04.11.2010MECHANISM OF PEACEKEEPING IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT: THEORY OF DETERRENCE UNDER THE ARMAMENTS RACE
Introduction
The aim of the given work is to study the possibility of keeping long-term peace in the zone of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in case when one of the parties to the conflict (Azerbaijan) hopes for the rearmament of its army and military revanche in an appropriate moment taking into consideration its financial resources which came from selling energy resources, and the opposite parties (Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh) are ready to continue permanent asymmetric armaments race1 in case when there is an unsettled conflict. The issue is considered taking into account the applicability of the “deterrence theory” (and its practical realization in the form of “policy of deterrence” which is used by the conflicting parties) and available global groundwork in the sphere of military and strategic researches.
This article does not set the task to analyze from military-technical and military-strategic points of view possible developments in case of large-scale resumption of military actions in the zone of Karabakh conflict/
The essence of the theory of deterrence
In accordance with the political science theories within the framework of the military and strategic researches elaborated during the Cold War and confirmed by the experience of preserving international and regional security in recent decades, under the notion of “deterrence we mean prevention of unwilling military and political action by one of the parties in regard to the other one (usually inferior in quantitative aspect of its power potential) through the threat of causing unacceptable damage. Deterrence implies the whole set of military, political. economic, diplomatic, psychological and other means directed to assure the potential aggressor that it is impossible to obtain his goals with the help of military methods.
It should be taken into consideration that there are two terms in the English language political science literature– containment and deterrence which differ in political and military senses. The term of containment (which father is the classic of the American political science and diplomacy of the Cold War period J. Kennan) was used as a political and economic means to resist enemy in the implementation of its foreign policy, as. e.g. containment of the Soviet Union and resistance to the dissemination of the communist ideology. Meanwhile the term of deterrence (which also means intimidation) which has been spread in the American political science since 1960 and was used in practice of the strategic planning under the US Minister of Defence Robert McNamara, means “deterrence of the enemy through the intimidation” and prevention of his actions by the inevitability of punishment and causing irreparable damage, and later it has been used mainly in regard to the military and strategic sphere2.
In the period of the Cold War and bipolar confrontation of super-powers it concerned the deterrence potential of the nuclear weapons. And here we mean deterrence with the help of common (conventional) weapons. It is used to call this kind of deterrence in the military-theoretical works of the recent period “non-nuclear” or “conventional” deterrence. Non-nuclear deterrence implies readiness to cause “damage, which knowingly exceeds benefits from the aggression, to the vital interests and objects of the potential aggressor states”3 using non-nuclear means. Non-nuclear deterrence became possible and efficient only in the recent period when, alongside with the improvement of the accuracy and damaging power of common weapons, the technological development of many countries “reached such dimensions when the destroying separate elements of infrastructure, communication, systems of management may cause catastrophic effects, which can throw back the state to many years” 4.
This work considers only the possibility of to what an extent potential capabilities of one of the parties to cause irreparable damage to the other can restrain the opposing party from the temptation to initiate military actions. The deterrence is effective only when the military and political leadership of the country is conscious that the power potential of the enemy can cause irreparable losses in case of resumption of the military actions. That is why, first of all, it is necessary to analyze military and technical possibilities of the parties to deliver “remote” strikes on vulnerable and significant objects.
It should be taken into consideration that as well as in case with planning nuclear deterrence by American and Soviet experts during the Cold War, the main objects of conventional deterrence are not only the military forces and military objects of the enemy but rather the large population centers, plant facilities and military and political leadership. After all deterrence or “intimidation” is more political rather than military and technical category. The sense of “intimidation” through the “deterrence” is not allowing realization of the political act, i.e. military actions – by the enemy. Correspondingly, the targets for the deterrence must be the most sensible objects of the enemy – his military and political leadership, large population centers, capital city and key plant facilities and infrastructure. It is obvious that in case of Azerbaijan two categories of potential targets may be of political priority: large cities and capital city, as well as the objects of energy resources production and refining, routs of transportation and appropriate infrastructure,
In the perceptions of the Azerbaijani political elite and public all the political, economic. financial and even psychological strength of Azerbaijan and its place in the regional politics are based on the functioning of the oil industry. That is why even a partial destruction of the objects of oil industry and infrastructure in case of initiation of the military activities in the zone of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by Baku will cause not only essential financial, economic and psychological damage to this country but it will also affect for quite a long time its role in the geopolitical priorities of the external actors, It is obvious that in case of the resumption of the military actions and destruction of many objects of Azerbaijani oil industry infrastructure, many foreign companies will hardly decide to restore them and invest billions in energy projects in Azerbaijan.
