General Evaluation of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 (2)

Comments on War

The Second Karabakh War, which took place in the last months of 2020 between the armies of Azerbaijan and Armenia, has been carefully followed in Turkey as well as all over the world. Due to the ethnic, historical and cultural kinship with the Azerbaijani Turks, every success of Azerbaijan in this war was met with as much happiness and excitement in Turkey as in Azerbaijan. As such, almost all television channels carried all the developments on their screens during the war. Not only that, many "experts", some of whom are academics and some of whom are retired soldiers, appeared on various channels and made comments and evaluations about both the battles that took place and the entire war.

I respect everyone's opinions, knowledge and academic/military career, but I can't help but say that there are some comments that are incompatible with the military literature in these programs. In fact, mistakes were made in some very basic concepts related to the strategies and doctrines applied. These erroneous assessments were accepted by the public as correct, and some of these erroneous uses were also carried to Azerbaijan by the Azerbaijani media. As a result, the same wrong definitions were repeated from the mouths of some Azerbaijani officials.

The claim that Azerbaijan uses the Turan Tactic is the best example of this. Those who know what this strategy is that the armies of other steppe nations such as the Turks and Mongols have used throughout history know that the strategy used by the Azerbaijani army in Karabakh has nothing to do with it. The Turan Tactic is based on deceiving the enemy and destroying them by pulling on an ambush position, thanks to its high mobility and maneuverability. Even this simple definition is enough to understand that the strategy applied by the Azerbaijani army in the Second Karabakh War was a very different strategy from the Turan Tactic.

Since the first day of the war, I tried to follow the developments day by day through the written and visual media and the internet. But at that time, I did not have the opportunity to write my own thoughts on this subject. Now, as far as I have followed from open sources, I will try to make evaluations about the general war and the strategy applied without going into the details of the battles that took place.

Fundamentals of the Strategy Implemented by the Azerbaijan Army

Strategy has three basic elements in the classical sense. These; force, space and time. What is meant by the term space is the geography on which the war takes place. When we look at the region occupied by the Armenians in 1992-94, the first thing that draws attention is that the north of the region is covered with high mountains, and these mountains descend as one goes south, turning into very flat and wide plains in the areas close to the Iranian border. Although the flat sections in the south and the east of the region are bare, it is seen that a large part of the land is covered with oaks and various trees as one goes to the north and west.

As such, the geography in question is not very suitable for attacking with armored and mechanized infantry units, except for the southern and eastern parts. Because high and steep mountains, streams flowing from north to south and thick oaks are obstacles for an operation to be carried out with armored and mechanized troops. In addition, since the road network is limited in mountainous areas and most of the existing roads are mined, it is not possible for mechanized and tactical wheeled vehicles to progress rapidly on these roads. For this reason, it is imperative for the attacking side to use mainly infantry and especially qualified units such as commandos and special forces.

Like the general structure of the geography, the form of the contact line between the Armenian forces and the Azerbaijani army before the war also has some unique features. This line is in the form of a semicircle entering from Armenia towards Azerbaijan. According to this line, Armenians are in the position of domestic line. That is, it is in the inner part of the semicircle. The Azerbaijani army, on the other hand, is in the outer line position, that is, outside the semicircle.

Looking at the examples of war history, an army that is in the defense position in the interior line should have relatively weak units in the line of contact, establish its defense line at depth by basing it on suitable terrain obstacles, and keep its reserves slightly behind the midpoint of the line formed when the ends of the semicircle are joined. Because only in this way can a measure be taken against the risk of siege of defense positions and reserves against concentric attacks by the opposing side from both flanks.

Arranged in this way, the internal line position is an advantageous position for weak armies that use this location appropriately to conduct defensive operations against strong armies. Only side roads, especially railways, must be found along the front so that troops can be moved quickly from one wing to the other, that satisfies these conditions There are dozens of combat examples showing that defense can be successfully performed in a geography. For example, in the National Struggle, the Turkish army was in the domestic line position in the 1st and 2nd Battles of İnönü and the Battle of Sakarya, and won these battles.

In order to gain a defensive victory in the interior line position, strong reserves must be kept and the enemy forces fighting at a distance from each other on the two wings of the front must be neutralized one by one and in turn. After success in one wing, the forces will be quickly shifted to the other wing and a center of gravity will be created here, so it is imperative to have units with high mobility.

