Introduction

On September 27, 2020, explosions rocked a small mountainous piece of land in the Caucasus region, situated between Europe and Asia. For nearly 30 years, Azerbaijan has been waiting for the opportunity to reconquer a territory that it considers its own, and what it really is, in accordance with the legal principle of the inviolability of borders.

 

This territory is Nagorno Karabakh, which is historically the birthplace of numerous Armenians, forming a majority of the locals, inducing them to proclaim their independence in 1991, in the name of the right of people’s to self-determination. The first war that this declaration brought about saw the clear victory of Armenia and the occupation of the territory (called Artsakh by Armenians) as well as several adjacent districts.

These explosions kicked off a high-intensity ground and air offensive by Azerbaijan and the mobilisation of all Nagorno-Karabakh’s military capabilities to counter it. The conflict was relatively short, lasting from September 27 to November 9, 2020 and resulting in both countries signing an armistice bringing an end to the war. Not without the intervention of Russia, which took a dim view of the possible annihilation of the Armenian forces and forced Azerbaijan to revise its ambitions downwards?

 

Backed by its ally Turkey, Azerbaijan emerged as the decisive victor. The armistice resulted in the creation of land corridor linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, which will be monitored by 2000 Russian peacekeepers along with all necessary support assets. The deal also sees a staggered Armenian withdrawal from Azeri districts surrounding the enclave.

The conflict marks the latest effective use of some modern arsenals, including loitering munitions drones, a mix of hybrid warfare along with political powerplay. While it provides opportunities for case studies for strategic and military inferences with lessons to be learned in modern warfare, it has also generated a few uncomfortable questions surrounding global bodies which some countries will find difficult to answer.

 

Key components of Azerbaijan’s war

This was a full-scale war with many post-modern characteristics including a proxy war for Turkey, usage of Islamic terrorists, and a massive recourse to using sophisticated military drones, said Stephan Astourian, director of UC Berkeley’s Armenian Studies Program who is also an associate adjunct professor.

Azerbaijan used these tools effectively to emerge as the victor, changing the outcome from its previous clashes with Armenia since 1994.

There were five key factors which contributed significantly to Azerbaijan’s victory.

• The Azerbaijani leadership believed that it had a military advantage vis-a-vis Armenia having splurged US$12 billion to acquire armaments.

• It would appear that the Azerbaijani leadership had a specific goal in mind when it triggered the conflict since the decrease in oil global prices, with resulting socio-economic consequences, along with its declining oil reserves would act as a deterrent in a prolonged and expensive military campaign that would most likely put severe strain on Azerbaijan’s economy and its future military spending.

• Negotiations had reached a deadlock. Adopting a maximalist stance, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev had demanded that the regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh and Nagorno-Karabakh be returned to Azerbaijan. Further, he also laid claims to parts of Armenia, Zangezur and its capital, Yerevan, as Azerbaijani territories.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power as a result of a non-violent regime change in the summer of 2018 (so-called “Velvet Revolution”), inherited a negotiating position which he could not further support.

With limited negotiation space, his options to counter the Azerbaijani position and his opponents, was too clearly that Nagorno-Karabakh is in fact Armenian.

• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appeared to be determined to expand Turkey’s influence and hegemony and was bent on getting the country involved in regional conflicts including in Iraq, Syria and in the eastern Mediterranean. It appears he also wanted Turkey to have a say in the South Caucasus, a zone which has traditionally been under Russia’s influence, through Azerbaijan.

Turkey played a significant role in planning and leading the Azerbaijani war effort.

• The conflict was triggered at a time when the United States was busy with the outcome of the 2020 November Presidential elections, while the Russian Federation was busy with a series of conflicts in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and tensions in Kyrgyzstan and Belarus.

These factors played a pivotal role in determining the outcome of the war from that of previous clashes since 1994. A truce brokered by Russia ended the conflict in November, following which both sides released their respective military casualties.

Military casualties from Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Although the video coverage of the drone strikes may have given the impression of a crushing loss differential for Armenia, the official death toll figures for each side put this first impression into perspective. Proof, by the way, that the Azerbaijani PSYOPS based on these images were effective, at least on the observers of the conflict on the web. It should also be noted that during the operations, Baku and Yerevan claimed to have inflicted many more losses on their opponent than in reality.

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense released its first official casualty count from the conflict saying it suffered the loss of 2,783 troops; it also reported that more than 100 servicemen were registered as missing in action.

More than 1,240 injured troops have undergone medical treatment, it said while adding that the names and other details about the deceased servicemen will be made public at a later point of time by a special commission which is working on that detail.