As for the sensitiveness of Azerbaijan to the possible losses among its civilian population, the degree of the evaluation of that factor is very hard to verify because of the ambiguity of the level of the rationality of Azerbaijani military and political leadership and the role of the value factor among the priorities of the foreign policy of Azerbaijani political elite.
Military and technical potential of deterrence in Karabakh conflict
As a result of the continuing regional armaments race, military arsenals of the parties to the conflict cannot be compared with the ones in the period of war in the mid 90s. But, taking into consideration the subject of the article, here we consider only those types of weapons and defence technology (WDT) which may be of practical importance as power “tools” of implementation of the policy of deterrence, i.e. they are capable to deliver efficient “anti-value” strikes on the sensible objects in the depth of the territory of the enemy, and destroying or causing serious damage to those objects (as well as attendant human and material losses) may be of critical significance for the enemy and restrain him from initiating military actions.
In other words, the deterrence potential, which is capable to deliver “anti-value” strikes directed to the solution of the political and psychological tasks (i.e. they constitute threat for the objects of vital importance – large population centers, capital city and plant facilities) is the WDT the usage of which may be of essential political and strategic significance and influence resolution of the political leadership of the enemy, adversely affect the will of the population, to continue military actions and create serious obstacles for the further socio-political and socio-economic development of the country. At the same time, it should be mentioned that here we talk about the technical capability of delivering “anti-value” strikes and not about their usage, as the initiation of full-fledged military actions means the fall of the deterrence policy and further military and strategic analysis of the situation will be of practical importance only in the aspect of the possibilities of the parties to win those initiated military actions and this is not a purpose of this work either.
In Nagorno-Karabakh conflict such WDT are tactical and operational-tactical missiles, multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) of large caliber, strike aircraft and in separate cases also cannon artillery of 152-mm caliber and larger and MLRS of medium caliber. Let us also mention that the analysis of the deterrence potential of the Azerbaijani army, which is brought lower, is given only for more obviousness, as the threat of initiating military actions is proceeding exclusively from that party which is getting ready for revanche. Correspondingly, we, first of all, consider the possibility of deterring Azerbaijan with the help of power tools of Armenia, and not visa versa.
The weapons systems which fall under that classification and which are in service of the parties, e.g. MLRS 9A52 “Smerch”5 and “Lynx”6 in service of Azerbaijanis and WM-80 in service of Armenians, have considerable striking potential, including the actions on area targets, large population centers, infrastructure objects and communications. Using operational-tactical and tactical missiles, such as 9K72 “Elbrus” (better known according to the western system of marking of Soviet defence technology as “Scud-B”) by Armenians and 9K79-1 “Tochka-U” by Azerbaijanis, may be of similar political and psychological and military value. There is a strong probability that in case of resumption of the military actions, on the very first days the losses among the armed forces and civilians will constitute not thousands but dozens of thousands people. As, most probably, this will be not a Blitzkrieg but a long campaign, the losses may be huge.
At the same time there is rather serious asymmetry between “anti-value” capabilities of the parties and their vulnerability to the backstroke of the enemy. From the military and technical point of view this is manifested in the fact that though there are more MLRS of large caliber in service Azerbaijani army (as well as strike aircrafts), Azerbaijan itself is more vulnerable to the missile and artillery backstrokes of the Armenian army, firstly in the first instance due to the fact that there are oil and gas complex objects (oil production, refinery and transportation of hydrocarbon resources) which constitute about 70% of Azerbaijani industry. Besides, the radius range of the operational-tactical missiles and large-caliber MLRS used by the Armenian army, as well as the geographic location of Nagorno-Karabakh allows possibility to deliver strikes on the largest cities of Azerbaijan, including its capital.
