General Evaluation of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 (3):

Why Did Azerbaijan Win in the Karabakh War?

Every war looks like a struggle between two armies, but it is not. In wars, all national power elements of the parties come face to face under the guise of armies. For this reason, not only the side whose army is superior, but also the side whose national strength is superior in total, wins victory. A strong army can only be established thanks to the strength of other national power elements.

National power is the sum of the material and spiritual forces used in the war. elements of national power; population (demographic), economic, historical, geographical, psychological and sociological, organizational and administrative power and military power. Some authors include national power; fixed data covering geography, history, population and culture, and potential data consisting of economic, strategic and military capacity. Some authors divide national power into two groups as hard power and soft power.

Although these may seem like very different classifications, they actually describe almost the same things. Because geographical power, population power, economic power, military power, political and social power, which are the most basic elements of national power, are found in the classification of all resources.

In this article, in order to answer the question of why the Azerbaijani army won the Karabakh War, a general evaluation of the aforementioned elements of the National Power elements of the warring parties will be made.

When we look at the national power elements of Azerbaijan and Armenia (including Karabakh), it is seen that Azerbaijan has an obvious superiority in almost every field. For example, the population of Azerbaijan is 10,067,108 as of January 2020, while the population of Armenia is 2,959,000. When the Karabakh Armenian population is added to this, it is seen that the population of Azerbaijan is more than three times the population of Armenia.

Population power has been the most decisive factor in wars throughout history, both in terms of the amount of people that can be recruited and in terms of production power. For this reason, even if only the population power is taken into account, it is understood that Azerbaijan is incomparably superior to Armenia. Moreover, the population of Azerbaijan is an increasing population. For this reason, the ratio of the young population that can be recruited to the general population is quite high.

The population of Armenia is a decreasing population. Due to the bad economic situation of the country, young people went to other countries to work and most of them settled in the countries where they work. This situation has caused the low rate of the young population to be drafted in Armenia.

One of the most important elements among the elements of national power is economic power. Economic power is so important that it is not possible for a country with weak economic power to have strong military power or even most of its other powers. Because every war requires the conscription of large numbers of people. These soldiers need money for their clothes, food and equipment, as well as their weapons. Therefore, it is impossible to fight without money.

Considering the economic powers of Azerbaijan and Armenia; The per capita income of Azerbaijan is 4,794 dollars, while Armenia's is 4,623 dollars. In Karabakh, this figure is around 4,800 dollars. Only in terms of per capita income, it can be thought that there is no significant national income difference between Azerbaijan and Armenia. But this thought is just a deceptive hallucination. Because when we multiply this income by the population of Azerbaijan, it is seen that there is a gap between the total income of Armenia and the total income of Armenia.

Since the power to be mobilized in the war is the total power, this gives Azerbaijan a great advantage. As a matter of fact, when we look at the Gross National Product, while Azerbaijan has a GNP of 78,721,000,000 dollars, this figure is around 12 billion dollars for Armenia. The GNP of Karabakh is 713 million dollars. The difference between Armenia (including Karabakh) and Azerbaijan is more than 6 times. Thanks to this difference, while Azerbaijan is getting the most modern weapons, vehicles and materials to equip its army, Armenia has no power to do so.

For this reason, Armenia had to spend a larger amount of its national income than Azerbaijan in order to maintain its army. While Azerbaijan allocates 4 percent of its national income to defense expenditures, this rate is 4.9 percent in Armenia. However, despite this, the Armenian army could not get rid of being an army dependent on backward weapon technologies, which was far from meeting the needs of the time, as it was seen during the war.

From the point of view of historical power, it can be thought that Armenia has some advantages. While the Armenians have a very old history, the history of Azerbaijan is very new. But this is also deceptive. Because the people of Azerbaijan do not define themselves as Azerbaijani or with the word Azeri, which the Russians and Persians invented to distance them from their national identity, they define themselves as Turks. The history of the Turks, on the other hand, as clearly stated in Chinese sources. 

It dates back to at least 1000 BC. There is no record of the existence of an Armenian State in 1000 BC.

Despite this, Armenians do not hesitate to make such nonsense to claim that Armenians have lived in the region since the period when people were defined as Homosaphiens. But historical records and archaeological finds show that this is not so. For example, one of the oldest states in the region is the one founded by the Albanians. Since the Armenians knew this very well, they tried to scrape the symbols of the Armenian churches by falsifying the Albanian churches in Karabakh.

Moreover, there are hundreds of historical monuments of Azerbaijani Turks in the region. But the same cannot be said for Armenians. Armenians usually find a small old church and present it as a document of their presence in the region. It is unknown that the churches they found were also Armenian churches. According to this point of view of Armenians, America should be the homeland of Armenians. Because there are many Armenian churches in America.

