The Armenian government wanted to make sure there was no messing when the South Caucasus country hosted the who’s who of European politics.
Clusters of police were posted to almost every street corner around the centre of Yerevan, the capital of the small country that shares borders with Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran and Georgia.
A square near a Sunday flea market had several dozen uniformed officers milling about with not a huge amount to do on the eve of a summit of European leaders.
The forum, known as the European Political Community (EPC), brings together the leaders of the 27 EU states and others from the wider neighbourhood.
Among those attending were UK prime minister Keir Starmer, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and leaders from the Balkans and the South Caucasus, Norway, Iceland and others.
The prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, had been invited as well – the first time a country from outside of Europe had joined the informal talks.
Carney’s speech in Davos earlier this year captured the moment the world finds itself in. He lamented the demise of the rules-based international order and called for middle powers to band together, to protect themselves against coercion by aggressive superpowers.
“It’s an important time in the world, that like-minded countries come together with a positive attitude,” Carney said on Monday.
“We are the most European of non-European countries,” he told other leaders. Riffing on the same theme of that Davos speech, Carney made the point that submitting to a more “brutal, transactional” world was not an inevitability, but “nostalgia is not a strategy”.
His presence and recent developments gave this summit the feeling of a group Trump-therapy session.
The Iran war has put extra strain on a transatlantic relationship that was already seriously fraying.
Washington now intends to withdraw 5,000 troops it has stationed in Germany. US president Donald Trump has also spoken about the possibility of pulling troops from bases in Spain and Italy as well.
That has further damaged trust in Trump’s commitment to help defend Europe and deter a worst-case scenario: a future Russian attack on an EU state, or a Nato ally.
The EPC began as a way to softly shore up influence in the wider region, where European democracies are competing with Russia’s expanding tendrils.
The decision to host its eighth meeting in Yerevan was a notable statement. Armenia, historically dependent on Russia, wants to foster closer ties with the EU and the west, which has infuriated Moscow.
Russia is deploying significant resources to put its thumb on the scales in parliamentary elections in Armenia next month, warning Armenians against continuing down the pro-European path.
The job of hosting the summit rotates between an EU member state and a European country outside the union every six months. It will fall to Ireland to stage the next one, during its EU presidency. The EPC is expected to be held in the Convention Centre in Dublin in mid-November.
Thoughts of the size of the Garda overtime bill will keep the top minds at the Department of Finance up at night though if there are anywhere near the number of gardaí blanketing the streets as there were police in Yerevan.
The leaders were treated to a showcase of Armenian music at the start of the summit.
Speaking at a joint press conference alongside Armenia’s prime minister Nikol Pashinyan at the end of the day, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Ireland would have to prepare something that cleared the same high bar on the entertainment front.
“I have six months to practice the drums, or two songs … I will have to think of something between now and November to try and rescue the situation,” he joked.