• ANDREW DEMIRDJIAN
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The Weapon to Turn the tide of War

Posted on December. 22. 2020

“Complaining about a problem
without posing a solution
is called whining.”
Teddy Roosevelt

Z. S. Andrew Demirdjian

Since the primitive times of Stone Age era, humankind has been attempting to invent the kind of weapons to kill its adversaries as efficiently as possible. In terms of the material used in the weapons, the evolution ran from stone, bronze, iron, to nuclear weapons. While the material of the weapons changed over time, warfare kept its three elements: Infantry, Shock, and Fire Support.

The Infantry element normally refers to ground troops who fight on foot even if they may ride into battle or fight from trenches; their role has always been to do the bulk of the fighting against the enemy to take and hold ground.

As for the Shock element, it first began as chariots (in Sumer), use of elephants, and then evolved into cavalry, mounted knight, culminating into modern warfare with armored vehicles; and now, in the twenty first century, it graduated to the air mobile and air cavalry forces.

Finally, the Fire Support element has slowly grown in importance and technology, by becoming more accurate, more mobile, and longer ranged. This element began with catapults (in Greece) and ballistae to cannons and guided weapon launch systems, including the modern MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) and computer-based UAVs, which stands for unmanned aerial vehicle systems, known as drones (the United States).

Even as we enter the 21st century, war is still part and parcel of the civilized world that continues to invent advanced weapons to kill, and warfare still consists of the three elements presented above.

Just on Monday, November 9, 2020, Armenians around the world were devastated to learn that Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Defense Forces had lost the war to Azerbaijan and had surrendered large swaths of territories including key cities to Azerbaijan.

Most Armenian people are both in mourning and in a state of shock and ask “why” since they were led to believe that the Armenian forces were ready to push the enemy back all the way to Baku? The self-defeating Chauvinism spelled disaster.

Against the three elements of warfare, let us see if we can find a plausible answer as to “why” the brave Armenian soldiers lost to Azerbaijan when in 1991-1994 Artsakh Liberation War thousands and thousands of Azeri soldiers fled and deserted the battlefield. We also need to propose a solution to the identified problem.

In terms of Infantry element, the Artsakh Defense Forces began to do so well, firing their artillery weapons during the first few days into the war. Most of them were well protected in their deep trenches, perched on mountain ridges, camouflaged to confuse the enemy. In no time, they were “puff” neutralized. Artsakh’s armor, artillery and infantry fighting vehicles were demolished. Silent went their cannons. What happened? Let us explore.

As far as the Shock element goes, Artsakh forces had a $42 million anti-missile weapon to crush the enemy’s flying aircrafts. Unfortunately, it malfunctioned and was replaced by other less potent weapons. Artsakh’s most expensive air defense systems, the older S-300PS, were easily put out of commission by Israeli loitering munitions drones as the former were never designed to neutralize the latter. Despite, their early problems, Artsakh’s forces could fairly well shoot down a number of Azeri and Turkish F-17 fighters and drones.

As the war progressed to its third week, the Artsakh forces began to lose ground to the Azerbaijani/Turkish Fire Support element focusing on the deployment of Israeli built and directed drones as well as Turkish Bayraktar Tactical killer UAVs.

According to many military analysts and observers, the single most devastating Fire Support category weapon of the Azerbaijani/Turkish forces was the deployment of UAVs. Most notably, was the Israeli suicide drones operated by Israeli experts during the war. As a result of the deadly drones, Artsakh forces have lost a lot of their infantry soldiers, tanks, artillery cannons, armored vehicles, and other weapons within a matter of weeks.

Despite their loss of soldiers, cities, and territories, the Artsakh Defense forces fought a brave war against a conglomerate of forces consisting of Azerbaijan, Turkey, ISIS jihadists, Syrian and Libyan mercenaries, and Pakistani volunteers including some that will be known later.

Artsakh’s defense would have been impenetrable had it not been for the enemy’s use of illegal weapons, such as phosphorus gas, loitering munitions, cluster bombs, etc. However, nothing surpasses the damage of UAVs known as loitering munitions which search, find the target, and fire at it.

According to recent casualty reports, Azerbaijan has lost about 2800 soldiers while Artsakh has lost about the same number. Equal war casualties indicate that the Armenians had put up a good fight regardless of the enemy’s killer drones.

But what has tipped the war in Azerbaijan’s favor should not be subject to speculation. You see, the Artsakh forces were supposed to have the advantage of high mountain terrain (High Karabagh) to fight the enemy coming from the plains (Lower Karabakh). Unfortunately, the use of killer UAVs by Azerbaijan neutralized the Artsakh’s high mountainous position advantage since ground to ground combat was waged from air to ground. And it is a thousand pities that the Artsakh forces lacked UAVs to counter the surreptitious attacks of Israeli killer drones.