Armenians are aware of the rottenness of their theses. For this reason, they tried to destroy Turkish artifacts as well as Albanian artifacts in the region. As can be seen in the images reflected on the internet after the war, they destroyed the historical mosques of the Turks in the region or turned them into pig styes. They condemned the Turkish bridges to collapse due to disrepair, tried to demolish palaces, castles and other large facilities, but could not do so due to lack of manpower.

Armenians took this falsification up to their tombstones. In most Turkish tribes, tombstones are made of either a statue or a pictured stone. In the 1990s, Armenians spread the rumor that there was gold in the tombstones in the form of ram statues from the ancient Turks, some ignorant people started to break the tombstones on this rumor, but luckily, sane people noticed this game and stopped this destruction.

The weakest side of the Armenians historically is that they have never been able to establish a great state and a deep-rooted civilization in the region. It is known that the region was the land of Saka/Scythians in 800-900 BC. It is known that the Saka/Scythians are of Turkish origin, although the Europeans make all kinds of excuses not to accept them. Their greatest emperor, Alp Er Tunga, is accepted as the origin of the dynastic lineage by the Karakhanids, a Turkish empire. It is clearly stated in ancient Greek sources that the Scythians dominated a large part of Anatolia as well as the Caucasus.

On the other hand, Azerbaijani Turks are descended from Oghuz Turks like Turkey Turks. The Oghuzs are the founding elements of the Great Seljuk Empire, the Anatolian Seljuk State, the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid State of Shah Ismail. In other words, Azerbaijan is historically superior to Armenia.

If a comparison is made in terms of psychological and sociological power, it will be sufficient to look at the perspective of the two sides towards the war. The Azerbaijani people have acted with the awareness that they have been subjected to injustice and genocide since 1994. He is the victim, the Armenians are the aggressors. Moreover, 20 percent of the country's land was lost. For this reason, they have an offensive spirit to get back what they have lost. When the tensions begin, the people's demonstrations and demands for war show this.

Armenia, on the other hand, failed to recognize Karabakh in the international arena and even the Armenian State did not dare to recognize Karabakh. For this reason, Armenians only tried to protect their lands. That's why they focused on defense. As almost all war theorists have pointed out, the offensive is always superior to the defense.

If we look at the organizational and administrative system, we see that Armenia is facing major problems. After gaining its independence, Armenia experienced many political crises, the people and politics; Westerners-Russians, supporters of democracy-supporters of a more authoritarian system are divided under groupings such as the Yerevan Clan-Karabakh Clan.

Since 2008, the more Westernist, Liberal and democratic section started a mass movement against the old generation politicians, and Pashinyan, the candidate of this section, was elected prime minister with 80 percent of the votes. After Pashinyan came to power, he had some old generation politicians arrested. In other words, Armenia is politically and socially divided.

In Azerbaijan, on the other hand, there were political and social turmoil in the beginning, but when Heydar Aliyev came to power, he stabilized the country with an iron fist. The coming to power of Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded him after him, also took place without any problems. Since the living conditions of the people are getting better day by day thanks to oil revenues, most of the people support the regime.

Before and during the war, the people's support for the government, the decision of war and the war is full. In fact, the people forced the government to war with their demonstrations. Volunteers crowding in front of military branches 

Their tails show this.

The elements of national power that we have tried to explain so far are of course very important in terms of winning the war. But in the end, war is an act of violence between two armies. Ultimately, it is the military power that determines the outcome. Military power, on the other hand, is directly related to geography, which is the platform on which the war is fought.

The geography of Karabakh, on which the war took place, is seen at first glance in a structure that provides an advantage to the defender. Because the northern part of the region, with its high mountains, constitutes a structure suitable for defense, almost like a castle wall. Rivers and streams flow from north to south and pose many obstacles, large and small, lined up behind each other for the Azerbaijani army, which must attack in an east-west direction. Because of this disability, streams and rivers are suitable defense lines for Armenians.

The valleys opened by rivers and streams are also a big problem for the Azerbaijani army, which will attack from east to west. These valleys, which form reverse compartments, and the ridges between them, create wearisome problems for the attacker due to the need to constantly take altitude, descend altitude and pass obstacles. Moreover, most of the land is covered with dense trees and oak trees. This situation gives the terrain a great obstacle in terms of attacking with armored units.

The Armenians were not content with this disability of the land and built three defense lines one behind the other. Along these defense lines, which extend parallel to and behind the border from the Iranian border to the Armenian border in the north, wide trenches, positions, shelters, supply depots, mortars and artillery positions have been prepared, and critical places have been fortified with wire barriers and mines. This situation strengthened the defense capacity of the geography.

