Azerbaijan boosting military spending

10 May 2007 [16:40] – Today.Az

With increasing streams of revenue due to energy production and the
opening of the BTC oil pipeline, the Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan is
boosting its military spending as a means to recover its occupied
territory of Nagorno Karabakh.

According to a new Azerbaijan Military Market report by Forecast
International, the government of Azeri President Ilham Aliyev intends
to drive its defense spending up to a point where neighboring rival
Armenia is forced to relinquish its defense of the breakaway
region. The inherent risk in this policy is that any outbreak of
regional instability may upset the reliability of the production of
energy and its transshipment from Azerbaijan to a European continent
desperate for alternatives to its increasing dependence on Russian
supplies.

According to Forecast International, the increasingly profligate
defense spending of Azerbaijan has been steady, from $135 million in
2003 to $310 million in 2005. In 2006 spending more than doubled to
$673 million, and for 2007 there will be a healthy 29 percent increase
to $871 million. This figure itself may grow, as President Aliyev has
insisted that by the end of the fiscal year, defense spending will
reach $1 billion. Aliyev’s stated intent is that the annual defense
expenditure of Azerbaijan be greater than the total state budget of
Armenia, a gap that is steadily narrowing.

"The goal of the Azeri leadership is to drive defense spending upward
to the point where it will break the back of Armenia’s will to
continue the impasse between the two countries over territorial
issues," said Forecast International Military Markets Analyst Dan
Darling. "The possibility of that happening, however, is unlikely in
the near term, as the capabilities of the Armenian forces are believed
to exceed those of Azerbaijan."

At the heart of the rapid Azeri defense spending is the prolonged
‘frozen conflict’ of Nagorno Karabakh, a mountainous ethnic Armenian
region located entirely within Azerbaijan’s borders. With the fall of
the Soviet Union in 1991, Nagorno Karabakh declared itself
independent, prompting an economic blockade by Azerbaijan. By 1992,
full-scale fighting had broken out involving both Azerbaijan and
Armenia and lasting until May 1994, when a Russian-brokered ceasefire
was signed.

The conflict resulted in over 30,000 deaths and more than 700,000
refugees swarming into Azerbaijan from Nagorno Karabakh. Worse for
Baku, it ended with some 20 percent of its territory under Armenian
occupation. Efforts to solve the issue diplomatically have gone
nowhere, and Nagorno Karabakh remains a de facto independent republic
unrecognized by any government.

But while Azerbaijan’s defense budget continues to increase, details
of its military expenditures remain extremely sketchy and obscure. One
reason for this may be that as a signatory of the Conventional Forces
in Europe (CFE) Treaty, Baku is restricted from superseding certain
levels of troops and weapons. Should its goal be to ultimately
reclaim its breakaway territory by force, Azerbaijan cannot be
constrained by its obligations to the CFE Treaty, yet at the same time
it cannot be seen to be violating them.

In the meantime, the Azeri Defense Ministry is reputed to be sown with
corruption and operating with little to no civilian oversight. The
overall quality, training and morale of the Azeri armed forces have
been put into question by observers, who note that if the country
wishes to join the NATO Alliance – as has been speculated, then
reforms will need to be accelerated.

Whether NATO membership is actually the long-term goal of Baku is, in
fact, an open-ended question. While a member of the Alliance’s
Partnership for Peace (PfP) program since 1994, and nearing completion
of an Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) – with a second to be
launched later in the year, Baku has been careful to skirt the
question of its future place within the Alliance. Certain members,
namely the U.S. and Turkey, wish for it to join to ensure for Europe
an anchor against Russian energy threats, and to provide an energy
transportation link to the Caspian Sea. Other members do not wish to
absorb Azerbaijan?s internal problems into the Alliance. For now, Baku
is being quiet about its ultimate goals and insists reforms will not
bring the armed forces up to NATO standards until 2015.

‘Most likely Azerbaijan is reluctant to commit itself publicly to full
membership in NATO out of the need to avoid irritating Russia,’ said
Darling. "Moscow has over 3,000 peacekeepers in Armenia along with
plenty of material being transferred from bases in Georgia. Through a
variety of economic, military or diplomatic means, it can create
numerous problems for Azerbaijan – particularly where its goal of
reclaiming Nagorno-Karabakh is concerned."

"For now," adds Darling, "Azerbaijan is getting what it needs
militarily through bilateral aid and cooperation from Turkey and the
U.S. It doesn’t need to exacerbate tensions with Russia, as well as
with neighboring Iran, particularly at a time when it is focused on
brinksmanship with Armenia." Forecast International, Inc.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress