The New U.S. National Security Strategy: Implications for Armenia

2026-01-25 - 21:06

Listen to the AI generated audio article. Your browser does not support the audio element. The 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) marks a pronounced shift in American strategic thinking. It advances a sovereignty-centered doctrine, narrows the definition of U.S. national interests, and adopts a more selective, non-interventionist, and transactional approach to global engagement. State sovereignty, strategic stability, economic and technological power, and burden-sharing within the transatlantic community emerge as the central organizing principles of U.S. foreign policy. Although the document focuses largely on major powers and broad geopolitical regions, Armenia stands out as one of the few smaller states explicitly referenced. The Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict is cited among U.S.-mediated peace efforts used to illustrate the administration’s peacemaking model. Beyond this reference, the NSS carries implications for the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace process, the U.S.–Armenia strategic partnership, and the wider strategic environment shaping Armenia’s security, diplomacy and development. Sovereignty-Centered Conservative Realism The 2025 NSS introduces a sovereignty-centered conservative realism that breaks sharply from the liberal-interventionalist logic of previous U.S. strategies. It defines American foreign policy around a narrow set of vital national interests. It rejects the notion that the United States should sustain a universal order or reshape how other states govern themselves. Instead, U.S. engagement should focus on protecting the homeland, preserving economic and technological advantage, ensuring energy security, and preventing hostile actors from dominating key strategic regions. While the NSS does not rule out intervention, it sets a high threshold, limiting it to situations where core national interests are directly at stake. At the center of this doctrinal shift is an explicit reinforcement of state sovereignty as the organizing principle of international affairs. The NSS expresses scepticism toward supranational governance, arguing that multilateral institutions often constrain sovereign decision-making or diffuse accountability. It advances a world order anchored in sovereign states whose cooperation rests on shared interests rather than binding institutional or ideological commitments. This framework favors flexible, transactional partnerships over open-ended engagements and universal norms. The strategy also recalibrates the U.S. approach to democracy. It adopts an illiberal reading of democracy that emphasizes national identity, cultural cohesion, and state authority while deprioritizing promotion of democracy. The U.S. will work with governments of any system when doing so supports stability or advances U.S. strategic aims. Partners’ internal political models matter less than their reliability, alignment, and capacity to contribute to shared objectives. “Peace Through Strength” A core pillar of the 2025 NSS is “peace through strength,” which links U.S. diplomatic effectiveness to military readiness, industrial capacity, technological superiority, and the protection of supply chains and critical infrastructure. Strategic advantage is defined not only through military force but also through “economic security” — dominance in critical technologies such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum systems and advanced manufacturing. These capabilities are treated as essential to national security and as sources of diplomatic leverage. This doctrine shapes the NSS’s approach to mediation. The strategy highlights several U.S.-facilitated settlements—including Armenia–Azerbaijan, Cambodia–Thailand, Kosovo–Serbia, Egypt–Ethiopia, the DRC–Rwanda, Pakistan–India, Israel–Iran, and, partially, the Gaza conflict—as evidence of leader-driven diplomacy grounded in strength, sovereignty, and rapid problem-solving. These examples are presented to contrast the NSS model with multilateral, international-law-centered approaches and to underscore a shift toward transactional, interest-based engagement. Implications for the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Process The NSS doctrine’s rejection of interventionism and emphasis on sovereign self-reliance largely mirrors Armenia’s own evolution since 2020. Following the gradual military takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020–2023 and Azerbaijan’s 2021–2022 incursions into Armenia’s sovereign territory, Yerevan no longer anchors its security in expectations of international support and condemnation by multilateral political bodies and legal mechanisms. The CSTO did not respond to attacks on Armenian territory. The OSCE proved unable to advance a settlement or prevent the military escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The UN Security Council and ICJ lacked enforcement capacity to prevent the use of force or to stop the blockade in Nagorno-Karabakh. These experiences collectively eroded Armenia’s confidence in traditional multilateral