Tuesday, October 27 2020 17:40

ArmInfo.One month into a massive military offensive for Nagorno-Karabakh and hours into a failed US-brokered truce, Azerbaijan is facing a crucial choice that could define the  war's outcome, famous Armenian-Americanpolitical scientists Richard  Giragosian writes in his article published in Asia Times.

Azerbaijani troops, having advanced on the open terrain along the Iranian border,  have the momentum and appear to be fast approaching the strategic  Lachin corridor. But with its troops overstretched and the Karabakh  defenders having retreated to the forested high ground, Baku is at a  crossroads. The choice is one of following military logic and sound  strategy or opting instead for a decision with greater political and  diplomatic dividends. But Azerbaijan can't have it both ways.   Military logic suggests a choice of focusing on targeting the Lachin  corridor, the critical lifeline between Karabakh and Armenia. Any  success in cutting off the Lachin lifeline would be devastating,  endangering the resupply and flow of reinforcements to Karabakh and  subjecting the Karabakh Armenians to a months-long siege.  Yet for an  Azerbaijani populace eager for full control of Karabakh itself, that  would not be enough, as such a choice would be neither politically  palatable nor sufficient in the face of dangerously high expectations  for complete victory.

And that leaves the second choice: a turn away from the Lachin  corridor for an attack on the city of Shushi within Karabakh itself.   The capture of the historic cultural center of Shushi, known to  Azerbaijanis as Shusha, would offer significant political rewards for  the government of President Ilham Aliyev. It would also enhance  Baku's diplomatic bargaining power in any future negotiations.  Yet  such a move would also incur tremendous military losses and usher in  a new, even more intense period of guerrilla warfare as Karabakh  forces would hold an advantage in mobility and surprise in an  insurgency-style campaign against the Azerbaijani forces.  Given the  over-extended vulnerability and strained supply routes for the  Azerbaijani forces in the field for a month already, that may be an  especially risky decision.

Already, the Azerbaijani column - its advance driven more by  political objectives in Baku than military science - is inherently  vulnerable due to stretched supply lines and broken lines of  communication. This defiance of Clausewitzian military science may be  tempting in order to rush the advance and seize more territory, but  Baku is dangerously ignoring essential limitations and necessities.

In addition, the Azerbaijani attacking column is increasingly spread  much too thin, with no rear-guard deployment of units or men capable  of holding the territorial gains they have achieved in areas south of  Karabakh.

This weakness will only return as a looming challenge for the  Azerbaijani attackers as any counter-attacks by the Karabakh Armenian  forces will face little resistance and could offer a much-needed  element of tactical surprise and "out-flanking" of exposed  Azerbaijani units.  Winter is now fast approaching, meaning any  further Azerbaijani combat operations will be especially difficult if  not impossible in the coming weeks due to low visibility and  impassable snow-covered mountainous terrain.

A second, often overlooked factor in the strategic context is the  operational doctrine and combat experience of the Karabakh Armenian  side. In the major past confrontations, most notably the initial  Karabakh war of the early 1990s and the five-day war of April 2016,  the Karabakh Armenians were initially losing before regrouping and  securing victories based on counter-attacks and repelling invasions.

This historical pattern offers another advantage for the Karabakh  defensive position beyond the already important edge of terrain and  topography, suggesting the real burden is on the attackers.  Beyond  the daily reports of severe losses, high casualties and an  increasingly costly tactical campaign to both seize territory and  defend positions, it may be too early to discount the Karabakh  Armenian defenders.

After a weeks-long consistent Azerbaijani advance, a successful and  orderly retreat by the Karabakh forces allowed them to reposition and  regroup for a secondary defensive line based on the defenders'  advantages of terrain and topography.  After suffering serious losses  in equipment and nearly 1,000 casualties, their counter-attacks and  stubborn resistance have begun to turn the tide of battle.

In recent days, the new defensive positions succeeded in halting the  Azerbaijani advance to within roughly 25 kilometers of the  strategically vital Lachin corridor, the sole highway connection  between Karabakh and Armenia.

At the same time, the retreat into the mountains and forests have  allowed the Karabakh forces to launch small unit attacks against the  more exposed Azerbaijani infantry and armored support.  And with such  forested and mountainous terrain, the Azerbaijani advantage of an air  threat from their formidable Turkish and Israeli military drones will  be significantly diminished.  Yet with President Aliyev having  promising full victory, the prospect of stopping short of either  Lachin or Shushi could risk political suicide.

Against this backdrop, even tripartite diplomatic engagement has  fallen short. Moscow, in an attempt to demonstrate its diplomatic  dominance, sought to force an agreement on the Armenian and  Azerbaijani foreign ministers in a hastily arranged meeting on  October 9.  Backed by France and the United States, the two other  co-chairing nations of the Organization for Security and Cooperation  in Europe's (OSCE) so-called Minsk Group, this Russian initiative was  initially seen as a potent assertion of diplomatic power.

Yet both Azerbaijan and Turkey showed uncharacteristic courage in  resisting what they saw as Russian bluff and bluster, and the  Azerbaijani offensive continued unencumbered.

Such open and outright defiance of Russia stems from an Azerbaijani  determination fortified by an unprecedented level of direct Turkish  military and diplomatic support. Azerbaijani military gains in  territory and tactical success against the Karabakh Armenian  defenders have only deepened their reluctance to abide by a  ceasefire.

In the wake of that rather surprising rebuke, a second diplomatic  initiative was launched. This time it was France, in a round of  American- style, shuttle diplomacy, with an emissary of French  President Emmanuel Macron flying into Yerevan and on to Baku for a  series of meetings with each side on October 15-16.  Despite  accolades for innovation and initiative, that second effort at  securing a ceasefire also fell short.

Emboldened by territorial gains and encouraged by popular domestic  support rare for his authoritarian rule, President Aliyev flouted his  newfound victories and echoed Turkish complaints of the OSCE Minsk  Group, suggesting a greater role for Ankara in the mediation at the  expense of Paris.

And in the weakest and least promising round of diplomatic  engagement, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met separately with the  Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Washington on October  23.

This belated American gesture was largely doomed from the start, and  was as much a move to show geopolitical relevance as to boost an  embattled Trump administration in the waning days of a contested  presidential election campaign.

While the US did succeed in securing an agreement to abide by yet  another cessation of hostilities, it already appeared to break down  within an hour of implementation.

Conflict mediation is never an easy task, dependent on a degree of  sincere political will among the parties to the conflict, and in  nearly all cases, a degree of conflict fatigue. In the case of  Nagorno-Karabakh, war-time diplomacy has failed, with dynamic  developments on the battlefield now driving the situation.