Thus, the deterrence potential of the Armenian forces may cause serious damage to industrial, infrastructure and communication objects in the depth of the territory of Azerbaijan which may have a negative effect on its political and economic development in a long-term perspective. As it has already been mentioned, Armenian army has Chinese MLRS WM-80 as well as operational-tactical rocket complexes 9К72 “Elbrus” (“Scud-B” according to NATO classification) which consists of eight 9П117М launchers and at least 32 P-17 missiles7, which were passed to Armenia from the 176th Rocket Brigade of 7th Guardian Army within the framework of division of the Soviet military property in the mid 1990s. By the moment this article was written (August 2010) Azerbaijani army had no air defence facilities (and especially tactical missile defence) which are capable to carry out efficient missile interception in case if Armenian forces deliver strikes on the targets in the depth of the Azerbaijani territory.
Moreover, even the engagement zone of the cannon artillery and MLRS of medium caliber of Nagorno-Karabakh army covers tensely populated Azerbaijani districts and large population centers which total population is more than hundreds of thousand people. In particular, here Ganja, Khanlar, Mingechaur. Evlarkh, Barda, Agjabedi and a number of other Azerbaijani cities and surrounding villages can be mentioned. However, it should be mentioned that operational capabilities of the Armenian air force do not allow efficient bombing-missile air attacks in the depth of the Azerbaijani territory.
At the same time, though Azerbaijan has a bit more diversified “arsenal” of long-range means of destruction, its capability to deliver “anti-value” strikes is lower than the one of the Armenian parties. Of course, this does not regard Nagorno-Karabakh, because even field artillery of Azerbaijani army may deliver strikes almost on its whole territory, But there are no planting facilities of strategic importance in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Azerbaijani potential of “deterring” Karabakh by the possibility of war has almost fully exhausted. If Karabakh party even under direct threat of war does not agree to the one-sided concessions against the background of “neither war nor peace” condition and permanent revanchist statements by Azerbaijani leadership which have been lasting for two decades, this comes to prove that the political resource of “anti-value” Azerbaijani potential is not efficient in regard to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Thus, taking into account the theme of the work, only strikes of Azerbaijani party on important industrial centers, large cities and the capital city of Armenia may be of “anti-value” importance. According to its parameters, Azerbaijani tactical rocket complexes 9К79-1 «Tochka-U»8 theoretically may reach Yerevan and large industrial centers or energy facilities in Ararat Valley and large cities. But there are serious problems for their successful usage of both military-technical and political character. Tactical rocket complexes can be shoot down by S-300 systems of various modifications which are in the inventory of both Armenian army and the units of 102nd Russian military base (RMB) in Gyumri (in August 2010 – two artillery battalions of S-300PS air-defence missile systems of Air Defence of Armenia and two Russian artillery battalions of S-300V air-defence missile systems). In the same way the usage of Azerbaijani strike aircraft against the targets in the depth of Armenia can be neutralized, taking into consideration the joint potential of the Armenian air defence with its antiaircraft weapons and Mig-29 fighter interceptor squadron of the 102nd RMB.
MLRS 9А52 “Smerch” may reach the largest Armenian cities from the territory of bordering Gedabek and Kasakh districts of Azerbaijan. At the same time, taking into consideration the maximum firing range of 9К55 missiles, in order to deliver strikes on the key targets, “Smerch” systems should be dislocated in the immediate vicinity of the Armenian border which can make them vulnerable for the counter-battery fire of the Armenian artillery. But it is possible to resist the strikes of the aforementioned MLRS from the technical point of view only before launching missiles. Israeli “Lynx” systems (with “Extra” missiles) have similar features with MLRS “Smerch” in general, but they have bigger shooting range and accuracy. Big fire power and mobility as well as rapid access to launching of the missiles make the aforementioned types of MLRS a serious factor while analyzing the power potential of the Azerbaijani army.
More efficiently Azerbaijan can use large-caliber MLRS (as well as rocket complexes “Tochka-U) to deliver strikes on the suburbs of Armenian capital and large cities of Ararat Valley from Nakhichevan, but here political restrictions come into effect, or, in other words, the political price for those actions grows, because it legitimates the counter-strike of Armenian army to Nakhichevan. But the most important is that any strike on the territory of Armenia, whether it is from Nakhichevan or “continental” Azerbaijan makes terms for coming into force of the security guarantees of Russia and CSTO on rendering military assistance to Armenia. As, due to political reasons, Azerbaijan is not interested in involving Russia and CSTO in military activities, it is vitally important for Baku to restrict those military action by the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. And, on the contrary, Armenia is interested to some extent in the exchange of the rocket and artillery strikes from the Azerbaijani territory in order to create formal reason for bringing into effect security guarantees and military assistance by the CSTO and Russia.
