Azerbaijan and Armenia have now spent more than two weeks at war, with casualties mounting on both sides. On the morning of Sept. 27, Azerbaijan launched an offensive across the line of contact held by the Armenian military and local forces belonging to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh (sometimes referred to as the self-declared Republic of Artsakh). The fighting is the worst it has been since the Karabakh War of 1992 to 1994, encompassing the entire line of contact, with artillery, missile, and drone strikes deep past Armenian lines. This war features modern weaponry, representing a large-scale conventional conflict between these two states which will undoubtedly change the long-standing status quo. Turkey is backing Azerbaijan, seeking to leverage this conflict for foreign policy gains. Russia’s efforts to balance relations with all parties, while supporting Armenia, once kept the conflict frozen, but is no longer viable.
The 30-year dispute is over a majority Armenian region that had autonomy within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. In the late 1980s, it voted to unite with the Armenian republic instead. Upon Soviet dissolution, the newly independent Republic of Azerbaijan incorporated this region. A bloody war between Azerbaijani, and Armenian forces led to the de facto Armenian control over Karabakh and surrounding regions of what is internationally recognized as Azerbaijan. Since then, clashes and skirmishes have taken place in what was largely a frozen conflict, until 2016.
The chances of this war becoming a broader regional conflict are low, but it should not be dismissed as a distant war between small states. On the contrary, these are sizable armies fielding armor, artillery, air defense systems, and more. On top of advanced capabilities, Turkey has supplied battle-hardened
mercenaries from Syria to aid Azerbaijan in the fight, and
Turkish F-16s are present in Azerbaijan, which suggests that Ankara has some role in aiding Azerbaijani efforts. Much of the war is playing out along Iran’s border. Moscow was able to broker a
humanitarian ceasefire on Friday, but this reduction in the intensity of fighting only gives both sides time to reposition and resupply as
the shooting continues.
In a short time, the war has already escalated to include shelling of cities, large caliber rocket artillery strikes, and use of short-range ballistic missiles. Much of the terrain is mountainous, highly favorable to an entrenched defender supported by artillery and missiles, but these positions are also vulnerable to attack from the air. While pressure has mounted on both parties to cease hostilities and declare a ceasefire, including from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Minsk Group, at the time of this writing there is no end in sight. The battle is likely to become more existential for both sides as political stakes and military costs mount.
This is a brief operational analysis of the current fighting and the military balance between the two sides. Azerbaijan’s initial combined arms offensive against Armenian lines was not successful in breaking through and securing territorial gains, but its forces have pushed back Armenian defenses in the south, along two vectors near the Iranian border. Azerbaijani forces have made minor gains to the north, and in a third sector of the line, but these aredifficult to discern due to the prevalence of false claims on both sides. Outside of the southern thrust, Azerbaijan has moved the line several few kilometers near Madaghiz and Merdinli.
Azerbaijan’s drone fleet has been pummeling Armenian forces, which are protected by antiquated air defenses. Both sides have employed large caliber rocket systems, cluster munitions, and tactical missiles against each other’s critical infrastructure. Armenia’s armor and air defenses are steadily wearing down but Azerbaijan has not been able to turn tactical successes into substantial operational gains. Ground assaults have proven costly, and rather than a blitzkrieg it has become a war of attrition. This conflict offers useful insights on the character of modern war, though mostly at the tactical level, which should be consumed judiciously.
The Military Balance
In general, Azerbaijan has quantitative and qualitative superiority over Armenia in terms of kit. While there is not a tremendous difference between the relative sizes of their armed forces, with Azerbaijan fielding 80,000 and Armenia 65,000 personnel, Azerbaijan also has access to several battalions of Turkish-supplied mercenaries from Syria, while Armenia can quickly mobilize additional fighters from the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. More significantly, Azerbaijan has made a qualitative leap since 2010, largely thanks to purchases from Russia, Turkey, and Israel. Thus, the Azerbaijani army has superior tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, and light utility vehicles.
Azerbaijan has achieved a quantitative advantage over Armenia in the number of artillery systems, especially self-propelled and long-range multiple launch rocket systems. Armenian forces have such systems, but in significantly smaller numbers.
Larger caliber rocket systems, like BM-30 Smerch purchased from Russia, can reach military and civilian targets well beyond the battle lines.
Where Armenia may have a minor edge is in tactical ballistic missiles. The country has at its disposal a brigade of
Iskander-E systems (at least eight launchers, each carrying two missiles), capable of engaging objects across the territory of Azerbaijan (the maximum firing range is about 300 kilometers). The Armenian Armed Forces also possess eight obsolete SS-1C Scud-B missile systems, and at least four
Tochka-U which have a range of 120 kilometers. Azerbaijan has three Tochka systems and Israeli LORA tactical missiles. This allows both sides to threaten each other’s critically important infrastructure or civilian population centers, and they have used these weapons in the conflict.
Azerbaijan has an indisputable advantage in the numbers of aircraft and combat helicopters, but despite the much larger capacity of Azerbaijan’s air force over Armenia’s, both sides have air defense systems that make large-scale use of manned aviation costly.
Consequently, unmanned aerial vehicles have been playing a crucial role in this war. Azerbaijan has procured a diverse array of Israeli drones. Today Baku has medium-altitude, long-endurance drones, such as Hermes-900 and Heron; loitering munitions such as Orbiter 1K, SkyStriker, and Harop; and Turkish Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles. They have also repurposed old Antonov An-2 aircraft, a single engine biplane, and are using them as disposable drones. Armenia has indigenously produced drones, but, in general, these systems are vastly inferior to Israeli designs in terms of performance.
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