The recent 12 years showed that the constant growth of military expenses in both states is accompanied by the improvement of numerical characteristics of the Armed Forces, military expert Ruben Meghrabyan stated in an interview with PanARMENIAN.Net. In his words, the military expense totaling in over 3% of the GDP become a burden for the population. “The reasonable number of the military is 1 per cent of the population of the state. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan crossed the limit long ago. The European Union started speaking of the armament race in the South Caucasus. Taking into account the living conditions in our states and the gap between the potential and reality one can easily conclude the variance of the tasks and needs of the region,” he said. As for the material and technical equipment and military training, these directly depend on the budget funds, the expert added.
“Progress is conditioned by the overcoming of “childish diseases” like lack of discipline, inexperience of the command staff and so on. The spirit is the constituent of any army. The Armenian army experiences fewer problems, since it does not purpose any aggressive goals, unlike the Azeri one. However, military spirit cannot be bought or raised by a military hysteria in small countries like Azerbaijan and Armenia living neither in peace nor war during a long time. To be short, the sharp increase of the military expenses in the region is a thoughtless squandering of the funds needed for conduction of reforms and resolution of social problems,” Meghrabyan said.
