Armenia Military

The other day Armenia demonstrated that its army is in tip-top shape and can even attack the oil facilities of much-hated neighbor Azerbaijan, if need be. But one question lingers on . . . where's the beef?

Roast beef has not been on the Armenian soldier’s menu for some time. Reportedly, until last month, the man responsible for military food supplies had been deviously serving frozen buffalo meat, imported from India, instead. Now from his prison cell, Albert Oganjanian, director of a local meat company, is threatening to tell the whole truth about this alleged swindle, possibly implicating some big guns.

Granted, you want to get for dinner what you ordered, but what’s the big fuss over buffalo meat?

At first glance, the Armenian army might have more pressing matters to deal with, such as rampant hazing, arbitrary punishments and a high number of non-combat fatalities, all trends that have drawn sharp criticism from human rights groups both at home and abroad.

And, when it comes down to it, buffalo meat, lower in fats and cholesterol and higher in proteins than beef, actually might be something a doctor would prescribe.

But, arguably, such a scandal is not what any doctor of politics would order for President Serzh Sargsyan, a former defense minister now facing reelection in early 2013.

With Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's much-anticipated Kazan pow-wow with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan just days away, one senior Azerbaijani politician has a message he's eager to share with you: Might makes right.


When Azerbaijan parades its military might on Army Day on June 26, “[o]nce more everyone will see the change in correlation of power in favor of Azerbaijan in every direction,” declared ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party Deputy Executive Secretary Mubariz Gurbanli. “The moral, psychological, economic, social and political superiority of our nation will convince external forces to put pressure on Armenia."


And let's not forget economic muscle. Armenia can invest all it wants in its economy, Gurbanli claimed, but it will never compare with hydrocarbon-rich Azerbaijan. Why? As News.az paraphrased it: "The reason is the dynamic development of Azerbaijan and the economic strength of our country."


The timing of Gurbanli's observations is not accidental. The Army Day display comes a day after the Kazan summit, an event at which Azerbaijan, conceivably, intends to parade its diplomatic might as well. Some analysts have gone into orbit over expectations for the summit, characterized as everything from a last chance for Karabakh peacemaking to a chance for a mega-breakthrough.


But in this macho match, Armenia has its own words of warning. Last week, the deputy commander of Armenia's air force announced that Armenia has manufactured its own "quite serious unmanned aerial vehicles" that will let it, "like developed NATO countries," make "targeted strikes on any enemy target, economic facility and the like."

Call it a draw for now?

With Osama bin Laden dead, Washington may be busy debating an Afghanistan pullout, but some Armenian top-brass appear ready to stick around for awhile.

On May 10, Armenia moved to triple its Afghan contingent to 130 personnel -- a figure that will make the tiny South Caucasus country the second-largest South Caucasus troop contributor to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Afghan campaign. It follows after NATO groupie Georgia, which tips the scales at 924 personnel.

By comparison, Azerbaijan, the largest and the richest of the Caucasus lot, will now have the smallest number of forces (94) on the ground in Afghanistan.  

Competition between the three countries traditionally runs deep; no less so, it would appear, in Afghanistan.

“Armenia should not be in the last place in this regard in the South Caucasus,” argued Defense Minister Seiran Oganian in his May 10 address to Armenia's National Assembly. Some Armenian lawmakers agreed, saying that beefing up Armenia's troop presence in Afghanistan will improve the country's international image.   

Armenian troops currently help provide security for an airport in the northern city of Kunduz. Oganian said that Armenia may increase its military presence in Afghanistan to 260 personnel at the next troop rotation.

Azerbaijan on March 4 kick-started the manufacture of unmanned aircraft, most probably to peek into the goings-on in Armenia and Armenian-guarded, breakaway Nagorno Karabakh.  

Defense officials yesterday updated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on their progress with the domestic production of Israeli-designed drones. The two models, Orbiter 2M and Aerostar, both manufactured by a local company, AZAD Systems Co., can cruise for five and 12 hours at altitudes of six and 10 kilometers, respectively.

Armenia, which occasionally exchanges gunfire with Azerbaijan, in the past has complained about Baku reportedly flying drones over disputed Karabakh.

Drones have become a popular defense toy elsewhere in the South Caucasus, too. Some two months before the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, a Russian jet shot down an unmanned Georgian reconnaissance aircraft that was hovering over breakaway Abkhazia. Since the war, Moscow has offered to sell Abkhazia Russian-made drones.  

The Azerbaijani models, financed by a $3.12-billion defense budget, may not have attack capabilities, but their presence similarly promises to add tensions to an atmosphere already charged with war rhetoric.

Social media idealists no doubt will take note of this "impact story" from Armenia, to use non-profit parlance. After a YouTube video of the act helped launch an investigation, an Armenian court last week jailed an army officer for abuse of his subordinates, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has reported.

On December 9, a court in the regional town of Kapan handed down a three-year prison sentence for abuse of power to Major Sasun Galstian, a former deputy commander of an Armenian army unit in breakaway Nagorno Karabakh. Galstian pled guilty to the charge.

Meanwhile, a trial is still pending for Private Manvel Azroian, who shot dead four fellow soldiers in another Armenian military unit in Nagorno Karabakh on November 19-20.

Defense officials have promised to stamp out army violence, but some public skepticism persists about how effective any such crackdown will be.

Azerbaijan this week announced a 90-percent hike in defense spending, stoking fears that sooner or later all those guns are going to be put to use.

The $3.1 billion in requested military spending is almost one billion larger than the entire national budget of Azerbaijan’s cash-strapped arch-rival Armenia. Shaken by an economic crisis, Armenia may be hard-pressed to match oil-rich Azerbaijan’s defense spending, but few doubt that Yerevan will try.

“Gunpowder is an agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted,” American writer Ambrose Bierce wrote. Neither guns nor troublesome conflicts are in short supply in the South Caucasus, as the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia displayed. Baku said many times that if Armenia does not surrender the occupied Azerbaijani territories, Azerbaijan will take them by force. Does the increased military spending somehow fit into that option? So far, the answers are few.