WPS Agency, Russia
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
December 24, 2010 Friday
THERE WILL BE A NEW WAR IN TRANSCAUCASIA!
Source: Voenno-Promyshlenny Kuryer, No. 50, December 22-28, 2010, p. 4
by Alexander Khramchikhin
[translated from Russian]
EXPERTS SEE LESS AND LESS PROSPECTS FOR PEACEFUL RESOLVING OF THE
NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT; Situation regarding Nagorno-Karabakh is
getting rapidly worse. Armenia and Azerbaijan may start the
hostilities at any moment. This war may have terrible consequences.
Rhetoric dedicated to the Nagorno-Karabakh problems has been getting
much harsher both in Yerevan and Baku lately. Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev says increasingly often that his country is ready to
solve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem by the military way because it
cannot do this peacefully. In turn, President of Armenia Serzh
Sargsian states that Yerevan will recognize independence of
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic if Baku unleashes hostilities again it.
It is reported that mobilization has already begun in Armenian and
Azerbaijani Diasporas. Firing exchanges that lead to human losses and
are accompanied with mutual accusations of breaching of the truce
appear on the contact line regularly.
They have armed themselves thoroughly
So, it is interesting to study the balance of forces of the parties of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
After breakup of the USSR, Armenia, Azerbaijan and self-proclaimed
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic acquired certain shares of the heritage of
the Soviet Army.
Having divided the Soviet quota set by the Conventional Forces in
Europe Treaty (CFE), Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia,
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan received their own quotas for
armament and military hardware. For example, all three Transcaucasian
countries were permitted to have 220 tanks, 220 combat armored
vehicles, 285 artillery systems, 100 combat airplanes and 50 strike
helicopters each.
In reality, after breakup of the USSR Azerbaijan received 436 tanks,
947 combat armored vehicles (558 fighting infantry vehicles and 389
armored personnel carriers), 388 artillery systems, 63 airplanes, 8
helicopters. At the beginning of 1993, Armenia had only 77 tanks, 189
combat armored vehicles (150 fighting infantry vehicles and 39 armored
personnel carriers), 160 artillery systems, 3 airplanes, 13
helicopters. Along with this, Nagorno-Karabakh was a kind of “gray
zone.” Armenian forces there got hold of a small quantity of armament
of the disbanded Transcaucasian Military District. Yerevan also
transferred some unregistered models of armament and military hardware
to Stepanakert.
Despite the obvious superiority in forces and means, Azerbaijanis were
defeated in the war of 1992-1994. Armenians established control not
only over almost entire former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of
the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic but also adjacent districts
of Azerbaijan proper. Before the war, Nagorno-Karabakh has not been
connected with Armenia. There is a common border between them now on
account of the occupied Azerbaijani districts.
When a truce began on the frontline, it turned out that the parties
bore significant losses during the war. Thus, Armenia recognized loss
of 52 tanks T-72, 54 fighting infantry vehicles, 40 armored personnel
carriers, six guns and mortars (losses of the troops of
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic were unknown). Azerbaijan lost 186 tanks
(160 – T-72 and 26 – T-55), 111 fighting infantry vehicles, 8 armored
personnel carriers, 7 self-propelled artillery mounts, 47 guns and
mortars, 5 multiple rocket launcher systems, 14-16 airplanes, 5-6
helicopters. Soon after signing of the truce Azerbaijan also had to
write off the following hardware damaged in battles: 43 tanks
(including 18 T-72), 83 fighting infantry vehicles, 31 armored
personnel carriers, 1 self-propelled artillery mount, 42 guns and
mortars, 8 multiple rocket launcher systems.
However, Azerbaijanis managed to take more than 20 T-72, 14 fighting
infantry vehicles, 1 self-propelled artillery mount, 8 guns and
mortars from Armenians. Along with this, a lot of the hardware lost by
the Azerbaijani forces was taken by the enemy either in full repair or
with insignificant damages.
Of course, in the first half of the 1990s the newly formed army of
Azerbaijan does not resemble regular troops very much and looked more
like guerilla forces (even despite that it had tanks, artillery and
aviation). In any case, it is impossible to explain the defeat by this
circumstance alone because it is possible to say the same about the
opponent.
Since then, armies of all three parties of the conflict passed a big
evolution towards transformation into regular armed forces. For
Armenia Russia was the most important source of import of military
hardware and something was bought in Eastern Europe. Besides, Yerevan
became the only buyer of Chinese multiple rocket launcher system WM-80
(four systems were supplied) that China copied from Russian Smerch
without any license.
