Armenian Commission – English

CAUSES OF ARMENIA’S DEFEAT IN 2020
QUESTIONS THAT NEED TO BE ANSWERED TO AVOID REPETITION OF FAILURE
THE URGENCY OF A FACT-FINDING COMMISSION

May 2021 – The joint offensive launched by Azerbaijan and Turkey against Artsakh and the subsequent Armenian defeat did not directly threaten Armenian statehood, but it did raise alarms about the long-term viability, if not the very survival, of the Armenian state.

Why was the defeat so profound, overwhelming and (to many) unexpected? Unless the totality of strategic, military, political, diplomatic, demographic, economic, and other lessons of the disastrous past are rigorously and fully and fundamentally understood and internalized, we will be bound to repeat this failure.

We present this document in order to highlight the urgency of establishing a Fact-Finding Commission. To ignore or postpone is to allow this danger to Armenian statehood to stand. This would be a mistake as grave as those which led to the defeat.

This Fact-Finding Commission would consist of thoughtful, fair and respected statesmen (and women) and professional researchers with appropriate investigative powers, including the right to obtain official information, commission research, and summon witnesses, with the vital – possibly existentially crucial – mandate to ask and answer the critical questions about both the long-term and short-term, both internal and external factors, both structure and agency, that led to this defeat, and where possible, craft recommendations on how to avoid such disastrous outcomes in the future.

Nations seldom learn from a military victory, but defeat can be a valuable teacher if a society possesses the self-confidence to face the truth and infer lessons from it. Commissions were convened in the US after 9/11 and in Rwanda after the Genocide in order to perform this essential, crucial, unavoidable task. Armenians, too, want the truth. Below are some of the questions that a Fact-Finding Commission could pursue in order to uncover the truth, and enable a realistic fact-based analysis without pre-determined accusations or conclusions. If no such commission is convened, then researchers can seek answers to those questions that fall within their professional competencies and we, on our side, will commit to do the same. After all, the search for solutions – and their implementation – must come from within.

NOTE: Neither the timing of this document nor its intent is meant to be partisan or prosecutorial in any sense. We chose to delay the publication until after the June parliamentary elections in order not to allow this document or these questions to be instrumentalized for campaign purposes by anyone.

The authors have contributed their time to start this complex and deliberate process by articulating questions. While the idea and need for such a commission became evident in November, and there have been multiple calls to convene such a commission, this group has taken time to craft the concepts around which to build such an inquiry so that it would be comprehensive. The group has conducted research of publicly available sources to formulate some of the specific key questions that need to be asked. They are cited in the footnotes in the English version. This is simply a beginning, and the questions and the process will evolve. It is our sincere hope that the answers that are required are appropriate to the gravity and urgency of the situation. What is at stake is secure, independent statehood, something that is too important to render into a blame game, or short-term partisan politics.

II.A.1. Structure

What internal structural factors shaped Armenia’s capabilities in the period from May 1994 to September 2020 to fight a war in general and a war of the kind that it ended up fighting September to November 2020. How exactly did these factors shape these capabilities?[2]

• Political
• Military
• Economic (rate of growth lagged behind that of Azerbaijan for most of post-Soviet years)[3]
• Social/demographic/labor (low birth rate; high outbound migration rates)
• Science and technology (post-Soviet de-industrialization not adequately compensated by growth of post-industrial economy)
• Cultural[4]
  • Culture of chauvinism[5]
  • Rejectionism[6]
  • Unfounded war optimism[7]
  • Immature democratic and media institutions
• Other

II.A.1. Agency

Each of the questions in this subsection should be considered separately for each of the following periods of time, except for the last two groups of questions in the political subsection.

• Presidency of Levon Ter-Petrossian (1991-1998).
• Presidency of Robert Kocharyan (1998-2003).
• Presidency and Premiership of Serzh Sargsyan (2008-2018).
• Premiership of Nikol Pashinyan (2018 – present).

Political

What strategic decisions, statements (e.g., speeches, documents), and major actions by each of post-1994 (a) heads of the executive branch of power of Armenia, (b) key ministers, (c) heads of leading parliamentary factions and (d) Diaspora leaders shaped Armenia’s capabilities to fight a war over Artsakh, and how?

Were the consecutive leaders of Armenia aware of the decline of the country’s national power vis-à-vis its main adversary and did they act to reverse it? What confluence of factors led to this decline?[8]

To what extent did the leadership of the Republic of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic share the same political-diplomatic strategy? Where and when did they diverge? What impact did that have on military and diplomatic capacity?

• What were the differences in strategies pursued by each presidential administrations of the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (Republic of Artsakh)?
• How did the “Velvet Revolution” impact the consistency and the coherence of political-diplomatic strategy between Yerevan and Stepanakert with regard to the conflict?

How, when and why did the Armenian perception of the purpose of Armenian control over seven Azerbaijani districts surrounding the Republic of Artsakh change? Did it change/evolve at all? If so, when did that occur and did this play a role in bringing about the war? How did the political thinking and the popular discourse evolve? How did that impact the negotiation process and the prospects of a negotiated settlement?

