Mediamax’s interview with Avetik Chalabyan, Co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Arar Foundation

- What do you think was the reason behind the abrupt escalation of the situation by Azerbaijan? Why did it happen now, and what goals did this country aim to accomplish with this action?

- I believe much has already been said on this subject. The status quo, which existed until April 2 could have become a long lasting new reality, and time was no longer working in Azerbaijan’s favor. Azerbaijan needed to somehow shatter the status quo and aggravate the conflict, forcing mediators to apply pressure on the Armenian to agree on some unilateral concessions. This was Azerbaijan’s minimum plan. In terms of their maximum plan, by decisively winning on the battlefield Azerbaijan wanted to impose forcefully its conditions for the conflict resolution.

There are two additional factors. The first being that the economic and social situation inside Azerbaijan has quickly worsened over the last year. Azerbaijani authorities were in a dire need of various distracting actions. The ruling regime wanted to dampen the effects of the economic crisis through military-patriotic unity, as well as extend its absolute control over the society. The other factor was Turkey, which has become a party in almost every regional conflict. Turkey has been attempting to form new advantage points for strengthening its own position in the Middle East crisis. Turkey was obviously a party in this conflict, although it is not entirely clear what specific role it played in the military operations.

As to the question of why now, perhaps several factors coincided. The main one though is that Azerbaijan is in a state of rush, and this needed to be done now because it would be much more difficult to accomplish in the future, particularly because of expected supply of modern weapons to Armenia and the possible aggravation of its internal tensions.

- After these actions, what successes did Azerbaijan achieve in its minimum and maximum plans and where did it fail?

- Azerbaijan succeeded in achieving its minimum plan, it escalated the conflict, and its military blackmail forced all intermediating parties to intensify activities and even to exert unnecessary pressure on Armenia in the beginning. In some degree, Azerbaijan also diffused some of its internal tensions by raising a strong albeit short-lived wave of military patriotism, before it became obvious that there was no real basis for it. The small positional successes came at a very high cost of heavy losses, and now the society there has begun to understand that another disappointment is in store.

Naturally, Azerbaijan’s maximum plan failed. Its initial successes on the battlefield were rather based on surprise attack and hence were purely tactical in nature. The Artsakh army’s counter-attack showed that even after lengthy military preparations in recent years Azerbaijan does not have a decisive advantage on the battlefield. The rapid self-organization and resistance by joint forces of Armenia and Artsakh neutralized other factors of Azerbaijan’s advantage, and at least on the battlefield Azerbaijan was not able to record any significant successes. Besides, it became quite clear that Armenia not only has the options for an asymmetric response, but also has the determination to strike if Azerbaijan attempts to expand the scale of the conflict.

It is also important to keep in mind that these military actions have been taking place in a close proximity from Azerbaijan’s major transportation routes, and in the event of their strike by Armenia, Azerbaijan's oil and gas infrastructure (of which Azerbaijan is not the sole owner) would suffer. Azerbaijan’s international partners hardly would want their investments to be lost to Azerbaijan’s military adventures. I believe that in this sense Azerbaijan acknowledged the real dangers of future expansion of the conflict. A blitzkrieg is one affair, but a lengthy war presents different challenges. In the case of the latter Azerbaijan would become much more vulnerable, not the least from an internal standpoint.

- It is true that Azerbaijan was ultimately unsuccessful on the battlefield, but in any event, it was able to take us by surprise initially. In your opinion, why did that happen, and in the first days why were we so isolated diplomatically?

- This is a tough question, which requires serious analysis. However, some conclusions may be already clear. Azerbaijan conducted certain diplomatic and military preparations, which we did not notice, and to which we neither adequately responded nor appropriately assessed their determination to strike.

Azerbaijan was able to advance two attack brigades to our frontline positions unbeknownst to us. Either our intelligence did not work well or officials did not adequately analyze the intelligence reports and respond accordingly. Otherwise it is difficult to explain the surprise night attack on our positions.

In any case, the primary part of our losses were a result of this unforeseen assault, and this should not go without consequence.  I believe that our military and political leadership must seriously analyze our shortcomings and draw appropriate conclusions to prevent such situations in the future, and if there are guilty ones, there should be consequences for them.

- Several problems have already been discovered, but if we were to generally analyze, what kind of defense and security problems were brought to light during the four-day war?

- In my opinion, the biggest problem is that 22 years after the war the status of Artsakh is still uncertain, and this is exactly what gives Azerbaijan invitation to attempt predetermining this status through military means. Many things have changed in the world in the last 22 years, several new precedents of self-determination have appeared (Kosovo, Abkhazia, Palestine, Crimea) however we have not been able to leverage these precedents. Palestine, for example, is not fully recognized as an independent state, but has observer status within the UN. In other cases, each newly emerging entity has partial recognition and some system of international agreements.

