I have been seeing stories about Armenian and Azerbaijani troops blowing each other up over a plot of land for the last several weeks, and I am surprised its not a bigger story than it is. Turkey and Azerbaijan are allied. Armenia is either fighting alone or with Russia. Azerbaijan wants to cleanse the Armenians. The Armenians want their land? Is there a clear good or bad guy in this conflict, or are both parties acting out of self interest? This better not be one of those WWI powder keg things.
Its a little like Kosovo, with Azerbijanis as Serbs and Armenians as Albanians. The idea of the Azerbijani nation originated in Nagorno-Karabakh, but everybody who lives there now is Albanian. Azerbijanis are concerned with the land, Albanians with the people. The conflict has been simmering for decades on and off. In an all out war, Azerbijanis have many more sticks to hit the other side with. This podcast is from last year. Its has a pretty good history of the conflict:
I'll be honest. I've been trying to get to the root of the situation and who is doing more wrong than the other. It is so confusing. I would like Armenia to be correct because I have a number of Armenian friends, some of which are still have close ties to their homeland. But I have idea who is right and who is wrong. There really are two sides to every angle on this story.
I am late to this (a war during covid?!?), and only found out about it in a yt about AI/drone warfare completely transforming modern combat. Posting it here after seeing some fighting clips in the Ukraine thread where there's a romanticized notion of urban warfare carried out by millitiamen w/ a few RPGs and a whole lotta moxy... Israel was on this like Stark was in the first 15 mins of Iron Man. Pretty much a full blown ad platform for their kamikaze drones. This vid/article doesn't say it, but apparently Azerbaijan went through 30 iterations of "loitering munitions" while Armenia deployed a basic type. It's pretty much a missile that, after firing, will fly around, scan the area then hit the target when it appears. FYI, the US is planning to send around 100 of their Switchblades to Ukraine which serve the same purpose. How drones helped Azerbaijan defeat Armenia, and the implications for future modern warfare In episode 618 of #CutTheClutter, ThePrint's Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta highlights military lessons from Armenia-Azerbaijan war, and their significance for India. New Delhi: The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan ended earlier this week, as both sides decided to sign a ceasefire agreement. In episode 618 of #CutTheClutter, ThePrint’s Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta explained that “unlike most wars in recent decades, this war has ended decisively in the sense that there is a victor, that is Azerbaijan, and there is a defeated side, that is Armenia.” Back in the 1990s, it was the Armenians who had trumped Azerbaijan. But decades later the tables turned, in a way that could have severe implications on modern warfare. “(This) is actually the first war in the history of modern warfare that has been won almost entirely on the strength of drone warfare,” Gupta noted. The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan started on 27 September, over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. While Armenia only fought with tanks, artillery and air defence systems, Azerbaijan relied heavily on drones, specifically the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 and the Israeli-made Kamikaze drones. The two drones can carry bombs of up to 55 kg and 15 kg respectively. “These are drones that are expensive, but very useful when it comes to targeting your adversaries, missile batteries particularly, your adversaries’ air defence radars, because all of those emit radiation,” Gupta said. Also read: What’s Nagorno-Karabakh and why it’s led to clashes between Armenia & Azerbaijan after 30 yrs How Azerbaijan won Gupta went onto refer to two articles to illustrate how this war would change the future of warfare. One, in The Washington Post, titled ‘Azerbaijan’s drones owned the battlefield in Nagorno-Karabakh — and showed future of warfare’, and the second, published in a military warfare blog, Oryx, titled ‘The Fight For Nagorno-Karabakh: Documenting Losses on The Sides Of Armenia and Azerbaijan’. The Oryx article tallied pictures and videos to establish how much equipment had been lost by both sides. The forces of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the ethnic Armenians who had been living in the disputed region, lost 185 tanks, 45 armoured fighting vehicles, 44 infantry fighting vehicles, 147 towed artillery guns, 19 self-propelled artillery, 72 multi-barrel rocket launchers and 12 