Did Pashinyan’s personal political goals impact the critical Armenian-Russian relationship? How did Pashinyan wish to politically ‘neutralize’ his predecessors Sargsyan and Kocharyan. What was the impact of his removal of then-CSTO secretary Khachaturov, the subsequent alienation of the Russian leader who counted Kocharyan as a personal friend and who took the CSTO reputation to heart? Did Pashinyan weigh the consequence of each such action? What were Pashinyan’s and the rest of the Armenian leadership’s understanding of Russia’s interests, red lines and limitations in this conflict? What was the Armenian leadership’s assessment of Russian interests if a large conflict broke out?

Should or should not have the Republic of Armenia signed a military-political pact with the Republic of Artsakh during the summer of 2020 as it became increasingly clear that Azerbaijan might launch a military offensive?

What are the centers in Armenia that produce strategic thinking, and what are the mechanisms of interaction with the executive power?

To what extent did Kocharyan’s (and Sargsyan’s) Karabakh roots help to keep the peace, but also to what extent did that serve to prevent the institutionalization or formalization of the Armenia-NK relationship, either horizontally or vertically? And how did that impact command structure, collaboration in the 2020 war?

How much did Pashinyan’s internal struggles with his predecessors and their supporters shape his decisions to challenge Azerbaijan? Was that challenging primarily meant to be a response to the internal critics who accused him of “selling Karabakh” rather than to be a message meant for Baku and Aliyev? Did the post-2018 unresolved power struggle inside Armenia have spill-over effect and activate the Karabakh conflict?

Military-political/Military

What role did strategic doctrines such as deterrence and strategic depth play in fostering the apparent sense of confidence / complacency when it came to the possibility of a new war?

What were the scenarios of strategic games, major wargames and military exercises held by the Armenian military-political leadership in the period leading up to 2020? Did military exercises anticipate any of the scenarios that actually transpired, and if so, what was learned from them?

What were the key decisions and policies pursued by the military-political leadership of Armenia with regard to military planning, manning, training, procurement of armaments? [9] Who took these decisions and what was the strategic thinking or doctrine underpinning these decisions and policies?

What was the process between the devising of strategy and the procurement of weaponry to implement that strategy? What were the strategic and tactical aspects to that process?

By what process were decisions arrived at about which weapons to procure, and from whom?

Who were the actors involved in Armenian arms procurement processes, and what were their interests? Were there counter-forces involved, including international pressures or expectations or limitations?

What other interests, beyond increased military capability, were factors in the Armenian arms procurement processes? What problems did Armenian arms procurements need to address, beyond increasing Armenian security?

What body was responsible for oversight and quality assurance in procurement especially after the war of April 2016?

• Why did Armenia fail to purchase systems, which a number of military experts believe to have made a significant contribution to Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020 war (long-range multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) and attack UAVs[10]), or which could have helped Armenian forces to put up a more effective resistance (modern air defense and electronic warfare systems[11]) in that war?
  • Why was not all the military materiel positioned for employment per ‘hair-trigger alert’ requirements despite numerous signs that the adversary was getting ready for offensive operations?
  • Why, rather than procure unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and electronic warfare systems in the wake of the April 2016 war, which showed that Azerbaijan effectively used UAVs, did Armenia instead choose to purchase expensive systems, which it ended up not using in the 2020 war, such as long-range multi-role Su-30 fighters capable of flying to Istanbul and back?

• On August 28, 2020, at the ceremony to award military personnel for bravery and achievement in the battlefield during the previous month’s skirmishes in the Tavush region, Pashinyan stated that “the victorious battles of July proved that our assessments of the military-political situation in the region and the balance of power are sober and accurate.” Did these assessments impact the Armenian negotiation strategy? Was there a shift from maintaining the status quo to war as the best alternative to negotiated agreement?[12]
  • Was there not simply a refusal to consider worst-case scenarios as plausible?

What game-changing weaponry systems could the government of Armenia afford, but ultimately chose not to procure and why?

• Did the Armenian leadership realize after the 2016 war that many of their air defense systems were obsolete and were not integrated into one overarching system? If yes, then why didn’t the leadership act to correct at least some of the flaws? If not, then why not?
  • Could Armenia afford an integrated modern air defense capable of fighting UAVs?[13] If so, why wasn’t such a system built?
  • Would introduction of the Tor air defense systems earlier and in greater numbers have helped stop the Turkish Bayraktar drones?[14]
    • If yes, then why rather than procure more advanced air defense or electronic warfare systems, did the Armenian leadership invest in old and used OSA-AK air defense systems from Jordan[15]?
    • One of the recurrent explanations by some of Armenia’s military experts about Armenia not procuring more warplanes was that it was investing in air defense systems instead. How does that square with the deplorable state of tactical air defenses during the war?[16]

Were any lessons inferred from the April 2016 war and if so, what were they?[17]

What preventive mechanisms, if any, were developed after the April 2016 war? Did they work or fail? Why?

After the April 2016 war, a Military-Industrial Committee was created under the Ministry of Defense, which was later incorporated with the Ministry of High-Tech Industry. In 2016-2020, about $25 million was allocated from the state budget for this body. What developments and production in the field of military industry were carried out under the Committee? Did the committee manage to create or support the creation of unmanned aerial vehicles that could withstand similar enemy weapons in a possible war? If it failed, why? If the committee did not succeed, did the government and other responsible authorities inform about the limitations of their capabilities, as a result of which the purchase of such weapons from foreign manufacturers would be considered?