The situation is slightly different for an attacking army that is in the outer line position. The attacking army must attack concentrically from both flanks in the central direction of the semicircle, while attacking from the front with relatively weak forces but large enough to grasp the enemy firmly and prevent him from retreating or shifting forces to other areas. The attacking army, if it is far superior to the defender, can reserve strong reserves for both groups attacking from both sides. If the attacker's relative combat power is not very high, he will gather a superior force on the promising flank and place his reserves in this area. That is, splitting and siege are made from a single wing.

The best example of this is the Great Offensive. During the Great Offensive, the Greek army was in a domestic line position like the Armenian army in Karabakh. The relative combat power of the Turkish army is not superior to the Greek army. For this reason, the Turkish army attacked the front of the Greek army with the 1st Army and kept it in its position, while it attacked with weak forces in the north but with very large forces in the south and kept a corps in the southern region as a reserve. Thus, he broke through the front from the south and managed to hang behind the Greek army.

The most important point in the attack of the army in the outer line position is to make the attack with the majority of the force towards the main supply route behind the enemy and to cut this route as soon as possible. Let's try to explain the importance of this with an example that everyone can understand. Armies are like babies in the womb, though not as cute as they are. Just as the survival, development and growth of a baby is completely dependent on the cord that connects with the mother, the armies' ability to fight and win depends on the main supply routes that connect them with the depths of the country. For this reason, an army whose main supply route is cut off is helpless and unable to fight like a baby whose cord has been cut.

The main supply route for the Armenian army is the Lachin Corridor, which reaches the front at the shortest distance from Armenia. There is another supply route from Armenia that runs through the north of the region, but this route is both narrower and longer and winding. Therefore, it is not possible to make sufficient amount of supply and resupply in this way, and it is not possible to make the replenishment and reconstitution on time.

This position of the Armenians is similar to the position of the Greek army in the Great Offensive. In the Great Offensive, the Greek army also has two supply routes. One is the İzmir-Uşak-Afyon road and the other is the Bandırma-Bursa-Eskişehir road. The first route is more important than the other route, as it allows rapid replenishment and replenishment through the islands located very close to the shore. Moreover, there is a railway on this road. In other words, a large amount of supplies and reconciliation personnel brought to Izmir can be quickly moved to the front. For this reason, the Greek army prepared its defense to withstand this road and deployed most of its forces in the south.

The route in the north requires the ships to pass through the Dardanelles Strait and cover a very long way up to Bandırma. Moreover, on this road, there is only a railway line between Bandırma and Bursa. There is no railway line between Bursa and Eskişehir. In other words, it is more difficult, longer lasting and problematic to transport supplies and reconstitution personnel to the front. For this reason, the Greeks deployed only one corps in the north. The same is true for the Armenian army in Karabakh. The Armenians, too, have to deploy their armed forces in such a way that they can resist an attack that may come from the front and from the south.

In the light of this information, it is possible to determine the main lines of the attack plan for someone who understands a little about military service. Just like in the Great Offensive, the Azerbaijani army should detect the Armenians from the front, hold off with the commando and special forces units in the region covered with high mountains, which is not suitable for an attack with armored units in the north, and attack from the south with the center of gravity. The most important thing for the forces in the south to do is to break through the front quickly and cut this road by reaching the Laçin Corridor. The Azerbaijani army has done the same.

In other words, the Azerbaijani army did not use the Turanian Tactic in Karabakh, but a strategy based on classical encirclement maneuvers as the Turkish army successfully implemented in the Great Offensive, has applied it. The same strategy has been used successfully by many armies such as the Turkish armies, Annibal's Carthaginian army, the Roman army, Napoleon's republican army and the Prussian army under Moltke. The main purpose of this strategy is to reach the rear of the enemy with siege maneuvers, to destroy the enemy army with a short-term and decisive battle after besieging the enemy and to gain victory quickly.

By realizing this purpose, the Azerbaijani army gained an undisputed victory in a short period of 44 days and thus reached its national goals. But it would not be a correct approach to say that the battles of the Azerbaijani army are an ordinary practice of classical warfare and that the strategy it implements is a conventional strategy based on the concept of maneuver. Of course, there were some very important practices that the Azerbaijani army brought to the world war history. Let's talk about them briefly.

