A Frozen War in Russia's Backyard Heats Up

Leonid Nersisyan

Security, Eurasia

Who would win in an Azerbaijan-Armenia face-off?

More than two months ago, an escalation in the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict without precedent since 1994 occurred in Nagorno-Karabakh. From the night of April 1 to April 2, combat operations continued until April 5, having begun in two parts of the contact line between the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army and the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. On that day, the parties agreed to an armistice, signed in Moscow. The four-day war answered many questions regarding military balance, while posing new ones. Since the threat of another escalation is not excluded, it makes sense to analyze the condition of the armed forces of Armenia, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan, taking into account the results of the short but bloody April war. But first, we must talk about the early history of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict.

Roots of the Conflict: The Early Twentieth Century

Bloody collisions occurred between Armenians and Azerbaijanis twice at the beginning of the twentieth century: from 1905 to 1907 and from 1918 to 1920. During those years, after the end of the First World War, the Soviet Union was taking shape. During this process, in 1921 the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, approximately 90 percent of its population Armenians who practiced the Christian religion, was allocated to the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Some years later the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAR) was created, and was deprived of any direct land connection with the Armenian SSR.

During the years of the USSR’s decay in the late 1980s, a reunification movement arose in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. It was fueled by the policy of pushing Armenians out of the NKAR; by 1989, the share of the Armenian population in the NKAR was down to 76.9 percent. Additionally, in 1988 the local Muslim population in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait implemented the most brutal programs regarding the Armenian population, at which the Soviet leadership completely lost control over the processes underway. The NKAR declared its independency from Azerbaijan, resulting in the outbreak of war in 1991. The war continued until May 12, 1994, when three parties—Armenia, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan—signed a provisional cease-fire agreement. The Armenians gained victory in this war, having established control over the NKAR and the territories around it by renewing the land connection with Armenia.