Why were there gaps in the communication between the General Staff and government agencies responsible for attaining the industry’s strategic development benchmarks? At what stage was there the recognition that monitoring of industry outputs was insufficient for maintaining the military technological balance with Azerbaijan?

In September-October 2019, large-scale strategic military exercises were held with the involvement of state, local self-government bodies, as well as reservists. What problems were registered as a result of the military exercises, in particular, in terms of recruiting reservists, conducting military operations, coordinating the operations of different army units, communication, supply, etc.? What steps have been taken to solve the identified problems?

What was the trajectory of morale in the Armenian armed forces and the Artsakh Defense Army over the decade preceding the war, given the numbers of non-combat related deaths, reports of hazing, and other transgressions?

How did the military cooperation with Moscow in the year preceding the war compare with the previous years in terms of intensity and quality of contacts?

Did the leadership of the Armenian military really lose contact with Moscow in the year preceding the 2020 war? If, yes, then why and to what effect?[18]

Was the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces subjected to mass dismissals of officers in the six months prior to war? [19] If, yes, then why and to what effect?

Intelligence/Counter-Intelligence

What were the key decisions and policies pursued by the leadership with regard to intelligence and counter-intelligence?

Were the contacts in the military intelligence sphere between Armenia and Russia curtailed by Yerevan or by Moscow in the year preceding the war? [20] If, yes, then why and to what effect?

Had Armenia’s intelligence community, including TECHINT and HUMINT,  failed[21] to detect Azerbaijan’s and Turkey’s preparations or had the political leadership ignored[22] the incoming intelligence?

• On July 27, 2020, Lilit Makunts, the leader of the “My Step” ruling faction in the National Assembly, stated that Turkey would not engage in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Given that Turkey didn’t miss an opportunity to violate the territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria in recent decades, what gave the Armenian leadership the confidence to make such a statement? [23]

How did Armenia’s counter-intelligence community perform before the war on the strategic and tactical level and to what effect?

Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces, Colonel General Onik Gasparyan, recalled in mid-November how he alerted Armenia’s political leadership to the new regional military-political developments, including the high probability of Turkey’s involvement on the side of Azerbaijan, and warned that the Armenian Armed Forces would not be able to cope with that threat and therefore all diplomatic and political efforts should be directed at avoiding such a scenario. He said he issued this warning in a June 8, 2020, conversation with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and then again during a June 12, 2020 meeting of the National Security Council. Was the warning dismissed? If it was heeded, then what was done to avoid this development?[24]

Were Armenia’s imagery intelligence capabilities (including satellite and UAV imaging) sufficient to counter those of Azerbaijan?

How does the performance of Armenia’s intelligence community compare to those of its peers and competitors?

Diplomatic/Foreign Policy

What was Armenia’s overall political-diplomatic strategy vis-à-vis the Karabakh conflict and what means were used – or created – to reach the ends? What was the Armenian leadership’s plan for the end game regarding Artsakh, and how did that plan change during each of the four administrations since 1994?

What were the key policies pursued by the leadership with regard to foreign policy? How did the existence of the unresolved conflict impact those policies?

Has there been a disconnect between policy choices made by Armenia’s political leadership, and changes taking place in the international environment?

What is the relationship between the executive and the diplomatic service in the Armenian government and what impact did this relationship have on Armenia’s ability to advance and defend its national interests in the foreign policy/international relations domain? How much real power did the Foreign Ministry have when it came to formulating rather than just executing key decisions in that domain?

Could Armenia have had a policy alternative to the multi-vector approach or complementarity, as it was alternatively called over the years?

Did Armenia’s multi-vector approach towards foreign policy pay off?

• What impact, if any, did Armenia’s membership in CSTO, EEU, CIS have on the country’s preparedness to fight a war in general, and the war of the kind it ended up fighting in September-November 2020? Could Armenia have done anything differently within these alliances that would have tilted the outcome in its favor? Did Armenia have any alternatives to these kinds of alliances that would have tilted the outcome in its favor?
  • To what extent did Nikol Pashinyan and his government expect to rely on Russia in repelling an attack by Azerbaijan and why?[25] Did they understand Russia’s treaty obligations being limited to Armenian territory?
  • Did Pashinyan expect that American and European countries and institutions would help to protect Armenia because of the democratization record of his team?[26]
• What impact, if any, did Armenia’s participation in NATO PFP or EAPC,  or NATO’s campaign in Afghanistan and the EU Association Agreement have on Armenia’s preparedness to resolve the conflict without a war? Or its ability to fight a war, and specifically the kind of war it ended up fighting in September-November 2020? Could Armenia have done anything differently within  these alliances that would have tilted the outcome in its favor? Had Armenia any alternatives to these kinds of participation that would have tilted the outcome in its favor?

How and why did Turkey become a member of the Minsk Group?

What utility did the Armenian leadership seek to derive from the Minsk Group co-chairs during each of the administrations and did it succeed? What was the inherent structural weakness / limitation or strength of the Minsk Group co-chairmanship? To what extent was Armenia’s overall strategy towards the conflict consistent with its strategy towards and within the Minsk Process?

