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Total mobilization, can open war come?
It appears that a war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and clashes between the forces of the two countries continued until this afternoon.
According to the latest news, 31 soldiers from the internationally unrecognized Republic of Arcah, which controlled the area, were killed in clashes with Azerbaijani soldiers, and the Azeris have reported 26 civilian casualties killed by Armenian artillery shells. According to the municipality of arcah even 4 Azerbaijani helicopters and 36 armored fighting vehicles were destroyed, the Azeris acknowledged the loss of a helicopter. In return, however, they claimed that 12 Armenian air defense systems had been destroyed and Azerbaijani soldiers also gained control over several areas inhabited by Armenians.
Both parties blame the other for the start of the clashes and both countries have ordered a total mobilization, it seems that war is inevitable.
Turkey, which has long fueled ethnic and religious conflict with the Armenians, has already assured Azerbaijan of its support, while Russia, which has military bases in Armenia, has called for an immediate ceasefire. The international community, including the UN, the EU, the United States and even Iran, have condemned the violence and called for an immediate ceasefire. Iran has even offered to mediate between the two countries.
Investors, by the way, are not happy that while the entire international community has condemned the violence, Turkey wants to plunge into another regional war, the Turkish lira has plummeted:
Decades of conflict have escalated
The debate on the governance of the Nagorno-Karabakh region has not been resolved for decades:
Although internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, it has de facto been under Armenian rule since the late 1980s and early 1990s.
In 1988, near the collapse of the Soviet Union, Several years of bloody ethnic conflict began in the region. between the Azeris and the Armenians, who eventually (temporarily) It ended in 1994 with the proclamation of the Republic of Arcah. The Republic of Arcah, although it has declared its own independence, is registered by the UN as part of Azerbaijan.
The Nagorno-Karabakh region
- about 4400 square kilometers,
- approximately 99% of the population of 140,000 is Armenian,
- During the 1988-1994 conflict, the area was significantly mined and to this day thousands of sharpened mines pose a threat to the population.
- It has administration, means of payment and independent forces.
There have been several minor clashes in the region in recent years., but none reached full mobilization. More recently, an Armenian-Azerbaijani clash on the demarcation line claimed 16 lives in July, followed by mass protests in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The crowd demanded war at the time, unfortunately it looks like they will get it now.
Unfortunately, due to the July protests and the widespread support of the Azerbaijani population for the war, the current conflict is less likely to exhaust itself in a few minor clashes and one or two artillery strikes.
The Armenian army is much smaller, but the terrain favors them.
Although the Republic of Arcah has around 20-25 thousand active soldiers and 20-30 thousand reservists, It can certainly count on the support of Armenia, which has already mobilized to confront the Azeris for maintaining Armenian rule in the region.
From a military point of view in various aspects Azerbaijan the tongue of the scales leans towards, as know a more technologically advanced and numerically larger army against the Armenians. While Armenia is equipped almost exclusively with Soviet and old Russian military equipment, Azerbaijan has more modern Turkish, Israeli, British and American equipment in addition to Soviet equipment, and even has its own military industry.
However, what brings the water to the mills of the Azeris is that they have to wage an essentially offensive war on rocky and mountainous terrain, where their combat vehicles can be easily liquidated even by hidden and minimally equipped infantry troops.
The terrain was also one of the main reasons why Azerbaijan also essentially lost the war of the early 1990s.
Based on Global Firepower data, we also take a look at numerical power relationships. You can see that Armenia is not doing well on this issue, even if we list the 20,000 soldiers of the Republic of Arcah here.
However, we hope that in the end there will be no real war and that international actors will be able to find a meaningful solution to the decades-long conflict, but there is not much chance of that, depending on the current position.
Sources used: BBC, Wikipedia, Voice of America, Global Firepower, Anadolou.
Cover image: Getty Images
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