The Second Karabakh War and the Armenian military defeat have caused a deep shock within the Armenian public opinion. The shock is the result of the huge gap between the dominant ideas within the Armenian political class as well as the public opinion before the war and the results of the military confrontation.

The explanation for the outcome of the war lies in the weakness of institutions. In this opinion piece, I will consider five of them: the army, strategic thinking, diplomacy, the media, and finally, the diaspora.

The army

The defeat is first of all a military defeat. The Armenian military was not ready to face the Azerbaijani war machine. It is true that Azerbaijani army had modern Israeli drones and precision missiles, Turkish direct participation in the war, and the deployment of several thousand Islamist mercenaries, yet this does not excuse the rapid collapse of the Armenian military. The harshest battles were fought in the flatland where trenches reminiscent of the First World War failed to resist against superior Azerbaijani numbers and firepower, not to mention complete air superiority.

While use of drones by Azerbaijan has been evident at least since 2016, Armenia has taken no effective counter-measures, whether through electronic warfare or through simpler measures of concealing Armenian defences. Once the frontline collapsed, there was no second line of defence in the more favourable mountainous area. While Armenian soldiers showed huge courage and resisted in front of superior forces, the officers showed huge flaws in planning and execution.

Just for comparison: Armenian territorial gains of 1991-1994 were lost in 44 days. Kurdish irregular forces in Afrin resisted against Turkish army onslaught supported by the same Islamist mercenaries for 64 days, and suffered less casualties, while Armenian regular army resisted against the combined Azerbaijani-Turkish-mercenary forces for 44 days.

To reduce the military debate to the quality and quantity of Azerbaijani arms is incorrect. Numerous asymmetric solutions to Azerbaijani air superiority existed, which were not applied. The impression is that Armenian armed forces did not evolve much since the last war, not only in armament but also in training of the officer corps and strategic thinking.

Strategy

The “static defence” thinking in the military coincided with static thinking in politics, strategy and diplomacy as well. It developed very little since the 1990’s, while the world around was changing rapidly. Let me bring up just one example: in 2017, Catalonia attempted separation based on the principle of self-determination, which was fought not only by the Spanish authorities in Madrid, and the movement remained largely isolated within European context. The Iraqi Kurds organized a referendum on independence, also in 2017. Although they were part of an international coalition led by the U.S. to fight the “Islamic State”, their drive for self-determination found no support from the rest of the world. The Kurdish forces were left alone against Baghdad’s reaction and lost control over Kirkuk and the “disputed territories”. The world was changing quickly, especially after 2016, when Russian-Turkish cooperation emerged in Syria. Despite all this, Armenian strategic thinking was “more of the same”.

While the concept of “self-determination” was becoming less and less accepted internationally, Armenian strategic position shifted from the idea of self-determination of Karabakh Armenians and their security towards rejecting any concessions to Azerbaijan. In the last years, both the Armenian political elite and the public opinion opposed concessions to Azerbaijan in the form of returning all or part of the Azerbaijani territories occupied during the 1991-94 war. The worst is that there was no debate possible in Yerevan about why this maximalist position – “no land concession” –would have as a consequence a second war with Azerbaijan. There was no political thinking behind those positions; any suggestion about context, balance of forces and consequences was simply silenced as “treason”.

The ruling group in Yerevan that emerged in the aftermath of the 2018 Velvet Revolution and the current opposition, comprised of the former ruling Republican Party and its allies, shared these ideas. Regardless of the ongoing power struggle in Yerevan, the war and the defeat revealed the weakness of Armenia’s state institutions, political structure, as well as that of the diaspora.

In Yerevan, repeating emotional slogans was mistaken for diplomacy and strategic thinking. The result was complete diplomatic isolation when the war was launched by Azerbaijan. While Baku succeeded in bringing in Turkish participation, and even several thousand Syrian Islamist mercenaries, Armenia was left alone to confront them.