Given the repeated statements that the purpose of the Minsk Group co-chairmanship was to mediate, not to impose, a solution, did the various administrations attempt to use the mechanism to introduce its own proposals?

During each administration, to what extent was the content of the negotiation process made known to the other agencies, specifically the military and intelligence establishments?

In the days when there was Track II activity, did the contents or conclusions of those meetings and processes ever formally feed back into the Track I process? Why or why not?

If Pashinyan (and his-then defense minister David Tonoyan) did choose to toughen Armenia’s negotiating position without a qualitative improvement of the armed forces, then why did they do so and to what effect? Did they do so intentionally or was it an unplanned statement, not measured and its implications not considered?

• What purpose did Nikol Pashinyan have in mind when he announced on August 5, 2019 that “Artsakh is Armenia, and that is it!” What impact did that statement have on the Azerbaijani leadership’s decision-making?
• Pashinyan went out of his way to assert that he was not negotiating the terms of “the Lavrov plan”. What were the options that he and the Armenian foreign ministry were negotiating in 2018-2020?
• Why did Pashinyan effectively reject the Madrid Document and what were the consequences of that rejection?[27]
• What drove the Armenian public’s rejection of the Madrid principles since they contained the four OSCE Helsinki Accords principles for a negotiated settlement?
• When / why did the Armenian leadership transition from an understanding of ‘land for peace’ to tacit approval of maps that equated the Republic of Artsakh  with the surrounding territories and with Armenia?
• What was Pashinyan’s intent when, on the centennial of the Sevres Treaty, he stated the treaty is a “historical fact” and “remains so to this day?”
• Did Pashinyan act as though Armenia was the stronger power in the Armenian-Azeri dyad? If, yes, then did the mythos of the victory in the early 1990s and the tactical victory in July 2020 in Tavush play a role in shaping Pashinyan’s view on this?
• What did Tonoyan have in mind when he announced on March 30, 2019, that Armenia’s policy was no longer “land for peace” but “new war thus new territories?”[28]
  • Was it an off-the-cuff remark or a policy?
  • Did Tonoyan realize it would be framed as Armenia’s new ‘policy’ by Azerbaijan?
  • What impact did that statement have on the Azerbaijan leadership’s decision-making?
• How did political cooperation with Moscow in the year preceding the war compare with the previous years in terms of intensity and quality of contacts?

• Did the leadership of the Armenian diplomatic service lose contact with Moscow in the year preceding the 2020 war?

Could diplomacy have prevented the September-November 2020 war? [29] If yes, then how?

If there was no reliance or confidence in diplomacy, should Armenia have made the first move to launch a pre-emptive war, and should it have fought a total war?

If there was consensus among the OSCE Minsk Group co-Chairs about “the Lavrov plan” (or some modification of it), why didn’t Pashinyan begin public deliberations in Armenia, given that he had promised full transparency?

Were there backchannel negotiations,  as the former head of the Armenian National Security Service, Artur Vanetsyan, confirmed when he was still in office?[30] What were they?

What did Nikol Pashinyan mean when he said: “I have not started negotiations from the point Serzh Sargsyan had left, but from my own point.” Does this mean that previous arrangements were not taken into account?

II.B.1. Structure

What are the structural factors that shaped the regional environment in the South Caucasus from May 1994 to September 2020 in the following domains?

• Political
  • Military
  • Science and technology
  • Economic
  • Social/Demographic
  • Cultural

Were changes in world order/return of great powers’ competition, fueled by decline of the West, rise of Asia and stagnation of Russia, among these structural factors?[31]

II.B.2. Agency

Did Vladimir Putin offer any kind of assurances to the leadership of Armenia that Russia would intervene on Armenia’s side in the case of Turkey’s military participation in the 2020 Karabakh war?

In 2014, the commander of the Russian military base in Armenia said his base would “enter the armed conflict if the leadership of Azerbaijan decides to use force to restore jurisdiction over Nagorno-Karabakh.” Did that reflect the Russian military-political leadership’s position on the issue and, if so, when and why did that position change?

Did the Russian leadership share intelligence on Ankara’s and Baku’s preparations for war with the Armenian leadership?[32]

What major decisions and actions by each of the post-1994 heads of the executive branches of power in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Iran, US, and EU shaped the regional environment from May 1994 to September 2020 and how?

III.A.1. Structure

The confluence of which structural factors served as the aggregate game-changer in the 2020 war compared to the first Karabakh war?

When it comes to structural factors, how much did the economic crisis in Azerbaijan, described in media as one of the worst in the region and in part triggered by the decline in oil prices combined with the losses incurred by the Azerbaijani government’s decision to stick to a fixed currency rate, contribute to Baku’s decision to eventually launch an offensive against Artsakh and Armenia?[33]

What impact did the direct involvement of Turkey in preparation and execution of the war, influence the outbreak, evolution and outcome of the war, including

• Turkey’s deployment of thousands of fighters from Syria[34]
• Turkey’s deployment of UAVs.
• Turkey’s intelligence and reconnaissance support.

What impact did concealment of offensive preparations by Azerbaijan and Turkey have on the outbreak, evolution and outcome of the war?

