Month: December 2020

Four rescuers of the State Emergency Service of Artsakh have died performing their professional duty during the war.

Hovik Aghajanyan has been posthumously awarded the “Gratitude” medal.

Harutyun Atajanyan, David Dolukhanyan and Arayik Hakobyan have been posthumously awarded the “Courage” medal.

By the decree of the director of the service, Major-General Karen Sargsyan, Hovik Aghajanyan has been posthumously awarded the “Cross of Glory-Noy” commemorative medal.

On Nov. 9, an armistice was signed to end the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The conflict was relatively short lived, lasting from Sept. 27 to Nov. 9, but it proved to be an intense inter-state conflict fought by two heavily armed opponents. Both sides employed advanced military technology, with Azerbaijan proving the decisive victor in the war. The implications of the conflict continue to reverberate well outside the region given its potential significance for regional and great powers alike, while further spurring debates on the character of modern warfare.

Azerbaijan’s successful use of drones proved a tactical sensation, although it broadly confirmed long standing lessons on the devastating effect airpower can have on a large ground force with relatively poor air defenses. The use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in this conflict marks an evolution more so than a revolution in the applications of airpower.

Military establishments look to wars like Nagorno-Karabakh for insights about capabilities, doctrine, operational art and how their forces might fare against similarly armed adversaries or perhaps those with far more capable militaries. The United States is on a quest for defining conflicts, like the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, to shape the direction of its future investments, and consequently looks to wars such as the Russian conflict with Ukraine, or Armenia’s war with Azerbaijan, for lessons learned.

In terms of capabilities, it seems clear that remotely operated systems offer the advantage of airpower, sensors and precision-guided weapons to small and middle powers at a dramatically discounted price compared to the cost of manned aviation. This technology is diffusing much more rapidly than customized counters, or air defense systems designed to deal with it. The latter will eventually catch up, but in the interim, drones, especially loitering munitions drones, present a significant challenge for modern air defenses and ground forces. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict helped settle the question on whether legacy air defenses, such as the dated Soviet systems employed by Armenia, could be suitable or adapted to dealing with contemporary drones. The answer is decidedly negative, especially when combinations of drones are used for target identification and strikes, or via swarming tactics.

Another approach would emphasize the quantity of cheaper or disposable systems in Western militaries, trading out expensive boutique capabilities for numbers able to withstand attrition. However, legacy systems generate inertia in defense acquisition, and it is more likely that militaries will choose to better protect what they have than try to revamp their forces. A useful addition to standing militaries would be capabilities available in large quantities, based on cheaper or disposable systems.

Doctrinally, the war offers useful lessons, especially for Western audiences. Modern militaries tend to worship at the altar of maneuver warfare, and the U.S. in particular is vested in the cognitive effects of maneuver on enemy forces, or in doctrinal parlance, the ability to “impose multiple dilemmas.”

However, the diffusion of cheap, high-quality sensors on the battlefield negates many of the benefits of terrain and camouflage and can easily be backed by a reconnaissance-strike package. This raises doubts about the ability of maneuver to generate cognitive dilemmas for great or even middle powers. Similarly, dispersing forces may have negligible effects against loitering munitions, and as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict illustrated, terrain offers fewer advantages against such systems. Dispersal makes sense tactically, but in terms of operational design, the proliferation of cheap means of surveillance suggests that forces will have to accept much higher levels of attrition, especially against firepower-heavy militaries like Russia’s.

Many analysts, including myself, had expected terrain to be a significant factor in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and, in early analysis, for Armenian forces to fare much better in the conflict. In some ways this was accurate, given that Azerbaijan advanced in the south where it was easiest for ground units, but not in the north. Yet on the whole, this thesis was proven incorrect, and expectations that Armenia might fight to a stalemate seem incredibly rosy in retrospect. Azerbaijan was able to attrition Armenia’s defending forces with airpower. They in turn were ill-prepared for the war, lacking good lines to fall back to. 

There was considerable lag between the degradation of Armenian forces and Azerbaijani territorial advances, but momentum quickly shifted two weeks into the conflict. Early on, Azerbaijan appeared unable to translate tactical success into significant gains, which explains in part the surprise (including my own) at how quickly they were able to put Armenian forces into a precarious and untenable position a few weeks into the war.

Could Armenia have fought differently and won this conflict? The short answer is probably not, although it most certainly could have fared better. Armenia was disadvantaged from the outset given the quantitative and qualitative superiority on the Azerbaijani side, together with considerable Turkish support for Baku. Armenia’s political leadership appeared to be delusional about the military balance and the potential course of a war, while insufficiently investing in the right capabilities, force structure and prepared defenses. The problems were structural. For example, rather than buy more advanced air defense or electronic warfare systems, they invested in old and used OSA-AK air defense systems from Jordan. Azerbaijan had used drones and loitering munitions against Armenia in the four-day war of 2016, yet over the four years separating these respective conflicts, the Armenian military failed to adapt in almost every respect.

Armenians have begun three days of mourning to honor those killed in the recent fighting with Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, accused of mishandling the conflict, faces growing calls to step down.

Thousands of Armenians, led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, marched through the capital Yerevan on Saturday in memory of the soldiers killed in a six-week conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

"The entire nation has been through and is going through a nightmare," Pashinyan said in a video message before the march. "Sometimes it seems that all of our dreams have been dashed and our optimism destroyed." 

As Armenia began three days of mourning for the war that killed nearly 3,000 Armenians, Pashinyan faced growing calls from the opposition to step down over the handling of the conflict and what critics call a humiliating peace deal with Azerbaijan.

The prime minister, accompanied by top officials, led a procession to the Yerablur military memorial cemetery in Yerevan to light incense on the graves of the fallen soldiers.

The opposition, meanwhile, labeled the 45-year-old leader a "traitor" for agreeing to end the war in November with a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw Armenia cede swaths of the Nagorno-Karabakh region to Azerbaijan.

The loss of land controlled by ethnic Armenian forces for more than a quarter of a century has angered Armenians, many of whom have been protesting against Pashinyan for weeks. 

Many critics chanted "Nikol the traitor" as the prime minister's convoy passed by, while some said he should have stayed away from the cemetery.

"He must not desecrate the graves of our children," said Misak Avetisyan, who lost a son in the war.

Heavy security was deployed at the cemetery, filled to the brink with Pashinyan's supporters who engaged in scuffles with his opponents. 

Pashinyan, whose wife and son were at the front during the conflict, has rejected the calls to resign. He has defended the peace deal as Armenia's only option to ensure Karabakh's survival.

Later on Saturday, about 20,000 opposition supporters also marched across the capital to commemorate the victims of the conflict.

Armenia's opposition has called on its supporters to stage a national strike on December 22, at the end of the three-day mourning period, to pressure Pashinyan to step down.

Pashinyan swept to power in a peaceful revolution in May 2018. But since the latest war, many accuse him of betraying Armenia's interests.

Key public figures have joined calls for his resignation, including the influential head of Armenia's Apostolic Church, Catholicos Garegin, and 14 retired military generals who issued a statement on Saturday criticizing the government's handling of the conflict.

"This war did not have to happen," said former prime minister Vazgen Manukyan, who the opposition says should replace Pashinyan.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have for decades been engaged in a simmering conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The enclave is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians for the past 30 years.

The latest conflict over the disputed region erupted in late September, leaving more than 5,000 people dead, including civilians on both sides, and thousands more displaced.

As part of the deal, Russia has deployed nearly2,000 peacekeeping troops to Karabakh for at least five years to monitor the peace agreement.

adi/nm (AP, AFP, Reuters)