Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

[Hakob]

Exactly. The problem is, even if they get Nagorno Karabakh, it doesn't really do anything for them. There is no economic benefit from it, and even if you get Karabakh back, they're going to need to spend money for people to live there. So say hypothetically they somehow overrun Karabakh, OK. Now what? They lose all their best soldiers, lose their entire military, and then have all of NK to show for it? They're not going up against the 20k NK soldiers, but all of Armenia. I can't see anything that they gain from this.

As for what Armenia can do, I mean the only things that Armenia can do is:
1. Keep monitoring them
2. Keep the territories guarded
3. Prepare for a preemptive strike

I think what a lot of people do not understand is that Armenia is stuck in this mindset of defense. If it had a policy of offense, you would be able to tell and the Azeris wouldn't be this ballsy. We have Iskander missiles and tochkas. I think it would make absolute logical sense that the next time they do some kind of training exercise near the border, we lob over some SCUDS.

EDIT I thought about what Azerbaijan is doing. Essentially, their tactic is going ot be to flood Armenia with Anti Tank missiles, UAVs, and artillery fire to the point where Armenians "surrender" and give Azerbaijan territories. They know they can't get all of Karabalh back, but they can force to change Armenia's stance at the negotations.

Armenia needs to be able to monitor deeper into Azeri territory. Once you see a cluster of weapons, drop some SCUDS.

I don't think at this point Azeris could hope to overrun Artsakh in few days.
Looks like their tactic could be to start hitting all the line as hard as they can, that way they can confuse our command and begin a quick and sweeping advance at any point that they can weaken. This will last just 3-6 days and as soon as our forces regroup according to situation and prepare a counter strike Baku and allies put all the diplomatic pressure to stop fighting and freeze the new line.
They can count all the Islamic states plus Israel/USA and biggest of all Russia to put tremendous pressure on Yerevan to accept new situation and stop the fight. Because of Turkey's activity in a possible show off with Russia, NATO can join the pressure on Armenia. It will be easy to pass a quick resolution in UN to stop fighting. We, then cannot continue without being considered an equal aggressor to Azerbaijan. All of the issue then becomes a fight for territory and Artsakh people's self protection rights become mired.
When everybody talks that world politics is busy with large issues like Korea and Syria, it is very disadvantageous to homever become reactionary player.
It can be concidered victory for Azeris even if they take over just a few hundred hectares because it then becomes a pattern. A situation where Azerbaijan proves that it is able to change the status quo by force. How big or how fast does not matter as long as it becomes a new logic of reality. This all will cement the existence of Artsakh conflict for a long time.
We have to be able to have our outcome in any event to hope for eventual peace.
In aprill war stopping Azeris and their much heralded military solution by just 800 hectare loss was enough. But next 800 or 8000 hectare loss will critically change
negotiations and political logic against us.
There can never be an unchanged line in war. Never has and never will. Allways one side gains territory and the other looses.
If we have only defencive strategy we will loose small or large swaths.
We have to prepare to take land from Azeris the moment they start hostilities again. This is a must.
This in turn means that our army has to prepare for offense as hard as it does for defence. Actually harder.
This is the only way to convince the world that future of Artsakh conflict rests with our behavior and desires.
That we have power and resolution to hold on to liberated Artsakh and dictate the peace terms.

[burjuin]

Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army

[HyeSocialist]

