Azerbaijani bluster masks military weaknesses

Clare Doyle 12/13/02

As the second shooting incident in one week on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border claimed the life of an officer December 12, influential Azerbaijani media continue implicitly advocating a resumption of the Nagorno-Karabkh war to win back territory lost by Baku almost a decade ago. Some experts caution, however, that calls for a resumption of fighting are a reflection more of mounting frustration over stalled Karabakh negotiations, than a reflection of the country's military preparedness. Some experts say disorganization and low morale in the Azerbaijani armed forces preclude a military offensive.

Before and after November 18, when a Baku State University rector told US Ambassador Ross Wilson that Azerbaijanis might "rise up to liberate their lands," provocative talk on the Nagorno-Karabakh question has clouded public debate. [For background, see the Eurasia Insight archives]. Negotiations to find a political settlement to the Karabakh question are stalemated. However, Azerbaijani President Heidar Aliev has publicly disavowed a resumption of armed military action.

Azerbaijan has a larger military establishment than Armenia and Karabakh Armenians. However, numbers are only part of the picture. Several factors would hinder any military operation in Karabakh, including low morale in the armed forces.

Oksana Antonenko, a research fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, says the Azerbaijani armed forces have certain advantages over the Armenians. These advantages, Antonenko says, include links with NATO forces, particularly in Turkey. She believes their tactics, strategy and training may be better than the Armenians', who have taken Russia as their military model. At the same time, these trained soldiers may lack motivation. "Two thousand six hundred of our soldiers are in prison for evading military service," says Taisiya Gordeeva, chairwoman of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers. "Most of them aren't deserters at all; they're simply ill. And they prefer being in prison to serving in the army."

Gordeeva's organization champions the rights of conscripts, who she says are treated like slaves. She argues that in seeking efficiency, the newly-centralized military command structure has created an authority – the Defense Ministry – which interprets and even violates the country's constitution with impunity. Recent cases that have come to her attention include that of Ruslan Musayev, who entered the army last year in apparent good health, but was discharged blind in August 2002. The army says he has a brain tumor; her organization contends that he was hit on the head in a fight and never received proper treatment. Nobody from the Defense Ministry or the Presidential administration was available to answer Gordeeva's allegations, but Defense Ministry spokesman Ramiz Melikov has previously described her as an "enemy of the state."

However, other reports support Gordeeva's contention that Azerbaijani soldiers may not be fit to fight. According to Human Rights Watch, more than 5,000 soldiers are reported to have died from bullying, accidents, infectious disease and malnutrition since the 1994 ceasefire. Conditions for conscripts are very poor: deaths from sunstroke in summer and exposure or frostbite in winter occur regularly. These conditions leave soldiers restive. The most recent evidence of morale problems came in September 2002, when some 3,000 cadets from the Higher Military Academy staged a walkout to protest against harsh conditions and corruption.

In a war, these demoralized forces would face Armenian troops who, analysts say, may be among the most highly motivated in the world. Armenian defenses in Nagorno-Karabakh are well-established and work within a highly developed infrastructure that receives some money from the Armenian diaspora. (Armenian media has also invoked war in the aftermath of Wilson's visit.) Breaching these defenses would be a challenge for any army.

For Azerbaijan, though, the development of conflict would raise difficult questions about alliances. Ethnic Armenians inside Nagorno-Karabakh can count on help from Armenia proper, which as part of the Commonwealth of Independent States collective defense structure has 3,000 Russian troops stationed on its territory. "The Russian forces in Armenia are supposed to be separate, but it's difficult to see how they could be bystanders in a war," says Oksana Antonenko. She adds that under a Russian-Armenian defense agreement, Russia would provide military-technical support to Armenia's forces if they were involved in a war, which would "basically amount to free weapons."

Azerbaijan, on the other hand, would have severe trouble finding help from outside. Antonenko believes that despite Azerbaijan's military ties with the United States and Turkey, neither country would offer any meaningful assistance. The United States has a large pro-Armenian lobby, while Turkey's hopes for European Union membership would undoubtedly make it reluctant to enter any armed conflict, especially one that abrogates an established negotiation process.

In fact, most analysts argue that the pro-military stance of some ministers and media outlets is part of Azerbaijan's negotiating strategy, designed to hurry the peace process along by demonstrating that President Heidar Aliyev is resisting domestic pressure for war. But such tactics – apart from being demonstrably ineffective – could seriously threaten the Azerbaijani authorities.

Discussion of Nagorno-Karabakh and the possibility of winning it back militarily have become something of a national obsession. It is the rare public forum that does not showcase officials competing to prove their nationalistic credentials by invoking force if Aliyev cannot win the region by negotiation. Those responsible for orchestrating this fervor may believe they control it, but it will be extremely hard to tell when such fervor takes on a life of its own.

Editor's Note: Clare Doyle is a freelance journalist based in Baku.

Posted December 13, 2002 © Eurasianet