However, terrain creates vulnerabilities for the defender in some areas. The south of the region is the best example of this. The land is flat and bare in the south. For this reason, it is suitable for an offensive operation with armored units and is difficult to defend. Vegetation is weak in some areas in the eastern parts of the region. In other words, the land is sensitive to attacks from the front and especially from the south.

The location of the contact line also poses a problem for Armenia. The contact line makes an indentation towards Azerbaijan in the shape of a half moon. It is very difficult for this border, which is an internal line, to be properly defended by the armed elements of Karabakh, whose population is only 145 thousand, and the small Armenian army.

The interior line location, however, is advantageous for a small army to counter a large army as it allows for force savings, but the terrain must be suitable for shifting forces from one end to the other by side roads or quickly shifting reserves to where they are needed. For this, there should be side roads and roads leading from reserve positions to all parts of the front, and if possible, there should be a railway for mass transportation.

The region where the First and Second İnönü Battles were fought has these characteristics, and the weak Turkish army thus defeated the strong Greek army twice. However, there is no railway in Karabakh and there are no side roads. Moreover, the fragmented structure of the land makes transportation even more difficult.

These negativities negatively affect the mobility of both parties with tracked and wheeled vehicles. For this reason, armored units have to be used more as a fixed firing platform. Since only short-range targeted attacks and counter-attacks can be made in almost all of the south of Karabakh with armored units, it is not possible for the Armenian army to massively use its large amount of tanks and armored vehicles.

This structure of the land provides an advantage to the side that creates a suitable force structure. In other words, the side that creates a force structure based on the active use of infantry and special units will be more advantageous instead of a large number of tanks and armored vehicles (except in the southern region). This issue is directly related to the military power, which is the most effective and effective element of the National Power in the war.

Military strength is usually measured by the number of troops, weapons and personnel a country has. In addition, the leadership of the armed forces, the experience and education level of the troops, the morale and discipline of the army, and the support of the people to the army are also important elements of military power. In addition, the degree of support of the armed forces by other national power elements, especially the country's economy and technology, also affects the military power.

Military power is organized to show or use force and is shaped according to current threats, national interests to be realized and other elements of national power. Military power is also affected by the developments inside and outside the country, such as the conditions of war in which it is used. Therefore, it may change structurally or in size according to these conditions during the war.

The army of the illegal administration of Nagorno-Karabakh, 

It consists of around 15,000-20,000 officers and privates. The staff consists mostly of Armenians from various parts of Karabakh and Azerbaijan. When we look at the weapons and equipment, it is seen that the army is mainly equipped with Kalashnikov infantry rifles, tanks and heavy artillery, which are the weapons left by the Soviet Army.

Since the Armenian army is actually fighting in Karabakh, even if it is not officially, it is necessary to look at the Armenian army. In addition to weapons from the Soviet era, the Armenian army has the latest Russian air defense missiles, planes, missiles and some other weapons, thanks to its close relations with Russia.

Considering the amount of tanks and armored vehicles destroyed or seized by the Azerbaijani army during the war, it is seen that there are actually quite a lot of tanks and armored vehicles for the small Armenian army. Although this situation may seem like a force multiplier, it is actually an indicator of weakness when considering the disability that the terrain provides in terms of movement and maneuverability.

Especially considering that it is almost impossible to use armored vehicles without air superiority, this weakness is even greater. Moreover, the Azerbaijani army has a large number of SIWs and has planned to use them effectively for air-to-ground attacks.

Armenia's biggest mistake was its over-reliance on numerical superiority in the amount of tanks and armored vehicles. Therefore, they declared that they had determined a new concept defined as "new wars, new lands" before the war, took offensive actions at many points along the front, and developed imaginary discourses that they would go as far as Baku in a new war.

However, there is no logical basis for this excessive self-confidence. Armenians overestimated their easy success in the First Karabakh War and could not wake up from the dream they had in 1994, perhaps they did not want to wake up.

Therefore, Armenians saw the Azerbaijani army as a weak and incapable of war. In fact, there is some justification in these thoughts for 1994. I can easily say this because I have had the opportunity to personally observe it. Because I was assigned to Azerbaijan in 1995 and trained an Azerbaijani division. For this reason, I had the opportunity to get to know the Azerbaijani army of that time.

The scene I saw at that time was as follows, in general terms. Azerbaijani soldiers were very good soldiers, patriotic, obeying orders, loving their country, just like the soldiers in the Turkish army. In fact, they even had some superior features compared to our soldiers, since all of them had at least eight years of training at that time. But everything else was very troublesome.