• Did the Armenian intelligence community fail to either note preparations by Azerbaijan and Turkey or notify the Armenian political leadership about those and why? To what extent did flaws in the Armenian national security establishment’s ability to hinder collection of strategic intelligence by Azerbaijanis and Turks contribute to the defeat?
• To what extent did flaws in the Armenian armed forces’ ability to disrupt tactical reconnaissance by UAVs operated by Azerbaijanis and Turks contribute to the defeat?[35]

What impact did Azerbaijan’s drone-based air superiority and ability to overwhelm Armenian air defenses have on the outbreak, evolvement and outcome of the war? [36]

• To what extent did flaws in Armenia’s air defense systems contribute to the defeat?[37]

What impact did Azerbaijan’s superiority in longer-range MLRS have on the outbreak, evolvement and outcome of the war?[38]

To what extent did flaws in Armenia’s electronic warfare capabilities contribute to the defeat?[39]

Classic military plans call for three lines of defense: initial, fallback and reserve. Did Armenian forces have these three lines of defense along the line of contact and if not, then why not and to what effect?

On November 9, the spokesman for the Artsakh President announced that Shushi was completely out of Armenian control. This was followed by the statement of the Speaker of the Prime Minister of Armenia that the fighting for Shushi continues. Earlier in the day, just before the ceasefire agreement was announced, Russian peacekeepers were on their way to Karabakh, when the enemy shot down one of the helicopters accompanying them in Armenia (for which Aliyev immediately apologized to Moscow). Why did the speaker of the Prime Minister of Armenia announce that the fighting was going on? After that announcement, were additional forces involved in those possible battles? If they were involved, how much, how, and did it cause additional human losses? Why did the Russian peacekeepers leave for Karabakh when the ceasefire document had not been officially announced yet? Did it mean that Pashinyan knew that he would sign the ceasefire at midnight?

In January 2021, former Defense Minister David Tonoyan stated that during the war there were uncertainties in the vertical between the Prime Minister – Ministry of Defense – General Staff. He said that there were issues related to mobilization, the role and functions of the Security Council, the functions and official relations between the Armenian Armed Forces, the Karabakh Defense Army and President of Artsakh, the organization of self-defense in Artsakh and the evacuation of the population. To what extent did these problems impact the waging and outcome of the war?

III.A.2. Agency

Political

Who was the ultimate decision-maker on the Armenian side during the war?

What were Armenia’s political objectives during the war? Did those include an imperative to hold on to as much territory as possible in spite of all other factors?

Were there political, diplomatic initiatives ongoing during the fighting itself? Were there political or diplomatic initiatives ongoing in the period prior to the military assault – initiatives that might have been cause for the assault to take place?

Should the Armenian leadership have sued for peace early in the war, when positions were still being successfully defended in October and, if, yes, then why was that not done? If reports that Putin did persuade Aliyev to stop the war by mid-October are true, then why did the Armenian side not settle for a ceasefire earlier when it had the opportunity to do so and what human and material losses might have been avoided if it had?

Should have the Republic of Armenia recognized the Republic of Artsakh during 44-days of war in 2020?

What short-term, medium-term and long-term objectives did Pashinyan pursue when negotiating and signing the November 10, 2020 agreement?

Military-political/Military

What was Armenia’s military strategy, as formulated by the General Staff, versus the political strategy as formulated by Pashinyan. Were those aligned?

Was there a single strategic operational plan, according to which Armenian military and paramilitary units operated during the war? If not, then why not and what effect?

Was there a joint, common, single chain of command functioning on the Armenian side during the war?[40] If not, then was there any single body responsible for at least coordinating operations of military and paramilitary units and ensuring their communications with each other? If not, why not, given that the Armenian side had decades to prepare for a new round of war?[41]

Was the structure of the Armenian Armed Forces adequate to the tasks it had to address? Was there a need for structural reform, for example, a transition to smaller, more mobile tactical units at the level of brigades and/or battalion groups?

How did it happen that command and control over a significant number of units was lost during the first days of war? Was that connected to the structural and/or technical problems such as lack of communication equipment, and/or to the problems of competence of the commanding officers?

Did the government of Pashinyan refrain from full mobilization during the war and, if, yes, then why and to what effect?[42] Is it true that mobilization stopped on the third day after being ordered?[43] If so, why and to what effect?

Were reservists and veterans officially conscripted or did the government depend on their voluntary participation?

