December on View 2025

2026-01-25 - 21:06

Politics The New U.S. National Security Strategy: Implications for Armenia Sossi Tatikyan Dec 15, 2025 The 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy signals a shift toward sovereignty-centered, transactional realism. Sossi Tatikyan explores how this new doctrine reshapes U.S. engagement in the South Caucasus and its implications for Armenia’s security, diplomacy, peace process with Azerbaijan, and partnership with Washington. Read more Security Dimensions of the EU-Armenia Strategic Agenda Nerses Kopalyan Dec 8, 2025 The security component of the Strategic Agenda incorporates Europe as an important part of Armenia’s developing security architecture, writes Nerses Kopalyan, where the confluence of hard power capacity and small-state resilience become integrated, at the institutional level, with European and Transatlantic standards. Read more Opinion Armenia’s Hate Speech Blind Spot Anoush Begoyan Dec 16, 2025 The arrest of two Armenian podcasters has reignited debate over where free expression ends and criminal liability begins. Beyond one case, the episode exposes Armenia’s unresolved legal blind spot in addressing sexualized, gendered abuse without undermining democratic speech. Read more The False Politics of Revisionism Nerses Kopalyan Dec 23, 2025 In this sharp critique of political revisionism in Armenia, Nerses Kopalyan examines how distorted narratives seek to undermine the Velvet Revolution, erase popular sovereignty, and normalize cynicism, victimhood and authoritarian nostalgia as tools to weaken democracy and collective agency. Read more Missing in Action? On Russian Deployments From Armenia and Artsakh to Ukraine Justin Tomczyk Dec 9, 2025 As Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on, there are allegations—some founded, some unfounded—that troops and resources have quietly been redeployed from Armenia’s Gyumri base and the former peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh. Justin Tomczyk examines online activity that reveals this movement of forces and what a planned surge of troops to Gyumri means for the region. Read more Raw & Unfiltered Armenians of Jerusalem: An Occupied Minority Arno Khlgatian Dec 5, 2025 This in-depth Q&A with Dr. Bedross Der Matossian examines the past and present of Jerusalem’s Armenian community, one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited Armenian centers, exploring its history, struggles under shifting regimes, rising pressures from settlers, and the existential threat posed by the Cow’s Garden land dispute. Read more Aging, Dignity and the Armenian Woman Ani Jilozian Dec 18, 2025 Aging in Armenia is not just a matter of years but of dignity and belonging. Ani Jilozian examines the lived experiences of older women and reveals how health programs, social neglect and cultural expectations shape wellbeing, belonging and ultimately, the right to be seen in later life. Read more Environment The Queen, Armenia’s Forests and Bureaucratic Hurdles Hranoush Dermoyan Dec 10, 2025 A royal visit spotlighted Armenia’s forests, but also exposed how bureaucracy, competing land interests, and weak governance continue to undermine reforestation. As Armenia prepares for COP17, ambitious pledges collide with stalled permits, mining pressures and a system struggling to turn promises into forests. Hranoush Dermoyan reports. Read more System Failure: Draining Strategic Aquifers for Short-Term Profit Hovhannes Nazaretyan Dec 12, 2025 Armenia’s most vital aquifer is collapsing under decades of unchecked fish farming, illegal drilling and political neglect. The Ararat plain’s groundwater, critical for drinking water and agriculture, is being drained faster than it can recover, forcing the government into a race against ecological collapse. Hovhannes Nazaretyan explains. Read more It Has to Be Said Yerevan’s Air Crisis: Inside the Pollution Emergency Hovhannes Nazaretyan Dec 24, 2025 Yerevan’s worsening air pollution has moved from background concern to a public health emergency. Hovhannes Nazaretyan examines the main drivers including construction, quarries, transport and waste and why government responses have so far fallen short. Read more It Has to Be Said Arts & Culture Who Am I to Tell Your Story? Eric Nazarian Filmmaker