To what extent is Armenia a militarized society?

According to the 2014 Global Militarisation Index (GMI) conducted by the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), Armenia ranks 3rd overall out of the 152 states examined in terms of militarization levels.

In the 2014 GMI, Israel, Singapore, Armenia, Syria, Russia, Cyprus, South Korea, Jordan, Greece and Azerbaijan (ranked 1 to 10) are amongst the ten countries with the highest levels of militarization.

The BICC says that the GMI depicts the relative weight and importance of the military apparatus of one state in relation to its society as a whole.

The high levels of militarization in the above countries are mostly the result of comprehensive arms purchases, the GMI says.

The GMI states: “The neighboring states Armenia (rank 3) and Azerbaijan (rank 10), both belonging to Europe, show very high levels of militarization and have initiated major increases in their military expenditures over the past years. The high levels of militarization in these two countries must, however, be seen in the overall context. Russia (rank 5) delivers arms to both South Caucasian republics and has been pursuing a comprehensive military reform since 2008.”

In 1994, the first year that Armenia was included in the GMI, the country received a ranking of 11. It has been slowly moving up in terms of its militarization ranking ever since.

The GMI is divided into three overarching categories: expenditure, personnel and heavy weapons.

1-    Military spending in relation to GDP and health spending are the most important indicators for determining the level of militarization.

2-    Besides military expenditure, the level of militarization is also represented by the relation of military personnel to the total population and physicians. 

3-    Finally, to determine the level of militarization of a country, which does not only consist of resources and personnel, specific types of heavy weapons have to be taken into account. This is why the GMI, as its third category takes into consideration the number of an armed forces’ heavy weapons in relation to the total population