Vehicles, weapons, supplies, and even food and medicine were inadequate. But these were problems that could somehow be dealt with in a short time. The most important problem was the lack of sufficient officers in the Azerbaijani army. Moreover, most of the officers present did not have the most basic qualifications any officer should have.

Because the vast majority of the officers were non-commissioned officers, non-commissioned officers, and even those who were vigilant and became officers. Some of these officers had earned their rank not through any military school training, but through torpedoes or bribery. For this reason, they did not know how to plan and execute a simple military operation. They were also unable to train their troops.

The troops were left in the hands of the sergeants. Despite everything, the number of officers was very small. For example, a first lieutenant was in charge of the command of the battalion to which the division I trained was attached to. This lieutenant was smart, alert, able to understand what is being said if he listened, and able to establish authority over his subordinates, even if he had to sometimes use coercive measures.

But he was rarely at the head of the unit. Because, like other military personnel, he was suffering from financial difficulties due to the very low salary he received and was dealing with other jobs to support his family. As a result of our long efforts and efforts, we convinced the man to come to his unit regularly every day. After that, we saw that he made very rapid progress.

Most of the officers and non-commissioned officers were in the same position as the first lieutenant because a lieutenant's monthly salary was the same as non-registered sergeants in the Turkish army (around $40 as I recall). I don't think it is necessary to tell you how much the salaries of the lower rank people are.

However, in the regiment we trained, there were also very good officers who graduated from the Russian Military Academy. For example, the regimental commander and the regimental operations and training officer were good officers. They were disciplined, honest and patriotic people. They were working hard to increase the training level of the troop. But impossibilities bound their hands.

The commander of the company I trained was a lieutenant. A year ago, he graduated from the Military Academy, which was opened in Baku with the help and support of the Turkish army. In the days when we started training, two more Junior Lieutenants came to the division. Their education level was not very high, but looking at them made me feel better. Because side 

If I remember correctly, they had taken the basic notion of military service in the Military Academy, where they studied for two or three years, and they were brought up with the consciousness of being an officer. They listened intently to what I said and practiced them as best they could. Moreover, these new officers were not busy with other jobs. They were patriotic and nationalist children. Looking at them, I thought that the Azerbaijani army would one day become stronger and teach the Armenians the lesson they deserve.

As a matter of fact, it turned out that I was right in this thought. But it didn't happen overnight and easily. Because building an army is not an easy thing. It is not easy to train officers. As Atatürk said, an officer is the soul and driving force of an army. If an army fails, it fails because it doesn't have good officers.

According to what the officers and non-commissioned officers I talked to at that time told, Caucasians, and especially Muslim Caucasians, were not recruited to combat missions in the Red Army during the Soviet period, but rather they were employed in administrative duties. The number of officers was deliberately kept low. When the Soviets broke up and gained independence, they experienced the trouble of establishing a new army. As I mentioned above, this problem was still showing itself.

The difficulty of disbanding an army and establishing a new army in its place is troublesome for every state. Especially if there is an important war in this process, it will have very painful consequences. For example, II. Mahmut destroyed the Janissary army and formed a new army in its place, but it took decades for this army to become a warrior army. II. The lands we lost during the reign of Mahmut and the helpless situation faced by the army of Kavalalı Mehmet Ali Pasha, the state's own governor, clearly show this. Azerbaijan has faced a similar problem.

The situation is slightly different for Armenians. In those years, President of Azerbaijan Elchibey expelled the Russian army from his country. But there are still Russian troops in Armenia. With the help of these troops, Armenians won the First Karabakh Battle.

These units remained in Armenia after the war, and even border security was left to the Russian army. This situation gave the Armenians a great advantage in the short run. But in the long run, this has had the opposite effect. Because the Azerbaijani army had to rely only on its own strength, while the Armenian army was getting stronger day by day. The stability provided during the Aliyev period and the economic development provided by oil revenues had a large share in this, but the most important developments emerged in the army itself.

Like Ebulfeyz Elçibey, Haydar Aliyev did not reconcile with the current reality (the actual situation, that is, the occupation of Karabakh by the Armenians), as İlham Aliyev often says, so he did not accept it. Not only did he not accept it, but he also made it accepted that Karabakh is Azerbaijani territory in the international arena and has it documented in international documents. As a result, no state, including Armenia, has officially recognized the terrorist regime established in Karabakh. This situation prevented foreign investment and population from coming to the region.

Azerbaijan, on the other hand, started to establish its army even during the war with the support of Turkey. For this, I think the most important step was the Military Academy and other military schools established in Baku. After that, Azerbaijani army personnel were trained in various units of the Turkish army and joint exercises were held.