Diplomacy
 
Armenia’s diplomacy has also been static for too long. For two decades, when Vartan Oskanian and later Edward Nalbandian were ministers of foreign affairs, three important initiatives were taken: the most important was negotiations with Baku for Karabakh conflict resolution; and second most important negotiations with Ankara for normalization of relations. Both failed. The third major diplomatic initiative was joining EU’s Association Agreement, which ended up in a disaster: under Russian pressure, Yerevan abandoned its ambitions with the EU and joined the Moscow-sponsored Eurasian Economic Union. Twenty years of diplomatic failures did not lead to any minister resigning, no serious debate about lost years, unfulfilled foreign policy initiatives. There was no evaluation of past failures and future possibilities. The short tenure of Zohrab Mnatsakanyan as foreign minister was a misunderstanding: Yerevan not only challenged the status quo on Karabakh negotiations, but also dangerously departed from the positions of its major ally, Russia. Prime Minster Nikol Pashinyan never pretended to be a skilful diplomat, but also had a weak Armenian foreign ministry next to him.

The media

During the war, the Armenian media took on a propaganda mode. In spite of the early difficulties of the Armenian armed forces and the fact that the southern frontline was breached two weeks after the start of the war, the “victory” slogans did not leave to any alternative information. Moreover, the media propaganda did not prepare the public opinion to the reality of the losses, hence the shock and incomprehension when the ceasefire was signed.

However, the Armenian media has deeper problems: in Armenia, the media sectors failed to shed the long tradition of Soviet practices. In the diaspora, the media has remained largely provincial. Both lacked professionalism. The result was that the media in Armenia has failed to investigate, inform, and debate the central challenges of Armenian statehood since the early 1990s. It only reinforced existing political consensus without questioning them, without challenging them with different facts or arguments. Fundamental issues related to the Karabakh conflict was never discussed by the public.

Diaspora

In the diaspora, when war erupted, the media failed to have enough influence over the international public opinion, political leaders, and the media to have real impact on the events. The problem of the diaspora is deeper, nevertheless. Hailed as the “strategic depth of Armenia” comparable to Azerbaijani oil, the diaspora structures failed to have any serious influence over the events: bring international recognition of Karabakh’s self-determination, use the issue of 1915 Genocide to make any Turkish aggression against Armenia unacceptable, or bring enough external support for the development and strengthening of Armenia itself. The failure of the diaspora organizations is the result of two factors: since the emergence of Armenia’s independence, Yerevan failed to use think about the diaspora as a strategic partner, identifying problems and allocating resources. It used the diaspora no more than as a source for cash. The second is that since the early 1990’s the diaspora failed to renew its political leadership, modernize its institutions, and develop its political thinking. The result is that the diaspora today has institutions inherited from the late 20th century, inadequate for responding to the challenges of the diaspora communities and supporting Armenia and Karabakh.

What comes next?

The November 10 agreement has taken what remains of Karabakh territory and its Armenian population under the protection of the Russian military. In other words, the political, diplomatic, and military paralysis of the last 26 years has brought to losing Armenian security protection over Karabakh Armenians, the cornerstone of the Karabakh movement that started in 1988 and led to the emergence of independent Armenia. Any attempt to correct the consequences of the defeat in the Second Karabakh War needs to revise the institutional failures as the pre-condition to correct them.

Even before the current disastrous war, Armenia faced huge challenges: domestic reforms, fight against corruption, economic modernization, and negative demographic trends - all in the year when the COVID-19 pandemic has dilapidated local and international resources. The war has added a fresh series of difficulties: new security challenges to Karabakh and Armenia, the refugees and war casualties, and the fate of prisoners of war. The challenges Armenia and Karabakh Armenians are facing are huge: the enourmous task of Armenia’s domestic reforms, fight against corruption, modernization of its economy, reversal of negative demographic trends, and many others.

The war has revealed the under-development of the Armenian state institutions, political thought, and diaspora organization. It is no more “business as usual”. It is not possible to go back to daily routine. It is not possible to continue with old ideas and old institutions.

In the first Karabakh War, both Armenia and Azerbaijan were emerging from what was a collapsing Soviet state, both equally weak and disorganized. In those conditions, the Armenian side revealed more cohesion than Azerbaijan, where power struggle was constant in Baku. In the second Karabakh war, an authoritarian, corrupt, oil-rich Azerbaijan proved more efficient than a half-democratic, disorganized Armenia.

While it is evident that Azerbaijan will continue to remain authoritarian and dictatorial oil-based economy in the next decade or two, the question is, will Armenian institutions remain half-democratic, weak, and chaotic? Or rather, will Armenia find the internal resources to continue its reform towards developing state-of-the-art, efficient institutions?     
    
Vicken Cheterian is a Swiss-Lebanese historian, journalist and author.

These views are his own.