Fire Support is now long ranged and highly accurate unmanned aircraft and cruise missiles with the capability of accurate strikes and interdiction rather than the use of mass of weapons delivered on target. The air power systems are gradually becoming more unmanned with a clear future that most air support will be unmanned within the next several decades. In March 2020, there were 13 countries worldwide that have armed military UAVs and six of them are in the Middle East (in the vicinity of Armenia).

Even naval warfare is focusing on delivering Fire Support against targets that are found inland. This kind of air power technology is developing rapidly with the use of the computer for high precision.

UAVs are known by different names, such as drones, loitering munitions, precision-guided munitions, kamikaze or suicide drones, and smart bombs, which are highly accurate bombs that are guided to their targets by computers. Smart bombs, for example, hit their targets much more frequently than dumb bombs (used by Artsakh forces), which are mostly unguided and cause fewer casualties and less damage to civilian quarters. Because of the drones deployed in Syria and Libya, Turkey has been dubbed as the “Killer Drone Power” by the international community.

Most Armenians will be sold on the idea of acquiring or producing drones when they learn that an unmanned aerial vehicle, an aircraft piloted by remote control or onboard computers can, within sixty minutes of reaching a launch site, be assembled and launched to pulverize the enemy.

If the drone is the star weapon to turn the tide of war, why not either acquire it from China or better yet produce it for local use as well as for export. Buying is simple, let the Armenian Diaspora raise funds for drones.

For local production, assuming we have the ears of some policy decision makers of the Armenian community for a change, how could they go about producing this weapon?

Here is what Armenia will do to help a foreign or Armenian Diaspora investment venture team in the manufacturing of UAVs for local use and export production:

A feasibility study must be conducted and a report based on it prepared to be made available to prospective venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Among other matters such as profitability, the report should highlight the following features as incentives provided by the government of Armenia:

For a factory site, the Armenian government will lease land free of charge for 100 years. The site should be around Yerevan to be in the proximity of labor force pool willing to work at the factory.

The Armenian government will also grant holiday taxation for a period of 10 years with the option to renew it for another 10 years if the project fails to produce the expected revenues to break even.

Since the production of UAVs will also help the national security, Armenian government will provide health benefits to the employees of the factory for a period of 10 years.

To arm the Armenian Fire Support forces with UAVs, the government guarantees to purchase all of its needs from the local factory.

As for exports, the government will charge no export taxes for the UAVs sold internationally in order to improve the revenues of the venture capitalists.

To protect the infant industry, the Armenian government promises to not approve the operation of another company, corporation to produce UAVs in Armenia for a period of 20 years.

With the Armenian government’s incentives, any venture capitalist or entrepreneur will salivate at the extent of exceptions provided for the production of UAVs in Armenia. In case Armenia fails to find a suitable entrepreneur to establish the factory, then the Armenian Diaspora could step in. If every diasporan donates or invests $1, the 10 million-diaspora adult members could raise $10 million for seed money (through seed fundraising).

The most important reason behind losing the war to Azerbaijan is the deployment of killer drones. According to one analyst, “Azerbaijan had used drones and loitering munitions against Armenia in the four-day war of 2016. Yet over the four years separating these respective conflicts, the Armenian military failed to adapt in almost every respect.” Namely, Chauvinism had blinded them to assess the reality of the highly improved adversary and get UAVs for its military forces.

It is imperative that we arm our soldiers with the latest precision weapons since nobody knows for sure when the wayward President Ilham Aliyev will conduct another sneak attack since he has been crowing over his victory and frequently assuring his people by claiming: “Karabakh is Azerbaijan!”

On December 17, 2020, President Ilham Aliyev praised President Valdimir Putin for declaring that “Karabakh is Azerbaijan.” Aliyev also expressed his appreciation for Putin’s earlier comment that the Karabakh conflict is over and that it has become “part of history.” It is obvious that President Aliyev will crusade for Artsakh as well once he gets hold of the ceded territories from Armenia.

We owe it to our brave soldiers to equip them with not only defensive weapons, but rather with offensive, computer-based unmanned aerial vehicles to match or surpass the enemy’s power from wreaking havoc in Artsakh’s military posts and civilian quarters.

The year 2020 has been a year like no other time since the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923. While we have all faced unprecedented challenges this year beyond our expectations, this time has underscored the importance of unity. Let us not just believe in unity, but rather act in a united way to solve our national problems. Let us not waste time “whining” and dismantling what we have rather begin building bridges for progress since we are all in a common predicament. The immense challenges we are facing now will be testing our national strength and resilience — the Armenian people taps into these empowering qualities that have served as their lifeblood for the survival spirit of the Armenian nation.