Increased number of weapons won’t save Aliyev from defeat in a new war

March 10, 2011 - 17:30 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The fact that Azerbaijan is arming is not new. Media regularly reports on new investments in the defense complex, increased military budget of the country, which pretends to be ready to solve the Karabakh problem peacefully.

Basically, the Middle East countries, specifically Turkey and Israel, are attracted for cooperation.

According to recent reports, Azerbaijan has launched production of Israeli unmanned aircrafts – Aerostar and Orbiter. Azad Systems, a joint enterprise of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry and Israeli Aeronautics Defense Systems company, deals with their production.

Naturally, all this causes concern of both Armenia and South Caucasus as a whole. With arming Baku, Ankara and Jerusalem set a match to the wick of a powder keg, which is ready to explode without additional efforts.

One can say that it is just a business, but a very dangerous one, not only for Baku, but also for its suppliers.

Recently there were reports that Azerbaijan purchases weapons of defensive rather than offensive nature. But it’s hard to believe, since Ilham Aliyev, who seeks revenge, wants to occupy not only Nagorno Karabakh, but a part of Armenia as well.

Meanwhile, though the number of weapons plays a role in war, it can’t be the guarantee of victory. One should remember that with only two tanks Karabakh people managed to liberate Shushi and establish control over the security zone.

According to Flightglobal, late in October 2010 it was reported that the Azerbaijani parliament approved the 2011 draft state budget, envisaging a growth in the country’s military expenditures to bring them to 2.5bln mantas ($3.1bln) against 1.6bln mantas in 2010. 1.1bln manats will be spent for weapons modernization.