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05.05.2008

LOOKING TO 2020: AZERBAIJAN'S MILITARY ASPIRATIONS

   

Richard Giragosyan

Key Points

The former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan is pursuing a military agenda for its future that does not rely on NATO or Russian sponsorship. Record high oil revenues have enabled Baku to invest in modernising its military capabilities. Still, recent incidents involving its armed forces show that Azerbaijan has some way to go before it can claim to be the premier military force in the South Caucasus.

Despite Azerbaijan having pumped an extra USD1 billion per year into its defence budget in the last three years, the country has accomplished little in terms of increasing its military power. Richard Giragosian investigates what the future holds for the former Soviet state. Although much of the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest was dominated by a political and geopolitical dispute with Russia over the Georgian and Ukrainian bids for NATO membership, the more fundamental challenge for NATO enlargement stems from neither political or even geopolitical considerations, but is rooted in the test of military reform for countries that aspire to join the organisation.

Most significantly, one of the most militarily ambitious of the former Soviet states is Azerbaijan, a country that has repeatedly asserted a commitment to building modern, self-sufficient armed forces on its own terms, rejecting the patronage of both NATO and Russia.

However, military reform in Azerbaijan has been particularly difficult in recent years and, despite a sharp increase in its annual defence budget financed by its energy wealth, the outlook for Azerbaijan to become the South Caucasus' premier military power by 2020 is far from certain.

Obstacles to reform

For the development of Azerbaijan's armed forces, 2020 is the standard point of reference for both assessments and war gaming scenarios. The year was identified as the end-point marker because it is thought to ensure adequate lead-time for the introduction of defence reform, while also allowing for sufficient time to be able to measure the efficacy and results of the reforms. This is a further indication that the overall evaluation of Azerbaijan's potential military capabilities is based on a time period of least 10 years for the reform, training and modernisation effort to garner demonstrable results. Nevertheless, the shared "end-state" of all evaluations and war gaming simulations is to forge a modern, professional and capable armed forces in Azerbaijan, as a contributor to stability and no longer simply as a consumer of security.

Despite the benefits of three consecutive years of defence spending of more than USD1 billion, Azerbaijan accomplished little in terms of procuring advanced weapons systems or investing in modern equipment. Even the recent announcement of a further boost in the defence budget from 2007's USD1.3 billion to some USD2 billion in 2008 failed to include the planned outlays necessary to procure the arms and equipment essential to building a real fighting force.

Of its three branches of service, both the army and air force have continued to suffer from neglect, with continued shortages of spare parts and poor maintenance of existing stocks. The one exception has been the Azerbaijani navy, which has significantly increased its capabilities. Yet even the development of its naval forces has resulted from training and equipment from the US Caspian Guard programme, which has bolstered the naval capabilities of both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in an effort to match a naval build-up by Iran and Russia in the Caspian Sea.

The development of the Azerbaijani navy, including the creation of an impressive new maritime special forces unit, has provided Azerbaijan with important new counter-proliferation capabilities to combat the trafficking of weapons and, most crucially, drugs through the Caspian Sea. But it has not given Azerbaijan any offensive capabilities beyond an enhanced command and control and radar-based surface monitoring system, thereby depriving Azerbaijan of its most valued prize - the ability for real power projection.

Lessons learned

The Azerbaijani air force shares this lack of power projection, confirmed most clearly by the crash of a modern fighter in January 2008. The crash into the Caspian Sea of an Azerbaijani Air Force MiG-29 combat aircraft on 29 January, which killed both the pilot and co-pilot, revealed the limits of Azerbaijani air power. The crash of the USD28 million aircraft, bought from Ukraine in 2006, was the subject of a high-level internal investigation that determined the deadly accident was caused after the aircraft's avionics suffered a catastrophic electrical failure.

More telling was the discovery of significant problems in the operational maintenance and supply of sufficient spare parts for the aircraft. These findings only confirmed the long-held assessment of major problems in the maintenance and logistical chain, with the air force being particularly vulnerable to a poor level of aircraft care and inadequate flight crew training. In addition, the air force continues to suffer from shortfalls in munitions, ordnance and even aviation fuel, making the service the least combat-ready force in the Azerbaijani armed forces. Many of the country's best pilots are also forced to go without even the minimum amount of flying time crucial for their training and operational readiness. This shortfall is especially detrimental to unit morale, with some Azerbaijani air force squadron commanders struggling to find a sufficient amount of aviation fuel and spare parts to at least keep their wings at a minimally acceptable standard of readiness and operability.