On the Armenian side, after having largely underestimated the losses with some 1,300 deaths before the ceasefire, the Armenian Ministry of Health finally recognised a figure of 2,317 deaths. Again, these are only the bodies that underwent a forensic examination. The final death toll could therefore be higher.

Military lessons

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict underscores the fact that hybrid wars are a reality today. As demonstrated by Turkey and Pakistan, the hiring of mercenaries on religious lines has become a viable option.

The limited war also highlights the usage of advanced military drones being used for maximum effect in the theatre of war. Azerbaijan’s use of precision strikes by loitering munitions drones played a pivotal role in determining the outcome of the conflict. Azerbaijan’s success on the usage of loitering munitions drones buttresses long confirmed lessons on the devastating effect of airpower on large ground force with relatively poor air defenses. Azerbaijan’s usage of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the conflict marks an evolution rather than a revolution in the applications of airpower to neutralize threats from adversaries.

Drone warfare includes countering threats from drones from adversaries. The conflict underscores that this is likely to become an essential component of technological warfare, which is likely to include surveillance technologies and drone swarms for strategic bombings in any potential future conflicts.

In terms of capabilities, remotely operated systems offer a clear advantage over manned aviation since it has the advantage of sensors, airpower, and precision-guided weapons at a significantly reduced costs. Technologies such as these are rapidly fusing to counter threats from air defense systems designed to deal their manned alternatives. Drones, especially the loitering kind, presents a clear challenge to modern air defenses as well as ground forces.

The Nagorno-Karabakh underscores how legacy air defenses, such as the legacy air defense systems deployed by Armenia, can be suitably neutralized by modern sophisticated military drones. When drones, including the loitering munitions kind, are leveraged using swarming tactics, they can act as major force multiplier.

Having said that, depending on drones, including loitering munitions drones, alone would be a strategic mistake. Case in point – Turkey lost many of its TB2 drones in war theatres such as Libya, or even in Syria. Deployment of these systems depends on the mix of warfare systems and how they are leveraged. In this particular case, the same observation applies to electronic warfare systems. The system-to-system comparison of each side is not necessarily a good approach, and it is pointless to draw lessons from it about more sophisticated defence systems such as those of China or Russia, for instance. These countries in fact rely on an integrated air defence system and a largely automated command and control function in this area. At most, one can generalise that saturation attacks by drones and loitering munitions are a challenge for any air defence system.

As noticed by The Moscow Times : “Armenia’s armor, artillery and infantry fighting vehicles were picked apart over the course of several weeks, while its limited air defense capacity suffered a similar fate.”

Indeed, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh highlights the need, in order to have ground-to-air defence, to integrate short-, medium- and long-range systems into a coherent and interconnected whole. It must also be of a density commensurate with the threat, and the command must have a common operational picture. The record of Azerbaijani strikes clearly shows that conventional ground-to-air capabilities must be systematically supplemented, or even protected, by offensive electronic warfare means, and by systems specifically designed against unmanned aerial vehicles. Lastly and more generally, key conversation is on force structure. In countries, including Russia, ground-based air defenses are also heavily integrated with tactical air units.

These are in fact long established tactics in warfare that have been established decades ago, and is now showcased with unmanned aviation. The usage of autonomous unmanned systems is simply the latest evolution in the modern theatre of war and they hold key implications for the survivability of ground forces, the need to think differently regarding terrain and maneuverability, and the efficacy of contemporary air defense systems.

Internal politics added fuel to the fire

Although the worst of the fighting between the Armenians and Azeris ended in 1993, the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh continued to remain a as stalemate. While the territory was located within the internationally recognized boundaries of Azerbaijan it was largely populated by Armenians.

The outbreak of this long-standing problem occurred when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region applied to become part of Armenia. The lack of political coherence has also not helped, in fact it has driven a wedge between Nagorno-Karabakh and its sister country Azerbaijan with wars in the region displacing thousands of people internally.

As of 2017, more than a quarter of Artsakh’s population are refugees with many of them being Armenians who fled Azerbaijan in the 80s and 90s during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Retrospectively, it was a strategic mistake for Armenia to call on the global bodies to help the “poor Artsakh;” it was a strategic mistake to not recognize Artsakh as an independent country.

This inability to grasp this domestic compulsion along with overconfidence in its defense and mobilization plans based on its victory in the past, may have led to Armenia to not undertake a comprehensive review of changing military dynamics in the region.

It remains to be seen how the government of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashiniyan’s widely criticized for its response to the Coronavirus pandemic manages to mitigate the burning embers of the negotiated settlement. While Pashiniyan and his My Step Alliance, continue to enjoy broad support, it is to be how it weather the coming storm, especially with both countries hardening their stance dimming the prospects of a solution to the conflict.

-The writer is a defence and security industry consultant having varied experience working with medium and large companies majorly in European market. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda