The Nagorno-Karabakh Seesaw – an Unstable Equilibrium

Setting the Stage

This little area of a mere 1700 square miles nestled in the South Caucasus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and forming the south eastern stretch of the Lesser Caucasus mountain range has seen war, destruction and bloodshed far disproportionate to its size.^[1] The so called Nagorno-Karabakh enclave or the Republic of Artsakh, has changed ownership several times as if it were a see-saw between the vanquished and the victorious.^[2]

This work digs only as far as the recent history of this war-cursed land and there from takes the reader all the way up to the current scenario, ending with some thoughts on the poser– where the Nagorno-Karabakh seesaw lies?

Stalin’s Dictate - a Wrong Start

The root of all the ills that have plagued this land from ancient times is the fact that the population of Nagorno-Karabakh is majority Armenian, but for a Century or more, following the Stalin’s dictate, it had been established as an enclave in Azerbaijan. Both countries claim it as their territory and have fought several wars over the same. Recent timeline relevant to this work is briefly stated:-^[3]

• Way back in the 19th Century (1813) this region was annexed by Russia from Persia and integrated as a part of Russian Empire (history prior to that not covered).
• All along the 19th Century and right upto the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of Oct 2017, this land existed as an Armenian majority ( 57% to 43%) sitting in the Azeri (implying Azerbaijan) portion of the erstwhile USSR.
• As stated, post the revolution and the end of World War 1 and following the dictate of Stalin (divide and rule policy), Nagorno-Karabakh region in spite of being an Armenian majority area was established as a minority enclave in Azerbaijan referred to as Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, also referred to as Artsakh or the Republic of Artsakh or the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.^[4]
• Only time knew that this blunder of a dictator for establishing a 95% Armenian area as an autonomous enclave in an Azeri majority land will blow up one day. Azeris are Shia Muslim Azerbaijani Turks living mainly in Azerbaijan.
• Come the late eighties and the fissures in the USSR monolith were showing up as fault lines. Sensing the things to come the regional legislature of Karabakh Autonomous Oblast passed a resolution indicating their desire to join Armenia. There were violent protest marches and clashes. The reasons or the same need no explanation, ethno-nationalism being the main driver. This sowed the seeds of friction between the native Armenians and the Azeri’s on whose territory the enclave was assigned for nearly a Century.
• Things came to a pass with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 which ushered two independent countries with an unsettled enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh which though internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan but populated and governed by ethnic Armenians proclaimed independence autonomously.
• The first clashes occurred between the two neighbours in 1993-94. Armenia weighed heavy in this round capturing some 20% of the enclave from Azeri’s control. There were huge casualties on both sides (some 30000). The round ended with a cease fire brokered by Russia (Bishkek Protocol- not detailed further) with Armenia in control of some 14% of the enclave.
• Even after the ceasefire, sporadic clashes continued between the two neighbours and other fringe elements.
• The next major clash happened on 02 Apr 2016 when Armenia alleged a major attack by Azerbaijan using ground and air power. In the four day war that remained inconclusive, Azerbaijan claimed victory by proclaiming to have captured 8-20 square kilometre of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave thus shifting the line of contact frozen in 1994 ceasefire for the first time.
• Armenia claimed that it has successfully repelled the Azerbaijani offensive. While some analysts claimed that Azerbaijan suffered huge casualties for regaining a small portion of the enclave, some others pointed to the Azeri high of managing to overturn a ‘sense of defeat’ suffered in 1994.^[5]
• The peace deal brokered by Russia famously established the Lachin Corridor which allowed Armenia to connect with Nagorno-Karabakh through the land corridor.^[6]

Recent Wars- New Outcomes

Only time knew that Lachin Corridor would become the trigger for the next duel, as the perpetual adversaries did all to make it happen. There were Azeri allegations of Armenia, sending arms and explosives to the Nagorno which led to the blocking of the corridor by the latter. It initially started with, Azerbaijan increasing the number of check posts on the Corridor and latter blocking all Armenian movement on the same.

Probably in a bid to do a 2016, and put an end to the Armenian designs of arming the enclave, Azerbaijan launched an offensive 27 Sept 2020. This war brought a major victory to Azerbaijan.

What Turned the Tide for Azerbaijan

This war will go down in the history as a conflict where for the first time, the drone power weighed in heavily in turning the tide in favour of Azerbaijan.