In this process, the army structure was also arranged and developed according to the needs of the time. The most important step of this was the formation of Special Forces Command, commando units and other special operations units called Specially Appointed Runes. Because, as we mentioned above, these are the most necessary elements to carry out operations in the difficult conditions of the Karabakh terrain.

Armenia, on the other hand, could not develop its army in the same way after 1994. Because of the self-confidence of being victorious and the overconfidence in Russia, this was not needed. Due to the bad economy of Armenia after 1994, the decrease in the population due to immigration from the country to almost all countries of the world also negatively affected the development of the army.

The most important reason for this is the confidence given by the permanent presence of Russian troops in Armenia. For this reason, the Armenian army did not show a great change in its structure in the 1990s in terms of weapons, vehicles and equipment, and mentality. Mental retardation is even more important than weapon and equipment retardation. Because the most important thing that gives victory in war is the appropriateness of the doctrines and concepts (strategies) applied by the armies.

While the Azerbaijani army followed the developments in war, strategy, weapons and equipment day by day in the world and transformed itself accordingly, the Armenian army could not do this. The most important reason for this is the mentality of Armenians stuck in the Soviet period.

For example, according to Soviet doctrine, defense is made in the form of resistance points. The defense units, which are organized in three tiers, are buried by digging positions and 

these defensive positions are fortified with wire barriers and mines. It is tried to wear down the enemy with support weapons and especially barrage fires made ahead of the position. Tanks are also placed in fixed positions to strengthen these positions.

The reason why the tanks of the Syrian army were used in fixed positions in the Arab-Israeli Wars, contrary to the common usage, is due to this Soviet understanding. In defense, according to Soviet doctrine, tanks are used only for short-range counterattacks. When the enemy is worn out, the strategic reserves behind go into a general counterattack.

Armenia also used tanks and armored units in Karabakh according to this defense approach. The defense system was also arranged according to Soviet doctrine. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world and the wars in parallel with it changed a lot, naturally the Soviet doctrine was very backward.

Armenians; In accordance with the Soviet doctrine, they adopted a strategy of first wearing down the Azerbaijani army by defending and then counterattacking massively with the support of strong artillery, rocket and missile units, but Azerbaijan's gaining air superiority from the beginning of the war and especially in Syria and Libya. By learning lessons from the new use of SİHAs, he became unsure of what to do as a result of using these weapons effectively.

Since the Armenians did not build side roads in accordance with the internal line location and did not deploy their troops accordingly, they could not send the needed troops to the needed region along the entire front. One of the reasons for this is that the Armenians were organized in such a way that they would not give up any region even though they did not have enough troops. However, the situation might have been a little different if they had given up the hard-to-defend plain area in the south and fortified mainly the mountainous region in the north and placed most of their troops in this area. Since it was difficult to defend the flat and bare lands in the south, their detachment of troops here prevented them from being strong in the north.

As a matter of fact, the front of the Armenians, who could not provide a majority of forces anywhere, was split in the south in the first days, and the Azerbaijani army had the opportunity to make an encircling maneuver from the south, while advancing along the Iranian border to the Armenian border, with the troops it brought through this rift hole.

Since the Azerbaijani army attacked along the entire front and gripped the Armenian army from the front and from the north, the troops in this region could not be moved to the south to close the rift. Thus, the Azerbaijani army, which succeeded in cutting the Lachin corridor with its special units entering through the rift in the south, quickly advanced towards the north and by capturing Shusha, it succeeded in breaking the will and determination of the defense of Armenia.

The destruction of Armenian armored vehicles, tanks, air defense systems and most of the support weapons by SİHAs also had a great impact on this. As a result of the use of SİHAs against mass infantry targets, as well as the soldiers who became ineffective with these vehicles, very high casualties were incurred in the Armenian army and Armenia had difficulties in replenishing the missing personnel.

The Armenians had to accept the demands of Azerbaijan and sign a ceasefire agreement, since they could not carry out a successful defense on any front and caused such high casualties that a generation would perish.

As a result, the Azerbaijani army has tried to establish a strong army from the moment it gained its independence, trained, equipped and ready to apply the appropriate doctrines and concepts to reclaim the lost lands. They also trained the army and the youth with an offensive spirit.

The Armenians, on the other hand, have not been able to achieve the same development since 1994 and have fallen behind the Azerbaijan army not only in terms of weapons, vehicles and equipment, but also in terms of mentality and understanding of war. As a result, while the Azerbaijani army, which was better prepared for the war, was victorious, the Armenian army suffered a heavy defeat.