Our authorities have serious shortcomings here as they have agreed to a rather narrow format of negotiations, which, in fact, has reached a deadlock. Yet throughout this period, we have not tried parallel tracks to ensure that Artsakh will be acknowledged as a subject of international law. Now we must work towards this, in this regards the military cooperation agreement between Artsakh and Armenia, which the RA President mentioned during the culmination of the war, is of great importance. We should not forget about this today. There will be a lot of pressure on us to forgo it, but we must get to the point when our partners start viewing Artsakh as a subject of international law, and it returns to the negotiation table as an independent party.

The second issue is our defensive military doctrine. We have unilaterally adopted a purely defensive posture, anticipating political dividends from it. However, the permissiveness towards Azerbaijan showed that the defensive doctrine does not bring political dividends, since in the end both sides are placed on the equal scales. A few months ago, First undersecretary of Defense Davit Tonoyan announced that we are shifting to the enemy deterrence doctrine. This means that if we see a dangerous accumulation of forces, we can strike first in order to prevent their aggressive actions. Now we have to move from words to action, and this will be the best guarantee for never being caught off guard again. Continuously being on the defensive side provokes the enemy to attack, yet preventive strikes can eventually force them to remove their offensive heavy weaponry and excess personnel from the line of contact.

The third issue is the resources spent on our national defense. For a long times it has been clear that they are inadequate, for several years Azerbaijan has had a military budget seven times greater than ours, and sooner or later this would shatter the strategic balance. Yet our leadership has demonstrated a strange carelessness with this respect, especially on the background of the continuing growth in funding for other government agencies. This began to change only during the last year, which was also partially the reason for Azerbaijan’s haste.

The forth issue was the narrow perimeter of our military-technological cooperation. With small exceptions, all weapons were purchased from Russia since they were relatively inexpensive. Yet we missed the opportunity to obtain some high-tech weapons, particularly from Israel and Belarus, and if not using them at scale, then at least in part to prepare the antidote and to be able to understand the specifics of their performance on a battlefield. Adds to this the insufficient level of cooperation between the military and our own high-tech sector. This is being broadly discussed nowadays, and is the continuation of the questionable logic of buying all weapons from Russia because it is “cheap”.

The other serious issue relates to the mistakes of our foreign policy. This apples first and foremost to hasty admission to the EEU without receiving sufficient advantages in return, and at a price of breaching the trust of EU partners, as a result of which we lost most of opportunities for strategic cooperation with our Western partners, while also losing the ground to Azerbaijan within the CIS. All this has reduced our political resilience, and as a result, the army bore the brunt of the attack.

- In your opinion what successes did we record in this war?

- After the first strike, Artsakh’s army was quick to recover and through fierce fighting, was able to restore the balance on the frontline, forcing the enemy to suffer significant losses. From a purely military standpoint, Armenian side, with few exceptions, managed to operate very professionally. The cooperation among different units of the armed forces allowed us to form a powerful fire barrier, and the enemy failed to advance past the frontline, and in many places was thrown back.

Another success is that the Artsakh authorities were able to work very efficiently, prevent panic, quickly mobilize resources, and provided basic military and civil services to support our army fighting on the frontline.

Besides that, although we speak about this much less, it is important to note that during the most critical days of the four-day war Armenia’s higher authority displayed a fairly strong political will, and its determination in those days played an important role in stopping the enemy attack. It is important to remember that on April 4, Azerbaijan threatened to bomb Stepanakert yet the next day asked for a ceasefire. This was a retreat in front of the firm resolve of our military and political leaders. The enemy clearly understood that the bombing of our civilian areas would be asymmetrically countered, and retreated from this fatal action.

Of course, Artsakh’s as well as Armenia’s society unanimously responded to the situation and joined the resistance, political opposition quickly followed the suit. After assessing the situation, many diaspora organizations quickly joined the cause too, also with the intention of influencing public opinion in their own countries. This display of national solidarity was very important and shattered the enemy's calculations as they began to lose in the communication war. People got organized very quickly without receiving any instruction, quickly deciding who should do what.

In this sense, we have an inestimable advantage over Azerbaijan. It has become clear that the Azerbaijani state is fighting against not only the Armenian state, but also the society, and effectively against the whole of Armenian world. The different forces of Armenian society have offset the prevalence of Azerbaijan’s state power, and this is probably our greatest success.

- Let’s try to list the short-term steps to improve the situation. How can we avoid adverse developments in future?

- Azerbaijan was not successful in its blitzkrieg, and now it will push towards resuming the negotiations on its own terms. Here the situation may be somewhat unfavorable for us and our short-term objective should be the restoration of the shattered balance. Certain diplomatic steps are already visible. It is important that these negotiations do not end with any kind of “phased solution”. I believe though our leadership understands this very well too.

We have to leverage these negotiations to gain some time. It is currently working in our favor. This requires the mobilization of all our diplomatic resources. In fact, Azerbaijan is not ready for any kind of reasonable agreement. Any sensible option of a peaceful settlement with it is hardly currently possible, and therefore it is important that Azerbaijan once again put ahead unrealistic conditions, which would be rejected not only by us, but also by other parties. Yet we need to use this time in order to be able to prevent further hostile actions.