Thus, on both the level of the analysis of the military and technical potential of the parties and higher military and political level, the efficiency and asymmetry of the deterrence policy in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is manifested. Despite the formal availability of larger arsenal of a long-range rocket means of destruction, Azerbaijan is more vulnerable under the situation concerned in both military-technical (for missile “anti-value” strikes on the key objects) and political aspects (because of the restrictions for the counter-strike which can cause great expenses of military and strategic character for Azerbaijan, i.e. involvement of Russia and CSTO in military actions on the side of Armenia and Karabakh).
Instead of conclusion: to what extent is the policy of deterrence in Karabakh conflict is efficient?
Thus, asymmetric armament race in the zone of Karabakh conflict only rises the threshold and lowers the possibility of initiation of military actions. This, of course, does not fully guarantee the nonrenewal of military actions, but creates serious restrictions. While one of the parties to the conflict is not satisfied with the outcome of the war, permanent threat of resuming war and attpempts to achieve revanche will preserve for quite a long time. But the stability in the zone of Karabakh conflict will be preserved by a new balance – it can be called “balance of threats” (according to S. Walt’s terminology) – which will make parties to stick to the fragile and unstable peace for quite a long time.
According to English war theorist and historian Basil Liddell-Garth, the purpose of any war is peace which is better than the one before the war (at least from your personal point of view) 9. In conditions when any party to the conflict knows firmly that in case of any outcome of the military actions in Karabakh it will lose tens of thousand people and will suffer huge material expenses, it will be much harder to decide to initiate war. The chances of Azerbaijan to get better peace after the war than the one before the war are not high. In accordance with Liddell-Garth victory after the war in its true value implies better mode of peace and material condition of the people than the ones before the war. Such victory is possible only in case when rapid result is achieved and if long run efforts are spent in accordance with the resources of the country. The end must correspond the means10.
The complex peculiarity of the conventional deterrence in Karabakh conflict is that it consists of both purely military-technical (capability of the Armenian party to deliver “anti-value” strikes) and political (security guarantees of the CSTO and Russia) components. The additional symmetry is attached to this system of deterrence by the distinct stance of international community, which is against the resumption of the military actions in the zone of Karabakh conflict and which does not give hopes to Baku for a kind of “geopolitical swing” and support of the western countries in case of military help of Russia to Armenia. It is remarkable that political component of the conventional deterrence implemented by Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh will play its part even in case if the declared aim of the Armenian policy of deterrence, i.e. non-admission of the initiation of the large-scale war by Azerbaijan, is not achieved. Strategic capabilities of deterrence theory will be of great importance even in case if it does not carry out its main task, because involvement of Russia in military actions will deprive Azerbaijan of hopes for a victorious Blitzkrieg in Karabakh.
It is natural that deterrence, as any other military and strategic theory and policy carried out in practice, has its defects and vulnerable sides. The policy of deterrence cannot be static and must develop constantly in order to remain topical, really able to “deter” possible enemy, to intimidate him with possible losses and make renounce an attempt to resume military actions. The efficiency of deterrence can be influenced by changes of the military balance (adoption by the enemy new types of weapons and defence technology, which can neutralize “retribution weapons” possessed by the Armenian parties), level of rationality of the leader who takes political decisions (when the resumption of military actions at any cost may be his last hope to preserve power), geopolitical context (involvement of the external actors into the regional politics) and etc.
E.g. adoption of new S-300 air-defence missile weapon systems11 may cause difficulties for usage of 9К72 tactical rocket complexes to deliver strikes on Azerbaijani capital and significant targets in the depth of Azerbaijani territory. This may create an impression for the Azerbaijani leadership that lowering of the “anti-value” potential of the Armenian deterrence will loosen the expenses of Baku in case of the resumption of military actions, soften public discontent from the material and human losses, reassure concern of the western companies for the destiny of the implemented energy projects.
