Armenia was the testing ground

8 min read · 1,539 words

Intro

The rules-based international order is no more. The United States of America and Israel have decided that they need not play by international law; whereas in the past Israel and America made at least some attempt to manufacture public consent for operations, Israel's recent ethnic cleansing of Palestine and joint incursions with America into Iran have made no such attempt.

This article will draw a line from Azerbaijan's incursions against Armenia from 2016–2023 to Israel and America's incursions in the Middle East today, showing how international disregard for Armenians enabled these actions and how Armenia was a testing ground for the weapons of destruction used today by the two rogue states.

What happened in Armenia?

From 2016 to 2023, Azerbaijan incited numerous wars against Armenia and successfully ethnically cleansed a large portion of Armenian land—with zero international repercussions. Their initial goal was the extermination of Armenians from Artsakh—exonymically known as Nagorno-Karabakh—with their long-term goal of "complete elimination of Armenians".¹

Artsakh was a region of Armenia, carved up by Stalin and given to Azerbaijan² —despite over 94% of the population being Armenian.³ In 1988, the people of Artsakh voted in a referendum for their independence—99.89% in favour with 82.2% turnout.⁴ Soviet and Azerbaijani authorities ignored this referendum. During the collapse of the Soviet Union, the population of Artsakh gained their freedom in a war of independence.

Artsakh enjoyed relative stability for the next thirty years, with the first major incursion taking place in April 2016, also known as the "Four-Day War". Azerbaijan began shelling Armenian residential areas and captured an area of around 14 km² (5.4 mi²)—the first shift in the line of conflict since the initial ceasefire in 1994⁵ —before Moscow stepped in and brokered a ceasefire.

During the next four years, Armenia underwent a color revolution. Then-prime minister Serzh Sargsyan's failure to act properly during the Four-Day War had come to light.⁶ Sargsyan was ousted and replaced by Nikol Pashinyan, a journalist-turned-revolutionary with no political or military background. Pashinyan invested heavily in anti-corruption, and let military investments lapse.

Azerbaijan spent those four years differently. They decided to heavily invest in weaponry, largely funded by America's $164 million "aid" packages, whose preconditions of ending the blockade against Armenia were waived by every president from 2002 to 2020.⁷

The Azerbaijani state and media ramped up their glorification of violence against Armenians, with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev awarding a medal to an Azerbaijani conscript who beheaded a 19-year-old Artsakhi soldier and posted photos of his severed head on social media.⁸

On the morning of September 27, 2020, the Azerbaijanis began an offensive and again invaded Artsakh, this time successfully capturing several villages in Hadrut province.⁹ Thus began the Second Artsakh War, known colloquially in both Armenian and Azerbaijani as "The 44-Day War".

In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched "local anti-terrorist measures"¹⁰ , expelling the remaining over 100,000 Armenians from Artsakh¹¹ .

Despite Armenia successfully defending Artsakh for 32 years, the Army of Azerbaijan forced capitulation in only forty-four days. How then, while Armenian forces were able to successfully defend their homeland for 9,679 days, did the Azerbaijanis steamroll over them in 0.45% of the time?¹²

Azerbaijan and Israel

The Israeli-Azerbaijani relationship is one of the most interesting political relationships of the 21st century. One would imagine a Jewish ethnostate¹³ and a secular Muslim¹⁴ ethnostate¹⁵ at odds with each other; however, they have formed one of the strongest arms partnerships in recent history.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev himself described Azerbaijan's relationship with Israel as "like an iceberg, nine–tenths of it below the surface." ¹⁶ The below-the-surface part of this iceberg includes over $5bn in arms deals¹⁷ , providing Israeli intelligence services access to Iran¹⁸ , and 40% of Israel's crude oil needs.¹⁹

In 2011, the Azerbaijani state and Israeli defense contractor Aeronautics Defense Systems established Azad Systems, the first Azerbaijani drone manufacturing company, in a joint venture.²⁰ Human Rights Watch documented multiple instances in 2020 where Azerbaijan used Israeli-made cluster munitions in residential areas, stating that Azerbaijan received the munitions from Israel in 2008–09.²¹ The military partnership between the two nations is so tight that Azerbaijan became the first international customer of Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems' SkyStriker drone.²²

Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows Israel supplying 69% of Azerbaijan's arms imports between the Four-Day War in 2016 and the Forty-Four-Day War in 2020²³ , while Azerbaijan accounted for 17% of Israel's arms exports during the same period.²⁴ An investigation by Haaretz documented 60 military cargo flights between the two during that period.²⁵

Armenia as a Testing Ground

The 2020 Artsakh war became what military analysts describe as the "first war won primarily with unmanned systems".²⁶