Due to the oil revenues Azerbaijan worked on modernization of the
armed forces much more energetically because its military budget was
300% bigger than that of Armenia. Kiev claims the role of the main
supplier of armament to Baku. Along with this, Azerbaijan bought
weapons in many countries including Russia. In 2006, Russia sold 62
secondhand T-72 tanks to Azerbaijan.
As a result, Azerbaijan turned out to be the only of the 30 CFE member
states that exceeded its quotas in two classes of armament
simultaneously: tanks (381 as of January 1 of 2010) and artillery (425
artillery systems). Baku also recognizes existence of 181 combat
armored vehicles, 75 combat airplanes and 15 strike helicopters in its
army.
As to Armenia, judging by the data that it provides in the framework
of the CFE, the quantitative parameters of its armed forces have
remained stable for many years. According to Yerevan as of January 1
of 2010, the Armenian army had 110 tanks, 140 combat armored vehicles,
239 artillery systems 16 airplanes and 8 helicopters.
Along with this, the “gray zone” of Nagorno-Karabakh did not
disappear. According to Azerbaijani sources, the armed forces of the
unrecognized republic have 316 tanks, 324 combat armored vehicles and
322 artillery systems. Along with this, the amazing stability of
quantity of the military hardware in the army of Armenia demonstrates
that at least a part of the models of armament and military hardware
purchased by Yerevan is transferred to Stepanakert.
Our matter is non-interference
If we speak about the strategic allies of each of the parties, for
Yerevan this is Moscow and for Baku this is Ankara. However,
Azerbaijan does not border Turkey and has Russia as the northern
neighbor. Armenia has a directly opposite situation: it is separated
from Russia by hundreds of kilometers but Turkey borders it from the
south.
In any case, the 102nd Russian military base located in Gyumri
compensates for remoteness of Russia. The base has about 100 tanks, up
to 300 fighting infantry vehicles and armored personnel carriers
approximately 20 self-propelled artillery mounts and 20 multiple
rocket launcher systems. The group of Russian forces also has 18
fighters MiG-29 (at the 3624th air base in Erebuni) and an air defense
missile brigade of S-300V (there are only four brigades armed with
these systems in Russia proper).
Yerevan not only does not demand payment for rent of the base from
Moscow but also actually pays for its maintenance. There is also a
significant quantity of Armenians having Russian citizenship serving
in the Russian group of forces. It is clear that in case of emergency
they will defend their compatriots actively.
Armenia is a CSTO member state. Hence, in case of a war (at least, if
Azerbaijan starts it) Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are obliged to help it. However, there are
practically no doubts that this will not happen in reality. Due to the
oil and gas problems that do not let Moscow quarrel with Baku
seriously (like it has been said above, it even supplies offensive
armament to Azerbaijan) and simply because of unwillingness to get
involved into a big-scale conflict Russian authorities will refer to a
“good excuse” saying that Azerbaijan attacks not Armenia but
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It will be “forgotten” immediately how an
absolutely similar behavior of Georgia in 2008, an attack at South
Ossetia not recognized by anyone, has been declared treacherous
aggression by Moscow. To imagine that other CSTO member states will
help Armenia is so absurd that it is pointless to discuss this.
Along with this, Turkey does not wish to participate in hostilities
too, first, due to a noticeable improvement of relations with Armenia,
second, due to a risk of direct military clash with Russia (there is a
group of the Russian forces in Armenia). Turkish leaders will say that
the conflict has been started by Azerbaijan and this is very bad.
During the previous Armenian-Azerbaijani war Iran has shown that
“Islamic solidarity” was a chimera and supported not Moslem (moreover
Shiite) Azerbaijan but Orthodox Christian Armenia. This was explained
by extremely bad relations between Tehran and Ankara, the main patron
of Baku. The Iranian-Turkish and Iranian-Azerbaijani relations grew
noticeably better by now but the Iranian-Armenian relations did not
get worse too. There are no grounds to doubt that Tehran will remain
neutral.
We should not forget about the West. Its position will be influenced
by two opposite factors: powerful Armenian Diaspora (especially in the
US and France) and exceptional importance of Azerbaijan for numerous
oil and gas projects and plans to retain the status of the main
suppler of hydrocarbons alternative to the Russian ones. However,
military interference of the US, leaving apart European countries, is
absolutely ruled out. The West together with Russia will ardently
demand Yerevan and Baku to stop the war immediately.
To be continued in the next issue of the bulletin
From: A. Papazian