radars. Azerbaijan’s losses were only one-sixth of this. “It’s as if armoured vehicles or tanks now are there for target practice if you lack the ability to handle drone attacks. If you have drone superiority, you don’t get tanks to fight tanks anyway,” Gupta said, illustrating why this was uneven warfare. He further explained Azerbaijan’s “viciously clever tactics”, which involved baiting the Armenians using a repurposed biplane that dates back to 1947. “They (Azerbaijan) took a biplane with a single propeller engine and converted it into unmanned single-use drones, which were sent to the Armenian defences, which thought this was a big threat coming,” Gupta added. The Armenians activated their radars and missile batteries, which disclosed their positions. The Azerbaijan drone that had been encircling the area then came in and destroyed them. “That’s how almost the entire Armenian air defence and missile defence, surface-to-air missile defence was taken out,” Gupta said. Also read: Armenia-Azerbaijan ceasefire broken again hours after truce Advantage drone Explaining the advantages that a drone provides, Gupta pointed out how it can debilitate a force by having a devastating effect on the morale of soldiers “because they do not know what will come and hit them”. “Now, it’s very scary because you don’t know — you’re sitting on the ground, you are in a tank, and you don’t know which fellow is loitering over you someplace, and will pick up your electronic signatures or your heat signatures and come drop bombs on you,” he said. Gupta quoted an exasperated speech by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who said the defeat was unavoidable due to the “deep analysis of the military situation”. “An army sitting on the ground and air force with very expensive jets having pilots cannot fight a rival that is very good with the use of drones,” Gupta said, elaborating what the Armenian PM had stated. The implications for India Another important factor that Gupta laid emphasis on was that the drones had been acquired from Turkey. “Now these drones are very controversial, because the Turks designed these and built these after the Americans and NATO put sanctions keeping the Turkish from buying drones from them,” Gupta said. Canada had also stopped exporting electronic parts that were being used by Turkey to build drones. At the heart of the issue was the devastation that had been caused by the drones in the conflicts in Syria and Libya. As the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan proved, Turkey developed the capability to build its own drones, which could affect India. Gupta explained: “Turkey and Pakistan are now very close allies. Turkey will not give Pakistan drones for free because its economy is a mess… But if one gets very desperate, the Pakistanis can find the money. So India has to work on the presumption that Pakistan has access to these.” In conclusion, Gupta quoted researcher Franz-Stefan Gady’s remarks that had been highlighted in the aforementioned Washington Post article. “Now, he (Gady) says that it’s not as if the tanks and armoured vehicles will become obsolete… but Nagorno-Karabakh has shown the ever-increasing importance of using armed drones along with other weapons and highly trained ground forces, and the exponentially more devastating consequences of failing to do so in future wars,” said Gupta.
This battle hasn't gotten a lot of attention because it's very remote to the US and also because it has been going on since the collapse of the Soviet Union. I know people who are both Armenia and Azerbaijani through Judo and this is one conflict I personally wouldn't want to take sides in. Trying to look at it dispassionately it's still hard to say there is a good guy here. This conflict though is one of those that could be affected by the Ukrainian conflict and lead to a even wider conflict. The Russians have supported the Armenians and in some of their recent propaganda listed Karabach as place Ethnic Russians fleeing Ukraine could go to. At the same time many Russians who want to get out of Russia to avoid sanctions and from under Putin's thumb have gone to Azerbaijan. Turkey has supported Azerbaijan and sees Muslim countries like Azerbaijan in the former Soviet Union as natural allies and a way to gain more influence in the region. Also Turkey has had a very long and troubled history with Armenia including the genocide of Armenians at the end of WWI which is still officially not recognized in Turkey and a sore point between Turkey and other countries that do recognize the genocide.
TI(also)L, Azerbaijan is among the most friendliest Muslim ally of Israel, and is their largest oil supplier,
there was a time when it seemed like Trump would finally make the US recognize the Armenian genocide.