I don't think at this point Azeris could hope to overrun Artsakh in few days.
Looks like their tactic could be to start hitting all the line as hard as they can, that way they can confuse our command and begin a quick and sweeping advance at any point that they can weaken. This will last just 3-6 days and as soon as our forces regroup according to situation and prepare a counter strike Baku and allies put all the diplomatic pressure to stop fighting and freeze the new line.
They can count all the Islamic states plus Israel/USA and biggest of all Russia to put tremendous pressure on Yerevan to accept new situation and stop the fight. Because of Turkey's activity in a possible show off with Russia, NATO can join the pressure on Armenia. It will be easy to pass a quick resolution in UN to stop fighting. We, then cannot continue without being considered an equal aggressor to Azerbaijan. All of the issue then becomes a fight for territory and Artsakh people's self protection rights become mired.
When everybody talks that world politics is busy with large issues like Korea and Syria, it is very disadvantageous to homever become reactionary player.
It can be concidered victory for Azeris even if they take over just a few hundred hectares because it then becomes a pattern. A situation where Azerbaijan proves that it is able to change the status quo by force. How big or how fast does not matter as long as it becomes a new logic of reality. This all will cement the existence of Artsakh conflict for a long time.
We have to be able to have our outcome in any event to hope for eventual peace.
In aprill war stopping Azeris and their much heralded military solution by just 800 hectare loss was enough. But next 800 or 8000 hectare loss will critically change
negotiations and political logic against us.
There can never be an unchanged line in war. Never has and never will. Allways one side gains territory and the other looses.
If we have only defencive strategy we will loose small or large swaths.
We have to prepare to take land from Azeris the moment they start hostilities again. This is a must.
This is the only way to convince the world that future of Artsakh conflict rests with our behavior and desires.

Agreed. There were articles saying that Artsakh was ready to create a 15km buffer into azerbaijan. Ironic that Artsakh was portrayed as the aggressor again. The analysis was a that in that 15km buffer, there are 300k Azeris.

Now that is a good strategy. What's silly is Armenia isn't doing enough to build a military that can project into Azerbaijan with ground forces.

[burjuin]

Armenian Air Defense

[Joseph]

Agreed. There were articles saying that Artsakh was ready to create a 15km buffer into azerbaijan. Ironic that Artsakh was portrayed as the aggressor again. The analysis was a that in that 15km buffer, there are 300k Azeris.

Now that is a good strategy. What's silly is Armenia isn't doing enough to build a military that can project into Azerbaijan with ground forces.

Agree with you both. Sitting around getting soldiers picked off by snipers on an almost daily basis and absorbing attacks (with minuscule counter attacks) is not an effective strategy and only invites more such attacks from the Azeris, bad for morale,etc - and I agree, the Azeri strategy is to to try and make minimal gains, win at public relations, etc (death by a thousand paper cuts). The Armenians must start trying to undertake small and effective operations that keep the Azeris on edge, nervous, etc, operations that help them gain or solidify positions in various sectors. I think generally that the success of suck small operations will not be reported by the Azeris. Initiative must be taken, creative and careful operations must be undertaken. The Azeri lack of reporting of losses is a double edged sword for them. On the one hand, they can hide the truth of their losses to the public and keep morale steady, on the other hand, the Azeri gov't and military's worst fear is bad press- it works against their strategy to report the truth.

[londontsi]

If Armenian Army does the attacking in any territorial advance it will be subject to criticism from various governments, the UN etc.
Two choices here either succumb and obey trying to look responsible in the eyes of other interested parties or just ignore them and claim we are responding to hostilities from the other side.
As we very well know Serjig and his clan have great experiance in ignoring the people. We will see if they have real balls.

The other alternative is to carry out operations with the involvement of the "Gamavors", the volenteers . There is enough of them and I do not think their fighting spirit is dented.
They are not influenced by international bodies. Also the Armenian Government can only "influence" but cannot dictate to them if they do not want to be dictated.

[burjuin]

Armenian Army

[Hakob]

If Armenian Army does the attacking in any territorial advance it will be subject to criticism from various governments, the UN etc.
Two choices here either succumb and obey trying to look responsible in the eyes of other interested parties or just ignore them and claim we are responding to hostilities from the other side.
As we very well know Serjig and his clan have great experiance in ignoring the people. We will see if they have real balls.

The other alternative is to carry out operations with the involvement of the "Gamavors", the volenteers . There is enough of them and I do not think their fighting spirit is dented.
They are not influenced by international bodies. Also the Armenian Government can only "influence" but cannot dictate to them if they do not want to be dictated.