Was training, equipping, deploying, and command of Armenian volunteers coordinated and if so, how centralized, systemic, adaptive and, overall, effective were these efforts? Why were volunteer units, such as the unit of 32 volunteers that was deployed on orders of the Armenian army’s command in Yerevan to Mokhrenes in Hadrut and then Karintak near Shushi, not issued either battle orders, or means of communication or even maps of terrain or intelligence?[44]

If, as multiple reports indicate, Pashinyan did indeed limit or ban redeployment of major units of the national armed forces from the Republic of Armenia to Artsakh, including air defense systems[45] to assist in repelling the offensives, then why was that done?[46]

How did Armenia fare in the informational component of the war?[47]

• What was the impact of martial law on the circulation of information and beliefs about the war? What were the intended effects and did they materialize? Were there unintended effects?
• Did ‘upbeat’ assessment of the situation on the battlefield by some Armenian government officials and advisors, including some spokespeople of the Ministry of Defense, create a sense of false optimism?
  • What was the relationship between upbeat assessments and the actual progress of the war?
  •  Did such assessments continue even when decision-makers knew the reverse to be true, and to what effect?
  • Did the public believe the upbeat assessments?  Did such beliefs limit the range of possible strategies that leaders could take to end the war?
• Could informing the public about  the reality on the battlefield have impacted the outcome of the war?
• Did promotion of optimism prevent greater mobilization of resources and personnel by Armenians in and outside Armenia in the course of war?
• To what extent did this impact the waging of the war itself?
• Was the sharing of unrealistic or overly optimistic assessments a matter of policy?

If some of the units on the Armenian side were denied access to weapons, as Pashinyan claimed, then who did it, why and to what effect?[48]

What were the military goals of missile strikes on Barda and Ganja, and were these strikes successful in achieving those goals? Were there political goals as well?

What drove the Armenian military-political leadership’s decision to constrain the range of targets that its forces could attack even though Azerbaijan did not restrict use of weapons against Armenian assets, attacking its S-300PS units early on.?[49]

Why did Armenia not target the TB2 runways and operating air base, whose location was known? What about energy transit infrastructure?

Did the Armenian side limit use of larger, longer-range missiles?

• What drove Pashinyan’s claim that payloads of some of the Iskander missiles purchased from Russia did not in fact detonate[50] only to have those claims refuted by the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces?

Why did Armenia refrain from targeting of strategic industrial infrastructure, such as energy facilities, when loss of ground became formidable?

Were Armenian troops in southern areas adjacent to Iran ordered to withdraw?[51] If yes, then when and who issued the order, and to what effect?

Why were Armenian forces ordered to pull out from the southern frontline, while no lines of defense were prepared to which they could retreat? Why were Armenian forces ordered to pull out from Sghnakh, Avetaranots and Karintak, essentially opening the way for Azerbaijani forces to Shushi – this, while the main roads via Karmir Shuka to Stepanakert and from Lachin to Stepanakert were defended in spite of repeated Azerbaijani efforts to capture them.[52]

Why did neither the chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces nor the Defense Minister visit Artsakh throughout the fighting? Why did Pashinyan not return to Artsakh after a visit in October 2020?

Was there an official cyber dimension to the war and what were Armenia’s actions in that domain, and to what effect? Did the Armenian military or political leadership engage in the public cyber war?

Was the defense infrastructure of Artsakh ready for a full-scale war? What was the DEFCON level in the weeks preceding the Turkish-Azerbaijani offensive?  Was there a need for more reserve defense lines, especially in the southern flank of Artsakh?

The Turkish-Azeri blitzkrieg largely failed to overwhelm the Armenian forces in the first few days of the war. Moreover, they made little progress on the northern and central fronts. What were the reasons for this successful defense and why was it not sustained?

Which Armenian units enjoyed greatest tactical successes during the war and what confluence of factors shaped these successes?[53]

Which Armenian units were destroyed more thoroughly, and what confluence of factors led to this destruction?[54]

The Office of the Prosecutor General of Armenia has pressed charges against thousands of Armenian officers and soldiers who deserted their positions. What was the exact number of such cases and what do the accused have to say in their defense?

How many Armenian POWs and hostages are held by Baku and why is that information classified? How is the process of these negotiations structured? Does Azerbaijan make additional demands for the release of POWs?

Intelligence / Counter-Intelligence / Reconnaissance

How did Armenia’s intelligence, including TECHINT and HUMINT,  and counter-intelligence communities perform during the war on the strategic and tactical level and to what effect?

How did the military reconnaissance units perform during the war and to what effect? Were they adequately equipped?

How did those participating in National Security Council meetings during the war assess the dynamics of change of threats to national security? What range of possible future scenarios if any, did they discuss on September 27, 2020?

Diplomatic/Foreign Policy

What were the frames that Armenia used to present the war to third parties internationally and to what effect?

To the extent that in many countries – especially Russia, China, Iran and Georgia, foreign policy decisions are very much centralized and individualized, had Armenia over the years, developed the necessary personal contacts and channels to be made use of during this crisis?

What were the key storylines/narratives, how did they differ by audience and how effective were they?

Through what mediums and mediators were Armenian narratives about the war disseminated and to what effect?

What role did the diaspora play in disseminating information and narratives about the war and to what effect? Did the diaspora message differ from Armenia’s message?

Was there a strategy guiding the actions of Armenia’s diplomatic service during the war? If so, what were the means  and ends of that strategy?