structures. Initially, it was Azerbaijan that delegitimized multilateral mediation, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, invoking sovereignty and non-intervention to avoid constraints and exploit the asymmetric power balance in bilateral talks. Armenia accepted Baku’s insistence on a bilateral format throughout 2024 to avoid deadlock in negotiations. Nevertheless, Armenia continues to engage with the EU as a key partner supporting border monitoring, human security, institutional reform, and resilience-building. Armenia considers the EU Mission in Armenia (EUMA) as an effective soft deterrent against further Azerbaijani military action that has helped stabilize the Armenia–Azerbaijan border. Azerbaijan, by contrast, has sought to delegitimize the mission and push for its withdrawal. Alongside this, Armenia has adopted a proactive foreign and security policy combining European integration aspirations, efforts to establish peaceful regional cooperation and strengthening national defense capabilities in partnership with key international actors. This posture reflects the NSS preference for sovereign agency and capacity-building assistance, whereby states are empowered to defend themselves rather than rely on external protection. In political terms, both Armenia and Azerbaijan have repositioned themselves in ways that intersect with the NSS’s non-normative approach. Armenia is currently the most democratic state in the South Caucasus, while Azerbaijan has consolidated its authoritarian model. Under previous U.S. doctrine, support to democracies was crucial for Western political engagement. Under the new NSS, however, democracy is no longer a decisive organizing principle. Aliyev criticized the Biden administration, demanded the closure of USAID’s office in Baku accusing it of intervening in its domestic affairs citing sovereignty principle, and aligned himself with Trump’s “traditional values” still in 2024. Pashinyan has prioritized sovereignty over the past three years in other ways, seeking to reduce Armenia’s dependence on any single actor—namely Russia—and prioritizing Armenia’s security over preserving Armenian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh. Commenting on the article by Jim O’Brien, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State on Armenia’s vulnerabilities as a result of the Washington agreements, Pashinyan argued that Armenia was “most vulnerable” under the Biden administration and praised Trump’s role in advancing a peace settlement. Aliyev and Pashinyan jointly nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Trump administration’s more transactional and non-normative approach has diminished Armenia’s ability to leverage democratic credentials in the peace process or broader bilateral relationships. Substantively, the Armenia–Azerbaijan settlement reflects an illiberal, pragmatic peace, where accountability and human-rights protections are compromised in favor of ending hostilities, stabilizing the region, and establishing connectivity and economic cooperation as prerequisites for peace. This diverges sharply from liberal peacebuilding models centred on rights, justice and institutional guarantees. Importantly, the agreement was not negotiated under U.S. mediation; it resulted from direct bilateral talks under pronounced power asymmetry after Azerbaijan withdrew from Western-led formats. The Trump administration nonetheless played a significant prevention and facilitation role. Washington reportedly prevented a planned Azerbaijani attack on Armenia in spring–summer 2025. After months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy, the U.S. succeeded in bringing Baku to the Washington Summit and securing its commitment to pursue a peace deal. Paradoxically, the NSS’s de-prioritization of democracy, the absence of normative conditions, and the reliance on interest-based incentives created conditions under which Aliyev accepted U.S. mediation—in contrast to his rejection of Biden’s and EU-led efforts. For Armenia, the implications are mixed: its democratic credentials no longer translate into a comparative advantage, yet the U.S. enjoys greater leverage over Azerbaijan under the current approach. This model, however, carries inherent structural risks for Armenia. A process driven by transactional interests and relative power advantages the stronger party. Azerbaijan’s military superiority, resource wealth, and control over escalation dynamics make it easy for a power-based process to reproduce existing imbalances. For Armenia, it is essential that the U.S. remains closely engaged and that any mediation is anchored in sovereignty, non-coercion, and reciprocity of commitments rather than the logic of force disparity. Finally, the credibility of the U.S. peacemaking model depends on demonstrating that settlements are durable, not quick fixes. It is important to acknowledge that the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace deal remains unfinished and far from assured: Azerbaijan continues to delay the signing of the agreement, postpone the de-occupation of border segments of Armenia’s territory, maintain additional demands on Yerevan, and employ cognitive warfare and historical revisionism — all of which undermine the prospects for a durable settlement. The renewed tensions in the Cambodia–Thailand conflict, despite its inclusion in the NSS as a success, raise questions about the sustainability of agreements concluded under this approach. In the Armenia–Azerbaijan context, sustained U.S. engagement, monitoring, and reinforcement of agreed principles remain indispensable to prevent reversal or renewed instability. Regional Priorities Outlined in the NSS The 2025 NSS applies its sovereignty-centered doctrine through a reordered hierarchy of regional commitments. The Western Hemisphere comes first, reflecting a renewed interpretation of the “Monroe Doctrine” and emphasizing limits on extra-regional influence, stabilization of neighboring states, and the security of critical supply chains, with particular concern about China’s expanding economic and security footprint in Latin America. Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific are identified as a principal arena of strategic competition. China is described as the U.S.’s most consequential military and economic rival, whose expanding global influence, industrial capacity, and assertive regional posture require sustained American attention. The strategy emphasizes maintaining a favorable balance of power, strengthening deterrence, and safeguarding critical supply chains and advanced technological leadership. It underscores the need to protect maritime routes, prevent coercive alterations of the regional status quo, and support allies and partners whose security is essential for regional stability. Stability in Asia and the Indo-Pacific is framed as indispensable to sustaining global economic resilience and U.S. strategic primacy. Europe and NATO appear only after the Western Hemisphere and Asia—a sequencing that reflects rebalanced U.S. priorities. The NSS consistently refers to “Europe,” not the “European Union,” indicating a preference for engagement with sovereign nation-states rather than supranational institutions. Europe is portrayed as confronting internal pressures: demographic decline, identity fragmentation, weakened border governance, and the influence of supranational norms perceived as diluting sovereignty and constraining political agency. These factors are framed as civilizational and structural vulnerabilities that undermine Europe’s long-term reliability as a security partner. The NSS also implies a preference for closer engagement with European states whose strategic outlook, regulatory stance, or political orientation diverges from mainstream EU positions—particularly where they emphasize sovereignty, national identity, and alignment with U.S. security and economic priorities. Finally, the NSS places strong emphasis on burden-sharing and burden-shifting. Partners must assume primary responsibility for security within their own regions. The U.S. positions itself as a supporter rather than a universal guarantor, expecting allies—especially in Europe—to contribute more substantively to defense, regional stability, sanctions enforcement, technology protection and export-control alignment. In this context, Russia and the war in Ukraine are treated as central challenges. The NSS notes that European states continue to regard Russia as an existential threat, despite holding substantial conventional military advantages. Washington positions itself as essential to achieving an “expeditious cessation of hostilities” in Ukraine, stabilizing European economies, and restoring strategic stability across the broader Eurasian region. Over time, however, the strategy expects Europeans to assume primary responsibility for their own security. The NSS outlines a decisive recalibration of NATO. It reinforces President Trump’s Hague Commitment requiring allies to spend 5% of GDP on defense and calls for major increases in readiness and capabilities. It emphasizes that the U.S. will no longer assume the predominant financial and operational responsibility for European defense. It also states the need to “end the perception, and prevent the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance,” signaling a preference for consolidation over further enlargement. The document also addresses the Middle East and Africa through the lens of stability, energy security, counterterrorism, and the protection of strategic maritime passages. Although unnamed, these clearly refer to the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Suez Canal. The NSS prioritizes preventing hostile control over these routes, sustaining energy flows, and avoiding prolonged U.S. military deployments. Implications for Armenia For Armenia, these reordered U.S. regional priorities take concrete form through the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). The U.S. has already committed to this initiative, initially allocating $145 million for its implementation and appointing a special envoy to oversee it. Within the TRIPP framework, the establishment of an American–Armenian consortium is now underway, creating a structured mechanism for coordinating implementation and long-term cooperation. The frequency of high-level U.S. delegations to both Yerevan and Baku signals that the South Caucasus has become relevant to broader U.S. strategic objectives: connectivity, supply-chain security, and influence over regional transit corridors. It is important to note that in the U.S. and Europe, the term “corridor” simply implies connectivity—not the negative connotation of extraterritoriality. Despite recent U.S.