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IS AZERBAIJAN'S NEW AIR DEFENSE PROTECTING AGAINST IRAN OR ARMENIA?
by Joshua Kucera
EurasiaNet.org
May 23 2012
NY
When news broke a couple of years ago that Russia was selling S-300
air defense systems to Azerbaijan, the immediate assumption was
that this had to do with Armenia. The sale suggested a huge shift in
Russia's military policy toward the south Caucasus: Russia has a big
military base in Armenia and provides Yerevan with weaponry. So why
would it be arming the other side? There were all sorts of theories:
it was done to intimidate Armenia into signing a long extension of
the base agreement with Russia, or that it was pure mercenary motives.
Some noted that the range of the S-300s was enough to cover Nagorno
Karabakh (over which a war will presumably be fought) but not Gyumri,
Armenia, where the Russian base is.
But what if we were all looking in the wrong direction for the threat,
to the west rather than to the south? That's what analyst Anar Valiyev
today told The Bug Pit in Baku. He says the S-300 is in fact one of
the weapons that Baku has been buying to protect against an Iranian
attack. He argues that a war over Karabakh would be fought only on
the territory of Karabakh, that Armenia (under pressure from Russia)
would not to expand the war into Azerbaijan proper, like an attack
on Baku's oil and gas installations (which the S-300s are protecting).
Therefore, there's no need to protect Baku from an Armenian attack.
So, by process of elimination, it's Iran.
This makes a lot more sense today, as Iranian-Azerbaijani tensions are
on the rise, than it would have two years ago. So Valiyev says that
the S-300s should be grouped along with the anti-ship missiles and
air defense systems it just bought from Israel, that are directed more
to the Iranian threat than to a potential war over Karabakh. This is
just a theory, but it would explain a lot, like how this squares with a
Kremlin policy favoring Armenia and how Armenia's government downplayed
the news. Of course, any information in the public about this is likely
to be the result of psy ops on top of info ops on top of more psy ops,
so who knows. But it's a plausible theory worth keeping in mind.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Pulitzer Center
on Crisis Reporting
by Joshua Kucera
EurasiaNet.org
May 23 2012
NY
When news broke a couple of years ago that Russia was selling S-300
air defense systems to Azerbaijan, the immediate assumption was
that this had to do with Armenia. The sale suggested a huge shift in
Russia's military policy toward the south Caucasus: Russia has a big
military base in Armenia and provides Yerevan with weaponry. So why
would it be arming the other side? There were all sorts of theories:
it was done to intimidate Armenia into signing a long extension of
the base agreement with Russia, or that it was pure mercenary motives.
Some noted that the range of the S-300s was enough to cover Nagorno
Karabakh (over which a war will presumably be fought) but not Gyumri,
Armenia, where the Russian base is.
But what if we were all looking in the wrong direction for the threat,
to the west rather than to the south? That's what analyst Anar Valiyev
today told The Bug Pit in Baku. He says the S-300 is in fact one of
the weapons that Baku has been buying to protect against an Iranian
attack. He argues that a war over Karabakh would be fought only on
the territory of Karabakh, that Armenia (under pressure from Russia)
would not to expand the war into Azerbaijan proper, like an attack
on Baku's oil and gas installations (which the S-300s are protecting).
Therefore, there's no need to protect Baku from an Armenian attack.
So, by process of elimination, it's Iran.
This makes a lot more sense today, as Iranian-Azerbaijani tensions are
on the rise, than it would have two years ago. So Valiyev says that
the S-300s should be grouped along with the anti-ship missiles and
air defense systems it just bought from Israel, that are directed more
to the Iranian threat than to a potential war over Karabakh. This is
just a theory, but it would explain a lot, like how this squares with a
Kremlin policy favoring Armenia and how Armenia's government downplayed
the news. Of course, any information in the public about this is likely
to be the result of psy ops on top of info ops on top of more psy ops,
so who knows. But it's a plausible theory worth keeping in mind.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Pulitzer Center
on Crisis Reporting