Comparison of Two Armies and Effective Practices in War

During the war, the parties accused each other of using some elements of the Hybrid War. While Azerbaijan accused Armenia of using PKK militants and volunteers from all over the world, Armenians accused Azerbaijan of using Syrian militants and Pakistani volunteers. Since it is not within the scope of this article to question the accuracy or falsity of these claims, this issue will not be discussed. What I mean by the new techniques, tactics and doctrines that I say are applied here; different applications of ground-air battles, the way joint operations are implemented, and the effective use of special operations in the war.

When I say this, I do not mean the Armenian army. As far as I can see, the Armenian army is not only in terms of weapons, equipment and materials; In terms of mentality, it could not overcome the war understanding of the Soviet Union army (Red Army), which was valid in the 1990s, and lagged far behind the Azerbaijan army. The defense plan prepared by the Armenians bears the basic features of a three-stage defense understanding based on the arrangement of points of resistance taught to us in the Soviet doctrine classes during my education at the Army War College between 2001 and 2003. Their armies were also organized, equipped and armed according to the concept of mass and offensive use of armored units, which was dominant in the classical Soviet army structures and missed the dreams of the West at that time, but is now outdated.

The Azerbaijani army, on the other hand, followed the military developments after 1994, even the new doctrines and concepts implemented by the armies (especially the Turkish army) in the Syrian and Libyan civil wars that took place very recently, and accordingly, both in terms of organization, equipment and armament, and doctrine. He has developed himself very well in terms of concepts and concepts. As a result, from the very first day of the war, it seized air superiority and transformed air superiority into air dominance by destroying the Armenian air defense system with the intense use of SİHAs and drones. Thus, it was the party that shaped the environment during the war.

Fighting with classical armies against the side that provides air superiority and even air dominance in today's wars is almost like suicide. Moreover, the Azerbaijani army has effectively used SİHAs and drones against all kinds of weapons and vehicles belonging to Armenia, especially tanks. In addition, it broke the will and determination of the Armenian army by using it against the infantry in the positions and in the open. As a result, the belief in victory disappeared in the minds of the Armenian soldiers, and his eyes were on safer places where he could retreat far behind the Azerbaijani soldiers and even flee.

The active use of special forces and special operations units, which they call special forces, especially in oak and mountainous regions, had a great impact on this. In any case, the Armenian soldiers, who looked too far ahead for fear of being hit by SİHAs or drones, were psychologically devastated when faced with the raids of the Azerbaijani special forces. Thus, the Armenian army was defeated first in the minds of the soldiers.

The operations carried out by the Azerbaijani special forces, which reached the Lachin corridor and destroyed the Armenian convoys and their vehicles, which were engaged in supply and reintegration activities, caused the Armenian resistance to be completely broken. Because very few armies with their backs can fight to the end with the enemy in front of them. There are rare examples of this in history, such as the Battle of Pleven.

Moreover, the Russians have a traumatic fear of siege compared to many other armies, and the Armenians learned to fight from the Russian army. For this reason, Armenians are also traumatically afraid of being surrounded. For example, in 1918, when the Russians withdrew from Eastern Anatolia and the region came under the control of Armenians, the Ottoman army always attacked the Armenians with encircling maneuvers, has been successful every time.

The best example of this was seen in the battles around Kars. Kars Castle was captured by the Ottoman army in 1918 and by the Turkish Grand National Assembly under the command of Kazım Karabekir in 1920, in the same way, easily and in a short time. The Turkish troops, with their center of gravity, did not turn to the city center of Kars, but to the road and railway connecting Kars to Armenia, and the Armenians, seeing this, quickly retreated instead of defending the city to the end. It is understood that a similar situation is experienced in Karabakh.

The most important stage in the withdrawal of the Armenians from the war was the capture of the city of Shusha by the Azerbaijani army. After the capture of Shusha by the Azerbaijani special forces from a steep region that the Armenians did not expect, the Armenians left the city. Shusha is an important strategic location on the road called Lachin corridor. For this reason, the capture of Shusha created the danger of not only cutting back the Armenian forces in the city, but also cutting off the connection of Khankendi, which was the center of the so-called Armenian administration, with Armenia. Therefore, Armenians had to sign the ceasefire agreement by accepting defeat on November 10, 2020.

(In the third part, the reasons for the victory of the Azerbaijani army in a short time will be examined.)