AZE.US
Armenia has rebuilt much of the military capacity it lost after the 2020 war, but it has not yet developed a force capable of reliably deterring Azerbaijan, according to Leonid Nersisyan, a senior policy fellow at APRI Armenia.
Speaking to CivilNet, Nersisyan said the military equipment displayed in Yerevan on May 28 demonstrated a fundamental shift in Armenia’s defense procurement strategy. The country, once almost entirely dependent on Russian weapons, is now purchasing military systems from India, France, Iran and China.
The United States and additional European countries could eventually enter the Armenian defense market as well, he said.
Diversification, however, creates new challenges. Armenia must now compare competing systems, determine which equipment best fits its operational needs and integrate weapons produced under different technical standards.
“When you work in the open market, you need a different skill set,” Nersisyan said. “You need to be able to assess which piece of equipment is best suited to your needs.”
According to the analyst, Armenia still lacks sufficient experience in this area. Integrating weapons from several countries will require new battlefield-management platforms and closer cooperation between the armed forces and domestic technology companies.
Deterrence Has Not Yet Been Achieved
Asked whether Armenia had reached a point at which Azerbaijan would have to seriously consider the cost of another military operation, Nersisyan said Yerevan was still working toward that level of deterrence.
“We started quite late, and we had the losses of 2020,” he said. “In 2021, we had a much worse balance than we had in 2020.”
Armenia’s position is significantly better today than it was in 2021 or 2022, he said, but the country remains in the middle of a military transformation. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, continues to modernize its own armed forces and maintains a substantially larger defense budget.
Nersisyan estimated that the gap between the two countries’ military spending is now approximately threefold. Armenia, he argued, cannot compete through spending alone and must use its resources more efficiently.
“It should not be only about numbers in our case,” he said. “We should have very efficient armed forces, both in procurement and in the ways of waging a possible war.”
At the same time, Nersisyan said Armenia had completed the basic stage of recovering from the 2020 conflict. Compared with its prewar position, the Armenian military now has better equipment and greater capabilities in several areas.
He specifically pointed to artillery, drones and long-range strike systems. But acquiring more weapons, he said, does not automatically create a modern fighting force.
Azerbaijan’s JF-17 Fleet Changes the Equation
Nersisyan identified Azerbaijan’s expanding air force as one of the most significant challenges facing Armenian military planners.
Baku is acquiring dozens of JF-17 multirole fighter jets developed jointly by Pakistan and China. Although Nersisyan described the JF-17 as far from the world’s most advanced combat aircraft, he acknowledged that it could have a major effect against an opponent with limited modern aviation.
“If we don’t have anything in that domain, or have very limited resources, then even not the best but modern aviation can do very big harm,” he said.
Azerbaijan is also expanding its stockpile of precision-strike weapons, including cruise and ballistic missiles. The country possessed such capabilities before, Nersisyan said, but can now employ them on a much larger scale.
That leaves Armenia facing two simultaneous requirements: developing its own long-range strike capability and strengthening its defenses against Azerbaijani aircraft, missiles and drones.
Nersisyan said Armenia should place greater emphasis on relatively inexpensive short-range air defense systems and anti-aircraft artillery. Such systems have become increasingly important for countering cruise missiles, attack drones and long-range loitering munitions.
Modern Warfare Requires More Than Weapons
The more difficult transformation, according to Nersisyan, involves command, communications and battlefield organization.
Modern armies must process intelligence and make decisions within minutes or even seconds. Large command posts and concentrated military formations are increasingly vulnerable because they can be detected and targeted rapidly.
Artillery batteries, drone units and ground forces must therefore operate in a more dispersed manner while remaining connected through secure digital networks.
Nersisyan said Armenia needs integrated command-and-control systems capable of automatically transferring information from surveillance assets to commanders and weapons platforms. Artificial intelligence could eventually help military leaders analyze large volumes of battlefield data and select appropriate responses.
The country must also prepare for the growing use of autonomous aerial and ground systems, including operations in which soldiers and robotic platforms work together.
There is no single weapon capable of changing the strategic balance, Nersisyan said. Armenia’s ability to narrow the gap with Azerbaijan will instead depend on whether it can reform its command structure, integrate equipment from multiple suppliers and continuously adapt to a form of warfare that is evolving faster than traditional military institutions.
AZE.US