease-fire after Armenians fought for their sovereignty in Nagorno-Karabakh could have been supplanted by those running the war becoming oligarchs themselves. Rather than utilizing existing infrastructure on these lands, they could have been ripped up and sold it as scrap. Rather than using the advantages of the Armenian diaspora, the power structure could have viewed the diaspora as a competitor, as if they were all pirates, ravaging Armenia. As with all pirates, it’s easier to steal than to create. Armenia could have been locked out of free-market dynamics with its diplomacy supporting the business interests of those in power rather than enhancing Armenian sovereignty. Armenia could have its brightest young graduates leave Armenia, looking for a semblance of success, and rather than returning, they send remittances to the less fortunate, supporting the myopic and corrupt system that exiled them.

Yerevan, Armenia

Author: David Davidian (Lecturer at the American University of Armenia. He has spent over a decade in technical intelligence analysis at major high technology firms. He resides in Yerevan, Armenia).