Good one. Although someone from Nagorno Karabakh could actually claim to be both Armenian and Azerbaijani.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/24/biden-recognizes-armenian-genocide-484539 Biden recognizes Armenian genocide “The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide,” the president said in a statement. President Joe Biden on Saturday recognized the Armenian genocide, fulfilling a campaign promise and taking a step that his recent predecessors have avoided while in office. Biden’s designation, which coincided with Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, signals the president’s desire to prioritize human rights despite potential fallout in the U.S. relationship with Turkey. It comes 106 years after the beginning of the mass deportation of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, which led to the deaths of up to 1.5 million people. “The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide,” Biden said in a statement Saturday. the Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the conversation. Erdogan has been adamant in not referring to the World War I-era events as genocide, and in 2019, Erdogan spokesperson Fahrettin Altun said any such recognition would “endanger the future of [U.S.-Turkish] bilateral relations.” In 2014, the Turkish president called the events “inhumane.” Turkey's foreign ministry quickly denounced Biden's statement Saturday, saying it doesn't have "a scholarly or legal basis." "The US President's statement will not yield any results other than polarizing the nations and hindering peace and stability in our region," the country's foreign ministry said in a statement. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hailed the move, writing in a letter to Biden that his "principled position ... is a powerful step towards the restoration of truth and historical justice, invaluable support to the descendants of the victims of the Armenian genocide." Over decades, lawmakers in Congress have been willing to recognize the genocide but sitting presidents historically have not. In a statement to mark the day of remembrance last year, Biden said he was “proud” of his role in the Senate to recognize the Armenian genocide and his endorsement of 2019 resolutions in both chambers of Congress that did the same. In recent weeks, lawmakers have been increasingly vocal about their desire for Biden to take this step. On Wednesday, more than 100 representatives called on Biden to "clearly and directly recognize the Armenian Genocide." Last month, 38 senators signed on to a letter that also urged Biden to classify the events as genocide. Prominent Democrats backed Biden's decision Saturday, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). "Our hearts are full of joy that President Biden has taken the historic step of joining Congress with formal recognition on Armenian Genocide Day," Pelosi said in a statement Saturday. "History teaches us that if we ignore its darkest chapters, we are destined to witness the horrors of the past be repeated." Ocasio-Cortez called the move "long overdue" in a tweet Saturday and said that she hopes it will bring peace to people affected by it. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) thanked Biden on Twitter for "speaking truth to power." "He has cast aside decades of shameful silence and half-truths, and the broken promises of so many of his predecessors, and spoken truth to power," Schiff said in a statement. Past sitting U.S. presidents have danced around the issue, not wanting to disturb relations between the NATO allies. As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama pledged to recognize the Armenian genocide if elected, although his administration ultimately did not do so — a decision his ambassador to the U.N. ultimately expressed remorse for in 2018. President Donald Trump declined to classify the Armenian genocide as such, despite both chambers of Congress overwhelmingly passing resolutions to do so in 2019. Instead, Trump called it “one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century.” In 1981, President Ronald Reagan referenced “the genocide of the Armenians” in a statement that remembered victims of the Holocaust.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/26/world/ukraine-russia-war#azerbaijan-armenia-nagorno-karabakh With Russia distracted, Azerbaijan moves troops into disputed region where it fought with Armenia. As the grinding war in Ukraine enters its second month, tensions flared in another former Soviet region, where Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war in 2020, as Azerbaijani troops moved into territory patrolled by Russian peacekeepers, Moscow said in a statement on Saturday. The Russian defense ministry said that the Azerbaijani forces had launched four drone strikes against the army of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed mountain enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but claims independence and is closely allied with Armenia. The Azerbaijani forces installed a surveillance post, the Russian ministry said, adding that it had called for troops to be withdrawn from the area. The ministry said the events had occurred on Thursday and Friday. Azerbaijan went to war and emerged victorious over Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of 2020, recapturing some of the territory it had lost during a war that followed the Soviet collapse in the early 1990s. Russia did not take sides in that fight, but President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia brokered an agreement to end the conflict. He also sent about 2,000 peacekeeping troops to the area, demonstrating Russia’s role as a potent arbiter in the Caucasus region, which has been plagued by conflicts and volatility. But with Mr. Putin preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, the most audacious foreign policy move of his 21-year tenure at the helm of Russia, foreign policy experts said other powers in the region might treat the situation as a window of opportunity. Azerbaijan’s defense ministry disputed Moscow’s version of events. The ministry said in a statement that “illegal” Armenian armed units attempted an act of sabotage but had to retreat after “immediate measures” were applied. The statement reiterated Azerbaijan’s commitment to a three-way deal it signed with Armenia and Russia in November 2020 to end the military conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region after more than a month of bloodshed. Arayik Arutyunyan, the head of the Nagorno-Karabakh republic, said he had declared martial law, without mentioning Azerbaijan and specifying the reasons. In a meeting with military attachés, Levon Ayvazyan, an Armenian military official, accused Azerbaijan of violating previous agreements, saying that so far “negotiations have not yielded positive results.” On Friday, Jalina Porter, deputy spokeswoman at the U.S. State Department, said that the United States was “deeply concerned about the movement of Azerbaijani troops in Nagorno-Karabakh.” In response, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said such an entity did not exist and that Azerbaijan “is on its sovereign territories.”
Russia brokered the last peace agreement to give Armenia some breathing space. That won't happen again anytime soon.
