The cease fire signed in Bishkek in 1994 has been proof of
establishment of peace for over ten years. However, during the past ten
years, Karabagh has faced the danger of starting war again, many
announcements about war have been made and primarily by Azerbaijan. The
recent announcement was made by Ilham Aliyev himself during an
interview for the Reuters agency on October 6: “When we feel that it is
useless to go through negotiations, then we will liberate our lands.”
At the same time, Aliyev stated that the delay of negotiations
increases the chance of strategic activities. Azerbaijan can not rest
with the fact that their lands are occupied.
With that said, on October 6 the President of Azerbaijan declared
another announcement in favor of war. It is noteworthy that after the
2003 presidential elections, the governing political elite called the
“Nakhijevan clan” has strengthened its propaganda. There is a rise in
revenge. By not responding or making any comments about the rival’s
announcements, both Armenia and the NKR are making it obvious that they
are ready for war. For example, they conducted the long military
training in August.
It turns out that after strengthening its army for the past ten years,
Azerbaijan is now ready for war and is calling out revenge. Armenia and
the NKR are making it obvious that they are ready for war. Basically,
if the Karabagh conflict has not received a peaceful settlement in the
past ten years, there is only one thing left to rely on: weapons. A
question comes up: How come both sides are not restarting military
actions? In order to answer that question, let’s examine the human
resources, quantity of military technological advances, quality and, of
course, potential. So, according to the facts by “The military balance”
monthly, the Azeri army is composed of land forces, united forces of
air and land, as well as naval power. According to official data, the
number of soldiers serving in the Azeri army does not pass the 95,000
limit and the mobilization resources form about 300,000 soldiers. The
total number of the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia consists of
44,870 soldiers and the mobilization resources are consisted of nearly
300,000. Like the Azeri army, the Armenian army has five army corps of
which two (3rd and 5th) are of reserving significance. Both Armenia and
Azerbaijan are putting in a lot of efforts in strengthening the army.
In the U.S. government information/analysis reports, if Azerbaijan had
provided $110 million dollars to the army in 1998, and another $128
million in 2000, during 2004 it had foreseen spending $162 million
dollars on strengthening the army. Armenia, in turn, will provide the
army with $89,000,000 million dollars in 2004 according to the
“Official Report” of the Republic of Armenia. In 2001, Armenia had
provided the army with $66,000,000 million dollars. According to the
facts by “SIPRI” (demilitarization and international security)”
organization, only in 2000 did Armenia grant $370,000,000 million
dollars to the army. Whatever the case, one thing is clear: Armenia and
Azerbaijan enlarge their budgets for the army every year. According to
official data, in case a war strikes, Armenia can come out with 110
tanks in contrast to Azerbaijan’s 220, 14 military planes and
helicopters compared to 63 by Azerbaijan, and 15 similar Armenian
regiments can fight against 22 Azeri motor rifle regiments. The above
mentioned proves that Azerbaijan exceeds Armenia in quantity of
military technologies, but if we take into consideration the fact that
Armenia will be going to war with Nagorno Karabagh if a war starts
again, then the situation falls into place. Still, Azerbaijan exceeds
by quantity.
One question still remains: Why doesn’t Azerbaijan try going for
revenge? We think that the reason for that is the supremacy of Armenian
strategies. This means that if the Azeri restart a war with the NKR,
Armenia can manage to place the 1st and 5th army corps in the Karabagh
war front which will not only allow the stabilization of the situation,
but also, get the chance to achieve strategic supremacy. Today,
Armenians have to agree with the truth: the present day Azerbaijan is
not the Azerbaijan 10=12 years ago. The country is trying to stand on
its own two feet both economically and strategically. The war will be
horrible for both us and the Azeri. So, the analysis of internal
security of both countries allows us to allege that the Karabagh war
will not restart for the next five years due to the fact that no side
has no advantage from the strategic point of view.