Azerbaijan used their newly purchased Israeli HAROP drones to automatically seek out and systematically destroy Armenian air defenses^{27 28} . Israeli LORA ballistic missiles were used to destroy critical military and civilian infrastructure^{29 30 31} , while Israeli Hermes 450, Hermes 900 and Orbiter unmanned aerial vehicles provided reconnaissance. Israeli-supplied Barak-8 missile-defense systems shot down Russian-supplied Iskander missiles launched by Armenia to defend its territory³² , while modernized T-72 tanks rebranded as "Aslan"—the Azerbaijani word for "lion"—fronted attacks on Armenian positions.³³

Israeli armaments used by Azerbaijan were used operationally, allowing performance feedback and data collection to inform new generations of Israeli weaponry.³⁴

Azerbaijan went after Armenian cultural sites, attempting to eradicate any evidence of the region's native Armenian population.³⁵ They shelled Armenian churches^{36 37} , destroyed Armenian cemeteries³⁸ , bombed civilian centers³⁹ , and even wiped multiple Armenian villages off the map.^{40 41}

Artsakh became a proof-of-concept, a live military tech demo. Azerbaijan showcased the military prowess and effectiveness of Israel's new weaponry, and unveiled to the world how these weapons could be used for new forms of warfare. The newly displayed doctrines of psychological attrition, remote strikes, and weapon systems became normalized across other conflicts.

International Silence—Setting Precedent

In response to this treachery, the world went mild. Governmental bodies were "concerned"^{42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59} and "urge[d] both sides"^{45 46 47 50 51 52 53 55 56 58 60 61} to "peacefully" end the conflict. They asked "both sides" to "peacefully" end an invasion and ethnic cleansing started wholly by one side.

Measures taken by the International Court of Justice⁶² were ignored by Azerbaijan,⁶³ establishing that "legally-binding" international mechanisms were, in fact, not legally binding.

The non-action from the world proved that spurious military action no longer carried international consequences. The liberal rules-based international order was dead. So long as their objectives were achieved quickly enough, state actors were free to do whatever they pleased without fear of repercussion. Condemnation may follow, but punishment may not.

Israel and the Final Frontier

This newfound global spinelessness confirmed in the eyes of Israel that the world would not care about their plans to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and neighboring populations.

The Open Source Munitions Panel catalogued the same weapons being used by Israel in Gaza during Israel's genocide of Palestinians as being used by Azerbaijan in its eradication of the Armenians in Artsakh.⁶⁴ Israel used the same white phosphorus munitions in Gaza and Lebanon^{65 66} as Azerbaijan did in Artsakh⁶⁷ . Palestinians and Armenians were severely dehumanized by their respective aggressors.^{68 69}

Drawing from Azerbaijan's blockade of Artsakh^{70 71} , Israel tightened its existing blockade of Gaza to famine-level malnutrition.⁷²

Like the reactions to Azerbaijan's conquest, leaders found Israel's incursions "concerning". ^{73 74 75 76 77 78 79} Like the response to Azerbaijan's conquest, no formal action was taken against Israel—no military interventions, no sanctions, and no glassing of their capital city, as they themselves had done to so many others.

Israel began a new war with Iran, killing diplomats^{80 81} and a head of state⁸² —seemingly unprecedented, until the leniency of the world against Israel's previous actions is factored in. Just as Azerbaijan attacked Armenian schools⁸³ , Israel targeted and leveled Iranian schools⁸⁴ .

Even as this article is being finalized, Israel has begun a massive new incursion in Lebanon, carpet-bombing the capital city of Beirut, killing hundreds of civilians.⁸⁵ Will Israel see consequences for this?

Final Words

The suffering of the Armenian people is oft overlooked, warning signs ignored, and cries for help unheard. Yet as often as it is, the suffering of Armenians preempts suffering elsewhere.

This pattern predates the ethnic cleansing of the Armenians of Artsakh. Persecution of Armenians in the Turkish Republic opened the doors for the attempted Kurdish elimination. Restrictions on language, capital, and life passed along from Armenians to Kurds. The Hamidian Massacres in the mid-1890s, where 300,000 Armenians were killed in the Ottoman Empire by order of Sultan Abdul Hamid II led to repression of Christian minorities across the Ottoman Empire. Most famously, the Ottoman extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, a mass killing so bad it led to the creation of the word genocide, directly inspired Adolf Hitler to commit the Holocaust.

The plight of Armenians seldom attracts any attention, yet their torment is the canary in the coal mine. In order to understand the methods used to eradicate populations, one must pay attention to how the Armenians were eradicated; and in order to prevent the eradication of other populations, we must prevent the Armenians from being eradicated. Armenia has historically been the testing ground for further mass conflict. We must intervene when Armenians are targeted, not after the methods have been exported elsewhere.

Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?⁸⁶

—Adolf Hitler