ARMENIAN COMMAND IS LIKELY TO WAGE WAR WITHOUT PEOPLE

Lragir.am
17 July 06

Over the past ten months the U.S. Army has stepped up a single
military operation without reservists. It happened in Grenada, a tiny
island-state. The operation in Iraq required serious mobilization,
including foreign forces. When a military conflict between two states
is prepared, whose troops count several tens of thousand, military
planning cannot overlook the possibility of a lasting and large-scale
war. At the same time, there is information that the Command of Armenia
is likely to resolve all the military problems without reserves. This
stance is devoid of military logic, it is absolutely nonsensical and
is based on the personal and group interests of the Command and the
government. It seems that the possibility of resumption of war is
rather big, and it will be unforgivable to view the upcoming military
operations as a "medium scale" armed conflict. Nobody has the right
to stake the country’s security on obstinate and pointless assertion
of their doubtful views.

It is not a secret that the Armenian Command is hopeful to crush
the rival in a large-scale preventive operation. However, it would
be impossible without increasing significantly the army personnel.
Military experts say the number of reservists and their effectiveness
is sufficient to carry out a successful military operation. However,
it is nevertheless necessary to revive the tradition of Karabakh War
I and create defense squads. Under certain conditions these defense
squads can carry out important military tasks, not only in trenches
but also in offensives. It should be noted that when there was a
scorched smell in the air in spring 1988, 25,500 participants of
the war in Karabakh returned to Armenia within two weeks, including
a number of young people, who had to leave Armenia to look for jobs
abroad. These people, away from the homeland, organized additional and
charter flights and bus trips from the adjacent regions. It was not
the initiative of the government, it was a natural reaction of this
contingent of people. Now it is high time to take up the registration
of volunteers again and implement the project of distributing weapon
to volunteers. If the government in its present state does not trust
these people, who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the Homeland,
how can one trust such a government? However, mobilization after
resumption of military actions seems even more nonsensical. One can
be sure to state that the reason for such a strange behavior of the
Armenian Command is the reluctance to increase the public and political
status of the Armed Forces and the number of people in the society,
who have guns, because it may lead to an attempt of the military
sets to interfere with political matters. Besides a number of reserve
officers most commanders of defense squads in Karabakh War I share this
opinion. Patriots have not forgotten that there are tasks in Karabakh
which have not been fulfilled yet. This contradicts with the concept
of building of the Armenian armed forces and operational plans. No
doubt the stance of the Armenian Command may lead to military success
and may damage the country’s defensive capacity. It is notable that
this stance of the Armenian Command is officially approved by the
Defense Ministry of Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

In this situation the parliaments of Armenia and NKR, political
parties, non-governmental organizations, military experts and the
media must give their evaluation of this stance. In this situation
different views on the country’s security cannot be left out of
debate. Such an important defense potential cannot be allowed to be
used so inefficiently due to personal and group interests of statesmen
and politicians.

If the leadership of the Armenian Ministry of Defense is so generous
as to hope to fulfill military plans with a limited resource,
combatant generals are eventually obliged to express their point
of view, which essentially differs from that of the administration
and the political leadership. The fact that the officer corps and
participants of volunteer organizations are too politicized is a sign
of moral pureness and responsibility of the public rather than internal
threat or non-loyalty to the government. And the idea put forward in
the political sphere that military actions will be sparked if weapon
is distributed to defense squads is nonsense, and nobody believes it.