But, as it is known, any political action causes counteraction: the answer of the Armenian party for restoration of the deterrence potential can be the passing into service of big number of tactical and operational-tactical missile complexes of different models (the mass usage of which may overcome the “antiaircraft umbrella” over Baku and objects of oil industry and infrastructure) and new large-caliber “Smerch” MLRS or their foreign analogues (resisting to which by the antiaircraft means will be hampered from technical point of view). The options of actions and counteractions by the parties may vary and the asymmetric race of armaments may continue for decades which can be observed in Karabakh conflict since the mid 1990s.
In principle, theory of deterrence has already been efficiently implemented in Karabakh conflict for about two decades. There are only episodic sniper firings and reconnaissance and sabotage groups raids with the application of large-caliber small arms and grenade launchers and which, nevertheless, does not bring to the exchange of the artillery strikes and actions of the large units of Karabakh or Azerbaijani troops. The long-term effectiveness of deterrence theory in Karabakh conflict, according to our analysis, in prospects depends not only on military and technical component, but also on its multi-layer military and strategic, political, economic and moral-psychological elements.
Correspondingly, in case of its efficient realization, the policy of deterrence in Karabakh conflict may create grounds for long lasting peace. As the prime-minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin mentioned when he was estimating the capabilities of Israeli policy while analyzing analogous example of long-term conventional deterrence in almost half a century after the establishment of state of Israel, the longer Israel successfully deterred Arab leader or coalition from unleashing a war, the better would be the prospects of preserving peace12.
1Under asymmetric armament race here we mean the system of military and technical efforts directed at maintaining military balance by one of the parties by acquiring “counterweapons” (e.g. in response to the purchase of new battle planes and helicopters or armor by Azerbaijan, Armenian party put into service more efficient anti-aircraft defence systems and anti-tank guided missiles. The military and political dimension of asymmetric armament race is the ability of one of the parties to sustain and compensate military balance through the favourable supply of the weapons by ally country or through the cooperation within the framework of military and political block.
2See in details: «Военная сила в международных отношениях», Дипломатическая Академия МИД России, М., 2009.
3В.М.Буренок, О.Б.Ачасов, «Неядерное сдерживание», Военная мысль, №12, 2007, с.12.
4Ibid.
5In 2004-2005 Azerbaijan bought in Ukraine 12 launchers for 9А52 “Smerch” MLRS and at least 144 9М55К missiles for them. The shooting range of “Smerch” is from 70 to 90km (depending on the type of the missile) but there were only cluster high-explosive rockets with 70km shooting range which they got during the division of the WDT of the Soviet Army.
6In 2006-2009 Azerbaijan bought in Israel six launcher for “Lynx”. That multiple launch rocket systems can shoot with three types of rockets (122mm “Grad, 160mm LAR and 300mm “Extra”) and have rather high strike accuracy. The stated shooting range of 300mm “Extra” rockets is up to 150km. There were 50 300mm “Extra” rockets bought, but there is no information about the successful shooting practice. It is remarkable that serious scandal broke in spring 2009 after buying by Kazakhstan an artillery battalion of similar MLRS with 300mm rockets (which were called “Nayza”) and some other defence systems; high ranking employees of the Ministry of Defence of that country were arrested. It turned out that the aforementioned MLRS and artillery systems produced by Israeli Israel Military Industries and Soltam Systems LTD companies showed up constructive and technological faults during the shooting practice. See for details: : А.Коновалов, Т.Кучуков, «Вызвал огонь на себя», Время, 14.04.2009 (http://www.time.kz/index.php?newsid=9969); Сделка с казахами заморожена – израильский производитель военной техники увольняет работников, http://izrus.co.il/dvuhstoronka/article/2009-03-30/4159.html, 03.30.2009.
7The shooting range of R-17 missiles is up to 300km with the circular probable error up to 0.6 km on a long distance.
8In 2008 Azerbaijan bought from Ukraine three launchers for 9К79-1 «Точка-У» tactical rocket complex (maximum shooting range up to 120km). It is possible that in the years to come Azerbaijan bought additional launchers for the aforementioned complex.
9Б. Лиддел-Гарт. «Стратегия непрямых действий» (Энциклопедия военного искусства). М. – СПб., 1999, с.403.
10Ibid, p.408.
11In summer 2010 in Russian media information about possibility of selling S-300PMU-2 “Favorite” air-defence missile weapon complexes.
12Mark A.Heller, “Continuity and Change in Israeli Security Policy”, Adelphi Paper #335, IISS, Oxford University Press, London – New York, 2000, p.12.
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