• What did Armenian diplomats do to impact the decisions of Armenia’s adversaries (Azerbaijan and Turkey) and other stakeholders, such as Russia, Iran, US, EU, NATO, Georgia? Could these actions, overall, be described as success or failure?
• Were Armenian diplomats engaged in delivering information that would inform these stakeholders and the international community as a whole about unprecedented direct participation of a NATO member-country’s military and paramilitary personnel in fighting against an EAPC member country – Armenia, about war crimes committed by them against Armenian military personnel and civilians, the extent of the humanitarian catastrophe in Artsakh, and other issues?
  • Could Turkey’s NATO membership have been reason to minimize Turkey’s engagement?
• Did Armenia misunderstand or misrepresent the mandates and limitations of international organizations as it communicated its expectations and did that impact its policy during the war?
• On September 25, 2020 the spokeswoman of Armenia’s Foreign Ministry issued a comment on President Aliyev’s address to the UN General Assembly. The comment essentially claimed that Azerbaijan’s corrupt and authoritarian regime was no longer a negotiating partner and that Armenia would re-engage only after there was democratic leadership in Baku. What was the target audience of that statement? What  reaction was expected from Aliyev? [55]

Are there any secret clauses in the November 10, 2020 ceasefire document?[56] If so, should they not be kept secret, especially given the post-war conduct of the victorious side(s)?

How will Armenia follow up on all the unresolved issues emanating from the November 10 ceasefire document?  Was there discussion – public or private – or is there discussion now about how to link the OSC Minsk Group co-chairs back into the resolution process? How would all the long-term issues, foremost status, be negotiated?

To what extent did the Armenian authorities actively engage in the on-the-ground developments after the war or was there an understanding (correct or incorrect) that the Armenian side no longer had agency even though dozens of issues remained unresolved?

Immediately after secession of hostilities the Azerbaijani side began demarcation of the border with Armenia. Were these actions based on the maps of the administrative borders between the Soviet republics? Is the process limited to demarcation, or is the formal delimitation process also taking place? Was there any agreement between the sides on the delimitation procedures? Is any of this public? Are international agencies involved?

Why and to what effect has the Nagorno Karabakh Republic name and status been dropped – from discourse, and from demands after secession of hostilities? Does the fact that Armenian diplomats and leaders no longer refer to NKAO or NKR or any NK entity mean that Armenia has conceded the loss of the entire unit, thus diminishing the justification to advocate for the return of those parts of NK proper that constituted part of NKAO – the source of the Republic of Artsakh’s legitimacy as a political unit?

III.B.1 Azerbaijan

Sometime during the second decade of Ilham Aliyev’s rule, the hostile rhetoric took a very radical turn in Azerbaijan. Prior to that turn, he would refer to ‘the return of our territories’, but in the early 2010s he began to call for the ‘return of Karabakh and our territories.’ That is, his (and his father’s) understanding that Karabakh is lost to Azerbaijan suddenly changed. Did Azerbaijan’s negotiating position therefore change?

During Kocharyan’s rule, the main sticking point in the Madrid Principles with Azerbaijan was what to call a referendum on Karabakh’s final status, and when and how it would be held. The remainder appeared agreed upon, including the later return of 2 of the 7 territories. What changed? Why

Why did Azerbaijan choose to fight the war in the fall of 2020? What explains why Azerbaijan (and Turkey) launch this military campaign at the time when they did?

Could Azerbaijan have won without Turkey?

Why did Turkey and Azerbaijan stop when they did? Why did they not proceed deeper into Karabakh proper?

III.B.2 Turkey

Why did Turkey choose to participate in the war in the fall of 2020?

What assistance did Turkey provide to Azerbaijan?

Did Turkey and Russia strike a secret deal on Karabakh/Syria?[57]

Did Turkey and Russia communicate prior to the start of the assault?

When Turkey’s involvement and encouragement to Azerbaijan to continue the war was already obvious, did Yerevan try to communicate with Ankara directly or indirectly using official or unofficial channels? If not, why? If yes, how and to what effect?

III.B.3 Russia

Why did Russia declare “equidistance” in the September-November 2020 war?  What steps did it choose to take or not take with regard to the conflict and to what effect?

Had Russia been hoping to deter a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan?[58]If so why did it fail to do so?

Had Russian been hoping to prevent participation of Turkey in the war?[59] If so why did it fail to do so? Or why did Russia’s deterrent fail?

Why did Russia not use its formidable leverage vis-à-vis Turkey and Azerbaijan to compel them to discontinue hostilities early on and to what effect?[60]

Was Russia in control over when to stop the hostilities and to what extent?[61]

How did Russian arms sales and deliveries to Armenia compare in terms of scope, terms and capabilities with Azerbaijan and to what effect in the war? To what extent did supplies of weapons to the warring sides by Russia influence the course and outcome of the 2020 war?

Did Russian president Vladimir Putin see the war as an opportunity to weaken Pashinyan?[62]

What did Russia do and not do to discontinue hostilities, why and when?

Was the war part of a Russian design to implement the so-called Lavrov Plan?[63]

Did perceptions of Russia in Armenia suffer because of the war and, if so, to what effect in the short-to-medium term?[64]

How much more effective was Azerbaijan’s lobby in Russia compared to Armenia’s lobby in that country during the war?[65]

• DidAzerbaijan outmaneuver Armenia when it came to lobbying Russia, effectively using economic tools?
• Did personal relationships of the kind that some of the Azerbaijani billionaires developed with some of the key Russian government leaders impact Russia’s position in the course of the war?[66]

Can Russia be engaged to facilitate departure of Syrian jihadists from the region, given its strong opposition to their presence?

Did Russia see Turkey’s involvement as a part of a long-term strategy to encourage divisions within NATO?