–EU tensions on other issues, such frictions have so far not surfaced in the South Caucasus, where European initiatives position the EU as a potential complementary partner to the TRIPP framework. In the region, U.S. involvement and EU presence in Armenia remain largely complementary. Washington’s corridor-driven diplomacy under TRIPP runs parallel to the EU’s projects in Syunik and its contribution to border and human security through EUMA. The presence of the latter aligns with the NSS view that Europe should assume greater responsibility for the security and stability of its neighborhood. In practice, recent U.S. mediation efforts and EUMA’s monitoring presence function as complementary deterrents, reducing Armenia’s vulnerability. Armenia’s recent efforts to reduce tensions and avoid further antagonism with Russia, framed within its “balanced and balancing” foreign policy, also align with the NSS emphasis on the necessity of restoring strategic stability in Europe’s neighborhood. Yet this coexistence does not resolve Armenia’s underlying challenge of multi-alignment, nor does it mitigate the sensitivities generated by widening Trans-Atlantic and U.S.–China rivalries. As Yerevan deepens its strategic partnerships with the U.S., EU member states, China, and Iran, advances its new agenda with the EU, and shapes its integration aspirations—while maintaining a cautious relationship with Russia and membership in the Eurasian Economic Union—it must navigate conflicting expectations and avoid crossing the red lines of any major actor. The core challenge for Armenia is to benefit from growing U.S. engagement without overstretching its multi-alignment strategy or creating new strategic vulnerabilities. It must secure U.S. support while preserving balanced relations with other major partners and safeguarding its sovereignty in a rapidly shifting regional landscape. Fragmented U.S.–EU cohesion, compounded by intra-European divisions and tensions between the U.S. and China and between the EU and Russia, further complicates Armenia’s foreign-policy environment. For Yerevan, both the U.S. and the EU are strategic partners, while China is an emerging economic partner; it therefore cannot afford to privilege one at the expense of the others. The NSS and the U.S.–Armenia Strategic Partnership: Converging Priorities The 2025 NSS provides a strategic frame that closely matches areas where Armenia and the United States have already expanded bilateral cooperation. Rather than the NSS adapting to Armenia, it is Armenia–U.S. strategic documents—the January 2025 Strategic Partnership Charter, the August 2025 Memorandums of Understandings (MoUs), and the TRIPP framework—that align with core NSS priorities: energy security, technological and industrial advantage, secure supply chains, and regional stabilization through resilient connectivity. On connectivity, the NSS stresses protecting strategic routes and preventing coercive control over transit corridors. Armenia–U.S. cooperation under TRIPP and repeated senior-level visits to Yerevan reflect this priority. The MoU regarding the Crossroads of Peace Capacity Building Partnership positions Armenia’s corridors within the NSS priority of securing supply chains, fostering regional stability, and denying strategic leverage to hostile actors. The MoU on Energy Security Partnership represents a primary area of convergence, aligned with the NSS principle that energy security constitutes a core national-security imperative. Ongoing negotiations between Armenia and the U.S. on a Section 123 Agreement (required under the Atomic Energy Act for the transfer of U.S. nuclear material or equipment) are intended to enable the expected provision of American Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) to Armenia. This would reduce Armenia’s structural dependence on Russian energy systems and strengthen the country’s long-term resilience while supporting the NSS objective of secure, transparent, and diversified energy ecosystems. The same applies to the MoU regarding an AI and Semiconductor Innovation Partnership. The NSS elevates technological leadership and protects innovation networks as essential components of U.S. power. The evolving partnership with NVIDIA–Firebird positions Armenia within the domains the NSS prioritizes. Export-control alignment, digital infrastructure security, and integration into Western technological ecosystems are consistent with the NSS’s call for reliable technological partners. Still under Biden’s administration, the U.S. has expanded its non-lethal defense cooperation with Armenia over the past two years, in ways aligning with the NSS emphasis on strengthening partners’ sovereign defense capacity and deterrence. In July 2024, Armenia and the U.S. held their second Eagle Partner