In essence, Azerbaijan employed two types of drones in predominant numbers. These were – Turkish Bayraktar TB2 and the Israeli Horop drone. It is from this war onwards that the drone power emerged as a prominent platform for the prosecution of the air operations. A word about these machines that in a way ushered a new phase of drone warfare is briefly stated:-

• Bayractar is a very strong machine. Its eyes and years include the Active Electronic Scan Array (AESA) Radar. AESA radars besides having a high resolution capability (a capability to see two nearby targets separately) are also capable of detecting very small targets. Besides the radar, the drone has alternate capability of surveillance as well in terms of electro-optical, IR or laser-based homing detection systems.
• Bayractar warhead is very strong. It includes solid-fuelled long range anti-tank missiles ( L-UMTAS) , Cirit laser-guided anti-armour and anti-personal missile and laser-guided munitions (MAM-C and MAM-L) with precise accuracy and a range of 8-14 km. Bayractar can fly high ( 27000 ft) for long hours ( 27 hrs) and can act like a loitering ammunition that lies in wait for its prey.^[7]
• Horop (Harpy) is a versatile Israeli machine capable of acting as loitering ammunition. Horop is designed to kill sensors (radars) emitting microwave energy. Such killings make air defence systems blind and rudderless in what is termed as SEAD (suppression of enemy air defence) missions.

Here are some points related to drone strikes:-^[8]

• The drone strikes from Azerbaijan were responsible for causing disproportionate damage to the Armenian side.

• The Armenian air defences actually were founding wanting in countering the drone threat. Why? Here is an attempt to answer this poser:-
• Armenian air defence weapons were largely of Russian origin. That said, they had the complete spectrum- 23mm towed and self-propelled auto cannons, short range SAMs (Strela 10M range – 5 km, OSA AK – range 10 km), medium range SAMs (SAM 6 Kvadrat range 25 km, BuK M2 range 30 km, upgraded Pechoras range 35 km and old vintage Ganef SAM system range 55 Km) and Long range anti-ballistic missile defence system S 300 range 300 km.^[9]
• While the above weapons pack makes a very formidable punch it lacks the type of specific weaponry that is required to deal with small drone threat of the type of Bayractar and Horop.
• The weapon pack detailed above is a vintage pack most suited to counter the conventional air threat of strike aircrafts, attack helicopters, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles and more; it cannot effectively counter the small drone threat. Why? Here is the answer…
• Such drones due to their small size have a very poor visibility to the conventional radars. The measure of this visibility is depicted in terms of Radar Cross Section or RCS. While the RCS of strike aircrafts ranges between0.5-5 M2 (J10 -0.5 M2, SU 35 3 M2, Mig 21 3 m2 F16 -5m2, F16-C 1.2m2), the same for a small drone is in the region of 0.2-0.5M2. Drones like Bayractar and Horop thus remained invisible to most of the conventional radars of the Armenian air defence force.
• Also trying to kill small drones by launching SAMs is not only killing a fly with a sledge hammer, the cost of kill is highly skewed in the favour of the attacker. Such a threat requires to be detected by employing Electro-optical , Infra-red (IR) and Radio Frequency (RF) based detection system and killed by using soft-kill weapons such as electronic warfare jamming, laser kill beams or the futuristic high power microwave (HPM) and Charged Particle Beam (CPB) weapons (technical details not explained further).

It would be appropriate to say that while the Armenian air defence arsenal had a formidable punch, it lacked the tailor-made weaponry required to deal with small drones, The result was that the little monsters scored disproportionate share if their total battle losses which as per one open source report amounted to some 100 tanks, 100 artillery pieces, approximately 60 air defence systems including 6x S-300 PM systems and 11 command and control (BMC2) stations.

Azerbaijan riding on its massive victory retained the control of territories captured in the war (5 cities, 4 towns and 286 villages). All the erstwhile Armenian occupied territories of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave were ceded back to the Azerbaijan. Under the ceasefire brokered by Russia, the Lachin corridor, as well as, the Dadivank Monastry ( Armenian religious and cultural heritage – a claim denied by Azerbaijan hence disputed land) was to be actively patrolled by Russian Peacekeepers who were instrumental in getting the ceasefire agreement signed between the two warring nations on 10 Nov 2020.