The question here is not just attacking, but attacking instead of defence at the moment Azerbaijan starts any scale of fighting. Instead of defence only.
The purpose is to stop and burry any Azerbaijani hope that they can "liberate" anything by creating any type of military action or events pattern.
What we got now? We have Azerbaijan that in past years established a pattern of throwing punches across border with impunity and allways ending up with political and sometimes land gains from it. International comitee is very comfortable with it. Only addressing both at the same level.
Azerbaijan refusing and international mediators not insisting about monitoring mechanisms works for Baku and some supporters but not for us.
That means we have to change the rules of the game.
Next large military action can be very damaging for us if azeris establish their rule and results of this fight.
There is no issue of ignoring international opinion for us.
There is no sistem or mechanism to comprehend the events but only reactions of them.
So we have to be ready to turn the events in our favor. This in debth is not large scale war issue, but small military actions that looks like Azerbaijan has maintained for past years(we can say this now by looking back).
So far our leaders have been saying " we must answer tenfold to azery atrocities", but this blind rethoric does not work. The threat of azery attack has only grown.
We have to attack, take territories at the moment of next azery "aprill type war", or even if it does not happen, maybe a false flag that we can make.
This will give us the international attention and discussions we need.
We will break Baku's established pattern of them hitting us with impunity (few soldiers do not matter for them) and only gaining either politically or strategically and cementing the international biased and ineffective reactions.
We have to do this to lessen the threat of large scale war. What we do now only let's azeris inflate themselfs and their egos bigger.
This pattern helps put too much importance and value in azery hands of the armament purchases. And this also changes Moscow's, Turkey's politics to more pro azery war.
We have to not wait for Azeris but create our very active pattern of events that makes armaments irrelevant and blows up the paper tiger

[Joseph]

The question here is not just attacking, but attacking instead of defence at the moment Azerbaijan starts any scale of fighting. Instead of defence only.
The purpose is to stop and burry any Azerbaijani hope that they can "liberate" anything by creating any type of military action or events pattern.
What we got now? We have Azerbaijan that in past years established a pattern of throwing punches across border with impunity and allways ending up with political and sometimes land gains from it. International comitee is very comfortable with it. Only addressing both at the same level.
Azerbaijan refusing and international mediators not insisting about monitoring mechanisms works for Baku and some supporters but not for us.
That means we have to change the rules of the game.
Next large military action can be very damaging for us if azeris establish their rule and results of this fight.
There is no issue of ignoring international opinion for us.
There is no sistem or mechanism to comprehend the events but only reactions of them.
So we have to be ready to turn the events in our favor. This in debth is not large scale war issue, but small military actions that looks like Azerbaijan has maintained for past years(we can say this now by looking back).
So far our leaders have been saying " we must answer tenfold to azery atrocities", but this blind rethoric does not work. The threat of azery attack has only grown.
We have to attack, take territories at the moment of next azery "aprill type war", or even if it does not happen, maybe a false flag that we can make.
This will give us the international attention and discussions we need.
We will break Baku's established pattern of them hitting us with impunity (few soldiers do not matter for them) and only gaining either politically or strategically and cementing the international biased and ineffective reactions.
We have to do this to lessen the threat of large scale war. What we do now only let's azeris inflate themselfs and their egos bigger.
This pattern helps put too much importance and value in azery hands of the armament purchases. And this also changes Moscow's, Turkey's politics to more pro azery war.
We have to not wait for Azeris but create our very active pattern of events that makes armaments irrelevant and blows up the paper tiger

THIS^^^^^^^^^ Agree with you 100%.

[Sukhoi22]

According to one analyst who was on Azatutyun, currently we are monitoring the Azerbaijani territories up to 30-40km in daytime and 15km in night time.
I wonder if we will make pre-emptive strikes if we see a threat.
The absence of such strikes led to the April war.