Brief Analysis of The Armenia-Azerbaijan War in Nagorno-Karabakh
Overview
Overview
The war in the former Soviet countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan are occurring over the disputed territories of Nagorno-Karabakh on each other’s borders. They shared decades-long hatred over this disputed territory. It’s likely that Azerbaijan attacked first due to being pushed out of the entire disputed territory in the last war. Turkey is backing Azerbaijan, and Russia a traditional ally of Armenia is supplying arms to both sides due to the recent democratic revolution (Velvet Revolution) in 2018, and Russia disliking this.
Balance of Power
While both countries use tanks, aircraft, APCs, and mostly Russian arms exporters to get those vehicles. Azerbaijan seems to posse superior military, and critical mass due to having better tanks, Turkish supplied drones with missiles, and a high population, and GDP, respectively. Both sides have good air defenses.
Who is Winning?
It’s uncertain if we can with a high degree of accuracy, and precision ascertain who is winning as both sides use propaganda to inflate the other side’s losses and deflate their own losses. It is likely that Armenia is losing due to high Azerbaijan quality, and quantity edge in equips, and better tactics due to higher drone usage by Azerbaijan. It is also likely that Azerbaijan is losing more soldiers due to the hilly terrain and having to go on the offensive vs a defensive Armenia.
Policy Options for the United States
The most direct approach the US can undertake is to send military support, supplies, vehicles, and training to Armenia due to this country a more democratic country than Azerbaijan due to said recent democratic revolution in Armenia if we want a neoliberal institutionalist approach.
A progressive approach is to sanction Turkey, Russia, and Azerbaijan until the war stops, and the two former countries stop sending arms to one or both sides.
A realist approach is to ignore this war. And let people die, and give Ankara (Turkey), and Moscow a bad reputation in helping a bigger country bully a smaller democratic country.
A pure constructivist approach is to force Russia hand in the UN, and hold a UN Security Council meeting, and condemn the aggression of likely Azerbaijan.
My Opinion
If Armenia proper gets invaded, or Azerbaijan wants to ethnically cleanse the majority Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh, a democratic country risk falling into the heads of an autocratic country, and or a large war crime would be occurring. We should send military support in the form of airpower over our bases in Eastern Europe(specifically Romania, and Bulgaria), and send supplies to the Armenian Armed Forces over Georgia a US ally in form of the latest Stinger anti-air missiles, and Javelin anti-tank missile, and take out Azerbaijan drones, tanks, aircraft, and air defenses as well as artillery. We should do so while communicating with Tehran, Moscow, Tbilisi, and Ankara that we don't want to escalate this war.
Nagorno-Karabakh - Wikipedia
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Armed Forces of Armenia - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Azerbaijani Armed Forces - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org