Azeris More Assertive and Dominating than Ever

For the next two years post the bloody war, Azerbaijan continued to show an assertive and a dominating behaviour as a low intensity conflict kept on simmering sporadically between the two arch rivals.

Azeris on their part not only continued to occupy nearly 215 square kilometre of the territories wrested from Armenia in the war, they did not withdraw its troops from the internationally recognised Armenian territories despite calls from the world bodies to do so ( EU, US, France).

The period thereafter till Sept 2022, saw multiple minor clashes, ceasefire violations. In Aug 2021, Azeri forces enforced a blockade of Southern Armenia by closing the main North-South Highway forcing Armenia to develop alternate routes.

Armenia is a part of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), an inter-government military alliance consisting of six countries namely, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia. Much like the NATO an aggression against any one member State of CSTO is perceived as an aggression against all leading to reciprocal assistance. Under this treaty, Armenia approached CSTO members as a whole and Russia independently to intervene, however the reciprocal assistance it sought was not provided.

In the series of on-going clashes, the biggest of them happened on 12 Sept 2022, when Azerbaijan launched a major attack by killing some 200+ Armenians and displacing some 7600 from Armenian provinces. The reason quoted by Azeris was the large scale subversive attacks and many acts of sabotage by the Armenian forces. A ceasefire was brokered by Russia on 13 Sept 2022.

Exactly a year later on 19 and 20th Sept 2023 Azerbaijan again launched a major offensive in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The crisis between the two arch rivals was brewing up ever since the blockade of the Lachin corridor which exploded in a large scale offensive.

Though the ceasefire was brokered by the Russia, it resulted in major concessions from Armenia which included the disbandment of the Artsakh Defence Army and scheduled dissolution of the Republic of Artsakh on 01 Jan 2024 thus leading the way to the final assimilation of this disputed land into Azerbaijan.

There were large scale protests in Armenia demanding the resignation of the PM. Also by this time almost the entire ethnic population of Armenians in Artsakh numbering some 140,000 had nearly fled to Armenia.

What the Future Holds?

As the erstwhile Republic of Artsakh heads for its dissolution on 01 Jan 2024 with its Defence Army disbanded and with ethnic Armenians now nearly forced out of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave into mainland Armenia, (which itself is rising in protests), what does the future hold for this war-cursed land? Here is the authors take on the same:-

• Thousands of Armenians continue to flee from the war-torn Nagorno-Karabakh region towards Armenia.^[10]
• Disenchanted with the lack of support from the CSTO, Armenia turned to European Union (EU) in 2017 when it signed the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) on 24 Nov 2017 ratifying the same on 31 Mar 2021.^[11]
• On 05 Oct 2023, the Members of the European Parliament (MEP) have expressed their sharp condemnation to Azerbaijan for the Sept 2023 attack in Artsakh. It has labelled the flight of ethnic Armenians from Artsakh as ‘ethnic cleansing’. The MEP has also urged Türkiye to restrain its ally Azerbaijan. There has also been a proposal to impose targeted sanctions against Azerbaijan and for review of its relations with Baku (the capital of Azerbaijan) .^[12]
• Iran is a also a stakeholder in this milieu on multiple counts:-
• Armenia provides Iran its gateway to Europe via a narrow strip of land in Armenia. The two countries, despite religious and ideological differences, have had cordial relations.^[13]
• On the other hand, the initial euphoria of another Shia State in neighbourhood upon the independence of Azerbaijan from Russia in 1991 proved to be short-lived as Baku, expressed its irredentist desire of realising the idea of ‘Greater Azerbaijan’ by uniting with its country, some parts of NW Iran claiming it to be the land of Azeris. This poses a threat of secessionism to Iran. Iran therefore supported Armenia in its wars with Azerbaijan in Artsakh region. The bilateral relations between the two countries have further taken a dip owing to growing ties between Baku and Tel -Aviv.
• With stakes with both countries as complex as that and after having seen the fait accompli situation that has emerged post the Sept 2023 conflict, Iran (duly supported by Russia) chose to play the role of a peacemaker.^[14]
• On 23 Oct 2023, it hosted the Foreign Ministers of both Armenia and Azerbaijan for an informal meeting. A larger session of this meeting dubbed 3+3 regional platform (Russia, Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Türkiye) dubbing the meeting as ‘Peace, Cooperation and Progress in the South Caucasus’ debated on a lasting peace. A Russian statement later claimed that the South Caucasus war is over.^[15]