Here our government must take drastic measures, breaking any possible taboos. For example, it must finalize the signing of the military–political agreement with Artsakh, and be persistent in bringing Artsakh authorities to the negotiations’ table from the very beginning. This is the most important way to counteract Azerbaijan’s diplomatic initiatives. In parallel, we must intensify the process of Artsakh’s recognition among our friendly nations. If successful, this would be a major blow to Azerbaijan's aggressive diplomacy.

Secondly, it is necessary to prepare well for possible military actions. A lot of work needs to be done in buttressing Artsakh’s and Armenia’s defenses: strengthening engineering infrastructures, training reservists, replenishing the stocks of arms and ammunitions, obtaining the expected supply of advanced weapons from Russia as well as installing monitoring equipment on the frontline, and so on. For this goal the state budget must be quickly redistributed.  Today it is just a luxury for a wartime situation. We must do everything in order deter the enemy from any new military action in the course of this year, although this cannot be completely ruled out.

Finally, the country must take clear steps to clean up its administration. This war had glorious heroes, but also evident anti-heroes and these people no longer have the moral authority to govern. At the very least, they have failed their jobs; moreover, they likely have also inflicted serious damage to the country. The authorities must free themselves of these anti-heroes, and the will of the society is very clear here.

- What are the fundamental, long-term solutions of these problems? Can we in fact win this war?

- Yes, of course, and Israel is a good example. This country has had several enemies at once, yet managed to make several important strategic thrusts to counter and thwart them over time: accelerated development of its economy, putting the army at the very core of the state, gaining powerful allies in the war, and being able to push the war back into the interior of its enemy states. These same measures are also very relevant for us, and we need a gradual transition from deterring the enemy and maintaining the status quo, to enforcing a lasting peace.

The country must be fundamentally transformed from within. After April 1, the unlimited power of oligarchy is over, and now the country must shake this off once and for all. The government must effect a generational change, not limiting itself to cosmetic sacrifices.

Here we need systematic changes on all levels. Young, intelligent and honest people, who are prepared to serve their country and do not strive to become oligarchs, should assume leadership positions within the system of government.

The opposition also has a serious work to do: it has arrived to this critical juncture in a worse shape than the authorities, being fragmented to many small groups that do not represent a real alternative to the government. The opposition must not only consolidate, but also offer a tangible alternative to the government and give a real electable choice to the public.

We need a new diplomacy, but this is impossible without the active cooperation with diaspora centers, as they possess our main overseas resources. The authorities must restore collaboration with diaspora centers, by admitting their mistakes, forming honest rules of engagement, and offering transparent and mutually beneficial models. Only then, we can mobilize all the forces in the Armenian world to confront the enemy.

The resources allocated to the army should be increased and spent not only on acquisition of weapons, but also for making the service more appealing for the military personnel. We have only recently started to use the resources of our allies, and this should continue. I see no reason why Russia cannot supply us with arms and in five years write off accumulated $‌ 1 billion of debt. Just two weeks ago, it has forgiven to the Uzbekistan a debt worth over $‌ 800 million, and Uzbekistan is not even an ally of Russia. If we work effectively, people will understand and write of the debts because we are solving important problems of collective security, and solve them well. Realistically, by leveraging this and other different sources, our military budget can be increased by approximately 50% without creating an additional burden for the economy. Now, when the income from crude oil sales in Azerbaijan decreased dramatically, this will be sufficient to maintain the strategic balance.

Finally, if Azerbaijan continues its adventurous policy, we must move the war inside Azerbaijan, where there are socio-economic, ethnic, class, religious and other deeply held contradictions, and which can easily flare up. A few failed military adventures like this, and the war will creep inside Azerbaijan. This already happened in 1993 when the Ganja Brigade abandoned their positions in Martakert and went to conquer Baku, and can easily repeat itself.

- Driven by your earlier logic of the three keys: what should the government, the army and the society be doing now?

-These events showed that the army and the society are at least one-step ahead in their development than the government; hence, the government has greater burden today, and must launch and accelerate its transformation. The government should offer a competitive, cohesive and transparent vision to the society. It should also ensure that new people, institutions, values and mechanisms support this vision, to restore the public trust.

The army, in turn, should thoughtfully analyze the experience of the four-day war, and move to a strategic deterrence of the enemy, as well as become more demanding towards the government.

The society has already proved itself very well in the moment of danger, but it must move past to a wartime mentality, when every day is a war, and when it requires mobilization of all of our resources, hard work and unyielding faith in the victory.

This trial has shown that our fate is in our hands, and our internal problems have allowed the enemy to undertake this adventure. If we overcome our problems, we will be able to withstand enemy pressures in the short-term, and win a lasting peace in a long one.

Marie Taryan spoke with Avetik Chalabyan