Why did Armenia not ask the CSTO for help at the beginning and during the war, even when Azerbaijan was targeting objects within the internationally recognized borders of the Republic of Armenia? Did this affect Russia’s military and diplomatic involvement in general, and particularly the timing of its intervention to end the war? Did Armenia’s abstention not to apply to the CSTO have anything to do with the deterioration of the Armenian-Russian relations followed by the dismissal of the Secretary General of that organization?

III.B.4 Iran

Which party did Iran side with in the war, if any and why?

What impact did Iran’s actions (or inaction) have on the course and outcome of the 2020 war?

Was the Iranian leadership indeed “deeply concerned about the geopolitical and security implications of the unrecognized statelet falling under Azeri control and thus, largely prefer[ed] to preserve the status quo,” as Maysam Behravesh & Dr. Hamidreza Azizi have claimed, and if so, what did Iran do or not do to preserve the status quo?[67]

Can Iran be engaged to facilitate departure of Syrian jihadists from the region, given its strong opposition to their presence?[68]

Can Armenia more actively engage Iran to help counter Turkey’s inroads into the South Caucasus, given Iran’s opposition to expansion of what some Iranian analysts describe as “neo-Ottoman” ambitions of Turkey in the region?[69]

III.B.5 Georgia

Which party did Georgia side with in the war, if any and why?

• What were the drivers of the Georgian leadership’s decision to announce that it was barring all military transit to Armenia and Azerbaijan, but to reportedly allow such transit from Turkey to Azerbaijan?[70]
• Why did Georgia also bar financial transfers to Armenia via Georgian correspondent banks?

What impact did Georgia’s actions (or inaction) have on the course and outcome of the 2020 war?

Can Georgia, with its diminished leverage with Turkey and Azerbaijan, be more actively engaged by Armenia to achieve more equitable regional arrangements, including border demarcation, transport corridors, etc.

III.B.6 US

Which party did the U.S. side with in the war, if any and why?

What impact did U.S. actions (or inaction) have on the course and outcome of the 2020 war?

Why did the U.S. not use its formidable leverage vis-à-vis Turkey and Azerbaijan to compel them to discontinue hostilities early on?[71]

To what extent did the U.S. decision to resume military assistance to Azerbaijan influence the course and outcome of the 2020 war?

III.B.7 EU

Which party did the EU side with in the war, if any and why?

What impact did its actions (or inaction) have on the course and outcome of the 2020 war?

Did perceptions of the EU change in Armenia?

III.B.8 NATO

Which party did NATO side with in the war, if any and why?

Did NATO members do anything to stop one of its members, Turkey, from direct military involvement in preparation and execution of the September-November 2020 war on the side of Azerbaijan?

III.B.9 Israel

Which party did Israel side with in the war, if any and why?

What impact did its actions (or inaction) have on the course and outcome of the 2020 war?

To what extent did supplies of weapons by Israel influence the course and outcome of the 2020 war? Was their influence limited to armaments? Or were they also involved in directing strategy?

Have there been any official or unofficial contacts with Israel in order to acquire their advanced weapons, including unmanned aerial vehicles, which Azerbaijan successfully used in the April 2016 war? If yes, how? If not, why?

In case of the each of the stakeholders mentioned in this section: what were Armenia’s expectations or assumptions about how any given actor would behave in the event of a major war, and to what extent were these assumptions correct?

In case of the each of the stakeholders mentioned in this section: to what extent did geo-economic considerations contribute to the commencement of the military conflict?

III.B.10 China

On June 12, 2020 Armenian Foreign Affairs Ministry announced[72] that the country had formally joined the International Religious Freedom Alliance, the U.S. State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom[73] led network of 32 like-minded countries fully committed to advancing freedom of religion or belief around the world, and in the Chinese province of Xinjiang in particular[74]. What impact did this decision have on Sino-Armenian relations in general and the Chinese stance on the war in Artsakh three months later? What did Armenia stand to gain in terms of its national interests from this policy?

Which party did China side with in the war, if any and why?

What impact did its actions (or inaction) have on the course and outcome of the 2020 war?

Did Armenia appeal to China for military-technical assistance prior during the war and to what effect?

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Authors (all in their personal capacity)

Cheterian, Vicken, Geneva, Switzerland

Ghazarian, Salpi, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Harutyunyan, Karen, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia

Martirosyan, Arthur, Belmont, MA, USA/Yerevan, Republic of Armenia

Nersisyan, Leonid, Moscow, Russian Federation

Petrosyan, Syuzanna, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Poghosyan, Benyamin, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia

Poghosyan, Tevan, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia/Stepanakert, Republic of Artsakh

Sanamyan, Emil, Washington, DC, USA

Saradzhyan, Simon, Cambridge, MA, USA (lead author)

To communicate with the authors of this document, please email us at authors@armeniacommission.org

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Professor Simon Payaslian and Michael Kofman for their useful feedback on earlier versions of this draft as well as one international researcher and one Armenia-based researcher who made substantive contributions, but wished to remain anonymous.

The authors would like to thank the translators – From English to Armenian: Karen Harutyunyan; From English to Russian: Ani Ananyan.

Footnotes