joint exercise to enhance operational readiness for international peacekeeping and improve interoperability with NATO forces. Washington has provided more than US $45 million in defense and security assistance, including armored ambulances, the establishment of a Cyber Defense Operations Center, and investments in Armenia’s border-security infrastructure. Armenia’s cybersecurity posture has advanced through participation in the International Counter Ransomware Initiative and close work with U.S. agencies on its national cybersecurity strategy, including the creation of a National Computer Incident Response Team aligned with global digital-security standards. Formalized bilateral defense consultations now serve as the framework for structured capability development, training, and long-term planning—an approach consistent with the NSS focus on enabling partners to defend themselves. In parallel, U.S. support for Armenia’s border security has expanded through equipment, training, and technical assistance designed to strengthen surveillance, situational awareness, and integrated border-management systems along the Armenian–Azerbaijani frontier. This cooperation contributes directly to Armenia’s objective of building a resilient, self-reliant deterrence architecture—precisely the type of sovereign defense capability the NSS envisions for partners navigating contested regional environments. With waiving of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act—announced at the Washington Summit—the U.S. will also be authorized to provide military assistance and sell armaments to both Armenia and Azerbaijan. While this creates an opportunity for Armenia to diversify procurement in line with its new defense posture, it also carries risks: parallel access to U.S. systems by Baku could reinforce existing military imbalance and power asymmetry unless calibrated with safeguards and embedded within a broader stability agenda. The NSS also emphasizes critical minerals and secure industrial supply chains, identifying them as key to technological and defence competitiveness. The U.S. may be interested in Armenia’s copper and molybdenum sector in its broader effort to diversify inputs away from adversarial suppliers and stabilize critical-material chains for clean energy and advanced manufacturing. Thus, the U.S.-Armenia bilateral agenda does not stem from values-based alignment but from a clear intersection between Armenia’s diversification needs and the NSS’s strategic priorities. For Armenia, this convergence opens practical avenues for cooperation in energy security, economic resilience, advanced technologies, connectivity, defense and border security while requiring careful navigation of major-power competition and the pressures of multi-alignment. Conclusions The 2025 NSS establishes a doctrine centred on sovereignty, strategic stability, transactional engagement, and technological and economic power. For Armenia, this shift offers important opportunities but also new constraints. U.S. Ambassador Kvien’s recent address to the American Chamber of Commerce underscored that U.S.–Armenia relations have entered a qualitatively new phase, rooted in the same strategic priorities reflected in the 2025 NSS. She highlighted that the Washington Summit advanced both the peace process and the broader U.S.–Armenia partnership, with Washington now treating Armenia as a key regional actor. The speech conveyed a clear message that U.S. engagement with Armenia is strategic, interest-driven, and fully aligned with U.S. priorities of energy independence, technological leadership, secure transit routes, and stability in critical neighbourhoods. The NSS emphasis on sovereign agency, capacity-building, and secure supply chains aligns with Armenia’s diversification agenda and the frameworks established through the Strategic Partnership Charter, the MoUs, and TRIPP. These open concrete avenues for cooperation at a moment when Armenia is restructuring its security and economic foundations. At the same time, the NSS’s non-normative and interest-based approach requires careful navigation. U.S. mediation in the Armenia–Azerbaijan context is now guided by strategic interests rather than democratic preferences or rights-based considerations, reducing Armenia’s former comparative advantage as the region’s democratic state. Given the power imbalance between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a sustainable settlement requires continuous U.S. engagement anchored in sovereignty, non-coercion and reciprocity. The reordering of U.S. regional priorities combined with fragmented U.S.–EU cohesion and heightened U.S.–China competition also increases pressures on Armenia’s multi-alignment policy. As Armenia deepens cooperation with the U.S. and the European Union while maintaining careful relations with China and managing its sensitive relationship with Russia, it faces the challenge of pursuing diversification without triggering strategic pushback or creating new dependencies. The NSS creates a strategic environment for Armenia to expand cooperation with the U.S. across several strategic areas. 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