The Azerbaijani army, traditionally the core service of the armed forces, also lacks power projection capabilities and is far from attaining even a minimum level of combat readiness. As with the air force, recent events including a limited offensive by Azerbaijani forces along its border with Nagorno-Karabakh have confirmed the inadequate state of the ground forces. A series of limited engagements on 3-4 March between Azerbaijani forces and ethnic Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh along the so-called 'line of contact' splitting the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan, threatened the fragile ceasefire agreement in the region.

The hostilities began when an Azerbaijani military unit launched a surprise attack on Armenian defensive positions along the Azerbaijani border with Nagorno-Karabakh. That opening attack, in which at least two Karabakh army officers were wounded, resulted in the seizure of two military posts located along the northern part of the line of contact. Although limited in the initial stage, the Azerbaijani army implemented a 'combined arms' approach by expanding the offensive with a limited but fairly well-targeted artillery attack. By virtue of the use of heavy artillery and the seizure of territory, the clashes represented a significant expansion from the more common exchanges of occasional sniper fire or limited probes of Armenian positions.

However, the Azerbaijani offensive quickly stalled when local Azerbaijani commanders became isolated after a breakdown in communications. The breakdown was not limited to a problem with the frontline military communications network, but was exacerbated by indecision and confusion by battalion commanders. It later became apparent that the initial Azerbaijani offensive was more of a probe than a co-ordinated assault and even the introduction of the artillery was merely designed to test the Azerbaijani army's defensive, and not offensive, plans for a combined arms counter-attack.

Moreover, there was no expectation of either being able to seize territory or of engaging the artillery for long. Therefore, the failure to deploy reserves for a secondary assault, the lack of sufficient artillery rounds for a longer assault and the notorious refusal for granting autonomous decision-making authority to company commanders meant that the immediate advantages from the offensive could not be exploited or extended.

Limited ability

In light of those constraints, the Nagorno-Karabakh forces launched a strong counter offensive and after a brief but intense skirmish, rather easily succeeded in repulsing the Azerbaijani units and retaking their positions. The counter-attack also met with surprisingly light return fire and no artillery response from the Azerbaijani side. Although the clashes provided important lessons learned for both sides, the most apparent for Azerbaijan was the painful demonstration of the limits of its ability to project cross-border power of any significance.

In addition to the limits of power projection, the Azerbaijani armed forces are also beset by the inherent constraints from specific deficiencies - posed by inadequate housing, insufficient and inferior supplies. But while these shortcomings can be readily and rapidly fixed, especially given the massive increased funding, there is a more obscure, structural obstacle stemming from a deeper problem of nepotism and outright corruption among the more senior ranks, and a deep-seated desire among the elite not to allow the military to ever play the role of a challenger to the political status quo.

Throughout the leadership of the late president Heydar Aliyev, in a reflection of his personal background as a Soviet leader reaching as far as the former Soviet Union's Politburo, the military was seen as little more than an instrument of state power, rather than as a true fighting force or independent institution. In this way Aliyev recognised early on that the only real threat to his power and authoritarian rule was posed by a capable and competent military.

This view of the military has only continued under Aliyev's son and successor, current president Ilham Aliyev. For the younger Aliev, despite the longer term appeal of building a real military force, there is still a fear that he is not quite strong enough to face the emergence of a truly powerful military as a potential rival. His weakness in this regard is rooted in the inherent limits on his power from a continued reliance on a rather limited power base and powerful ministers inherited from his father's reign.

Therefore, the real potential for building a modern armed forces in Azerbaijan remains little more than a distant promise at this stage. And even with the enormous state budgets for defence, a relatively small proportion of defence spending has actually been spent on weapons, training and essential equipment. Moreover, although the future trajectory of Azerbaijan as a regional military power by 2020 has begun, it will remain dependent on at least 10 years of sustained and serious military reform before Azerbaijan can begin to realise this potential.

Source: Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst
29 April 2008


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