Azerbaijan and Armenia in the conditions of war

For the first time Armenia, carrying out maneuvers, started them with the declaration of the conditional war by the country's parliament. In its turn, Azerbaijan for the first time declared that the aim of the September maneuvers is the defeat of the military units of Armenia occupying the Azerbaijani territory.

Both sides reported on the successful completion of all the goals and tasks set in the planning of maneuvers. Armenia declared defeat in the course of maneuvers of Azerbaijani armed formations, and Azerbaijan, accordingly, defeated the Armenian. During the maneuvers both sides stated that the firing was combat.

The President of Turkey R. Erdogan attended the military parade, held in honor of the 100th anniversary of the liberation of Baku from the Bolshevik-Armenian occupiers by the joint Turkish-Azerbaijani forces held on September 15, 2018. The Turkish leader said that the brotherhood of Turkey and Azerbaijan is inviolable, and that "there can be no talk of opening the Turkish-Armenian border until the Karabakh conflict is resolved fairly ..."

Military maneuvers and preparations for the conflicting parties were accompanied by a previously unpredictable verbal duel launched by the new leader of Armenia, Pashinyan, who, apparently, still continues to be dominated by revolutionary euphoria.

Immediately upon coming to power, Pashinyan said:

- that he refuses negotiations, which lead to nothing;

- that Karabakh should participate in the negotiation process;

- that Armenia will defeat Azerbaijan, because now it is completely different - a rallied country that the entire world Armenian Diaspora will actively support,

- that it is high time, without hesitation, to annex Karabakh to Armenia.

The response of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev did not take long:

"The war is not over yet";

"Very soon, the Azerbaijani flag will be over Karabakh" and,

"It would have been better if Pashinyan calms down and sit down, or he would get such an answer that he will not find himself a little."

Further, both leaders sent their sons to active service in the army - an event unprecedented for these countries, where the elite had previously tried to liberate their offspring from military conscription.

On the wave of growth in oil revenues in 2018, Azerbaijan launched a new program to rearm its army. On September 18 at a meeting with residents of the region of Bilasuvar, I.Aliyev said: "We will continue to strengthen our army, we will allocate more funds to the army, and in every possible way we will strengthen its defense capability."

It is interesting that unlike past small and large crises, international mediators did not indicate their attitude to the current aggravation played by Armenian and Azerbaijani staff officers. The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs hardly reacted to the provocative actions of the parties in order to stop the escalation of tension.

In this regard, it is worth noting the visit of the Israeli Defense Minister (September 13-18), which spent five days in Baku, negotiating with the President and the Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan to expand military cooperation between the countries, including the sale of Israeli high-tech weapons to Azerbaijan. According to detaly.co.il "in 2017, the volume of Israeli arms exports reached 9.1 billion dollars. 13% of the Israeli arms exports come from Azerbaijan. "

On September 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Azerbaijan, who continued the line of the Sochi visit of President Aliyev to the expansion of the Russian-Azerbaijani trade and economic cooperation for the next six years. Publicly nothing was said about the military aspect of cooperation. But it should be noted that Putin's visit came at the defense exhibition in Baku, where Russian developers and manufacturers lobbied for their weapons, and he could not but discuss the prospects for further deliveries of the Russian arms.

All these maneuvers, parades, verbal duels and visits of foreign leaders to the region may seem to observers a harbinger of some large-scale events in the conflict zone. Of the recent statements of Yerevan and Baku, it is also clear that the conflicting parties believe that they are both psychologically and financially ready for a big war to a victorious end. But how much is such a war possible? Armenia does not want a large-scale war, it is pleased with the current status quo quite. Russia does not want such a war, because its current status quo, in which both conflicting countries are dependent on Russian support, is quite satisfactory.

The West is also not a supporter of such a war, because it could harm multibillion-dollar investments invested in the extraction and transportation of Caspian energy resources and other existing and promising projects. The "war of liberation" is desired only for Azerbaijan, but even at the stage of preparation for a major war, Baku will most likely face an influential world "peacekeeping" alliance.

Such a war can be effective for Azerbaijan in the event of a weakening of the "peacekeeping" alliance, which can happen, while satisfying the interests of countries or alliances - moderators of the conflict. The latter are stepping up activity in the Azerbaijani field, where deals continue around oil and gas, militaristic and other billion projects, which, with the correct redistribution, can become an advantage of Baku and its security umbrella.

Armenian military games with the designation of real, not conditional, enemy will remain head quarters in such a situation, and the status of "neither war, nor peace" in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict can begin to crumble. Azerbaijan is unlikely to give up creating a constant tension on the contact line with the enemy, in order not to let Armenia feel at ease. Armenian soldiers will perish from mines and snipers in foreign territory. Such a status quo, as the economic, demographic degradation of Armenia and its regional isolation show, will not be easy for the Armenian society to sustain.