Eric Nazarian challenges the cultural gatekeeping that dictates who is “allowed” to tell certain stories. Drawing on a life shaped by multiethnic Los Angeles, he makes a powerful case for cross-cultural storytelling as resistance, empathy and a reminder that art transcends borders. Et Cetera “Caucasian Blues”, a Collaboration That Couldn’t Find Its Voice Taline Oundjian Dec 11, 2025 A long-awaited South Caucasian co-production promises hope through collaboration, but “Caucasian Blues” struggles with stereotypes, weak writing and shallow politics, revealing how much harder genuine, transformative regional storytelling still is. Taline Oundjian’s review. Read more Venice 2015 Ten Years On: Creative Resistance and Contemporary Crises André Torossian Dec 19, 2025 A decade on, Andre Torossian revisits Armenia’s landmark diaspora exhibition “Armenity” at the Venice Biennale, reading it through today’s post-2020 realities—war, displacement and the loss of Artsakh—to ask who speaks for Armenians, how identity relates to territory, and what forms of Armenity can endure. Read more Creative Tech AI, Drones, Blockchain and Agriculture Catherine Odom Young Armenian entrepreneurs are bringing AI, drones, and blockchain into agriculture, developing tools tailored to small-scale farmers. From smart beehives to precision spraying and traceable wool, agritech startups are reshaping rural livelihoods while navigating a small, cautious market. Columns Khash-Khash and Kyalla Maria Gunko Dec 3, 2025 Explore Armenia’s most unconventional dishes through the eyes of Maria Gunko who views every meal as cultural inquiry. Blending humor, discomfort and discovery, she examines how food rituals reveal identity and the intimate logic of a place. Read more Tsolak Topchyan: Art as Antidote to an Unstable World Christopher Atamian Dec 4, 2025 Blending repetition, geometric precision and tactile threadwork, Tsolak Topchyan turns instability into rhythm and renewal. His latest exhibition in Yerevan traced how abstraction, labor and quiet variation can become tools for steadiness, and subtle resistance, in a world marked by upheaval. Read more What a Ceasefire in Ukraine Could Mean for the South Caucasus Olesya Vartanyan Dec 22, 2025 The war in Ukraine still dominates Eastern Europe’s political agenda, but its consequences extend far beyond. In the South Caucasus, amid Georgia’s prolonged crisis, a ceasefire could become a test of political maturity, revealing which states seize new opportunities and which risk deeper isolation. Read more À la Victoire Sheila Paylan Dec 1, 2025 Reflecting on democracy, dissent and the dangers of entrenched power, Sheila Paylan tells the story of jailed Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza with growing concerns in Armenia, urging vigilance against the erosion of hard-won democratic space. Read more Podcasts The Light Cast by the Shadow Puppets EVN Report Dec 18, 2025 After discovering 180 of her great-great-grandfather’s shadow puppets in an attic in Aleppo, actor, writer, producer and director Sona Tatoyan realized that she had just stumbled upon a living thread connecting her to her family’s pre-genocide past. In this episode, Tatoyan speaks about her multimedia performance AZAD (The Rabbit and the Wolf), where she brings these puppets back to life, and explores what it means to carry memory onto a contemporary stage, a powerful act of storytelling. Read more From NFL to Wall Street to Armenia EVN Report Dec 4, 2025 Jon Najarian, co-founder of Market Rebellion and TradeMonster, discusses how his first trip to Armenia and his daughters' influence have deepened his relationship to his heritage. He shares a remarkable family story, from the founding of the Lazar Najarian–Calouste Gulbenkian School in Syria to pioneering organ-transplant surgery in the United States. Read more LIFESTYLE Charge As SALT marks its first anniversary, we wrap up 2025 by reflecting on tradition while looking ahead. With 2026 shaping up to be a charged election year, SALT will be there to offer a refreshing space for pause, perspective and inspiration beyond the political noise. Santa Came When the Lights Were Out The 1990s and Ada’s Gyumri Gata Holding On, Letting Go New Year in Armenia? No Invitation Required Yerevan’s Holiday Season Trinity