Indian stakes in the region are also a tight rope – a la India-Pakistan in proxy representation. Some points are stated:-

• Very basically, Azerbaijan is a close ally of Pakistan while the defence export trade between India and Armenia is on the rise. That lies at the root.
• Pursuant to an agreement in Sept 2022, India has exported to Armenia some big ticket platforms. Some of these include the Pinaka Multiple Barrel rocket Launcher (MBRL), rockets, ammunition and anti-tank missiles somewhere to the tune of $250 mn.^[16] Earlier in 2020, in an open international tender, Bharat Electronics Limited won the order to supply four Swathi Weapon Locating Radars to Armenia.
• Predictably, Azerbaijan has expressed its discomfiture to India, alleging that such exports have the potential of derailing the fragile and delicate balance that stakeholders are painstakingly trying to achieve.
• Giving it an Indo-Pak tone, an expert opinion in Pakistan has labelled India’s export as a ‘warmongering effort’ that has many geo-strategic dimensions. It has called for the Azerbaijan, Türkiye and Pakistan axis to engage in some serious dialogue to counter ‘Indian interests’ in South Caucasus.

Bottom Line

The uneasy calm that now prevails in this war-torn region has the following signatures:-

• Having fought numerous conflicts and having failed to change the status quo, there appears to be a kind of tacit realisation in the mind-set of the Armenian leadership that Krabakh is a part of Azerbaijan.
• Co-terminus with the above realisation, the acceptance of the above reality is also now an international opinion (was there earlier as well).
• That in no way restricts the big power rivalry and the games they play in trying to retain their dominance and influence in this region; i.e. Russia, EU, Iran and counting.
• The Indian tight rope as mentioned above continues. Surely India does not want to be seen as a divisive war-monger as some Paki experts would like to brand us. Exports interests weigh on the other scale!
• All that notwithstanding Azerbaijan continues to arm itself with weapons from Türkiye and Israel and so does Armenia albeit to a lower pitch.

In this entire imbroglio, while an uneasy peace has descended over the war –cursed land – the next flash in the works cannot be ruled out.

There lies the Nagorno-Karabakh seesaw, at best in an unstable equilibrium.

Endnotes

^[1]“ Nagorno Karabakh” at www.en.m.wikipedia.org [4]. Accessed on 03 Oct 2023.
^[2]“The Republic of Artsakh” at www,en.m.wikipedia.org. Accessed on 03 Oct 2023.
^[3]Nagorno- Karabakh”, at www.britannica.com [5]. Accessed on 03 Oct 2023
^[4]“Nagorno-Karabakh profile,” at www.bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org [6]. Accessed on 04 Oct 2023.
^[5]2016 Nagorno Karabakh conflict,” at www.en.m.wikipedia.org [4]. Accessed on 09 Oct 2023.
^[6]Nagorno-Karabakh conflict : No endgame.” At www.dailypioneer.com [7]. Accessed on 09 Oct 2023.
^[7]“BayractarTB2,” at wwww.baykartech.com. accessed on 11 Oct 2023.
^[8]Why dones turned the tide for Azerbaijan?,” at www.vifindia.org [8]. Accessed on 11 Oct 2023.
^[9]ibid
^[10]“Over 7000 people evacuated from 16 settlements in Karabakh,” at www.alzazeera-com.cdn.ampproject.org [9]. Accessed on 20 Oct 2023
^[11]The European Union and Armenia, “ at www.eeas.europa.eu [10]. Accessed on 23 Oct 2023
^[12]Nagorno-Karabakh : MEPsdemand review of EU relations with Azerbaijan,” at www..europarl.eu [11]. Accessed on 23 Oct 2023.
^[13]“Hosting Armenia and Azerbaijan, Iran says South Caucasus war is over,” at www.iranintl.com [12]. Accessed on 25 Oct 2023
^[14]Azerbaijan-Iran relations. T www.en.m.wikipedia.org [4]. accessed on 25 Oct 2023
^[15]“Iran plays peacemakers it hosts Armenian and Azerbaijan FMs,” at www.ctimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org [13]. Accessed on 29 Oct 2023
^[16]“The geopolitical implications of India’s arms sale to Armenia, “atwww.armenianweekly.com. Accessed on 29 Oct 2023

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