From the commandos to Bayraktar.. Azerbaijan is rebuilding its army on the Turkish model

Introduction to translation

Azerbaijan has been undergoing a vast modernization process of its army since its last war with Armenia in 2020, as Baku abandons the Soviet military style to restructure its armed forces in a Western style, inspired by the Turkish model.

This transformation appears in two main matters, the first of which is the new Azerbaijani commando teams that were formed after their Turkish counterparts, and the second is the Turkish weapons that Baku has accumulated in its military arsenal, the most important of which are the Bayraktar drones.

In this article, the writer Fuad Shahbaz tells us about the most important features and motives of Azerbaijan's military transformation.

translation text

On October 5, 2020, when the war between the armies of Azerbaijan and Armenia had just broken out in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had already started talking about military reform.

In an interview with the Turkish state channel TRT, Aliyev said that he intends to reconstitute the Azerbaijani army "according to the Turkish model, but on a smaller level."

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (Anatolia)

This reform has already been in full swing for years as Azerbaijan has sought to move away from the Soviet model of its armed forces, which relied heavily on conscripts with large numbers of infantry and armored units, and to move closer to the NATO model of professional, mobile forces with advanced technologies.

Considering that Turkey is Azerbaijan's closest ally, it is only natural that its NATO member army will be the model to be emulated in Baku.

Turkey’s heavy military support for Azerbaijan in its war against Armenia reinforced this trend, as described by Aliyev in his interview saying: “Turkey’s moral support and the products of Turkish defense industries that were placed at our disposal have strengthened our strength, and the whole world can attest to this. The Turkish army is the second most powerful army in NATO and no one can face it today.”

In the footsteps of Turkey

The last war ended with the victory of Azerbaijan and regaining most of the lands lost to the Armenians during the first war between the two countries in the 1990s, and soon the pace of Azerbaijan's plans accelerated.

Baku has launched a series of new military reforms, including increasing military spending, establishing new combat units and a national defense unit, and increasing the number of Special Forces fighters, all of which are shifts modeled on the Turkish model.

Among those reforms, the rapid development of special forces appears to be the highest priority.

In April 2022, Aliyev stated that “Azerbaijan has doubled the number of Special Forces fighters after the Karabakh war,” which included a new branch of these forces that was established after 2020 in the form of units called “commandos,” according to their Turkish counterpart of the same name. .

Special forces are elite units geared for long-term conventional wars, while commandos are geared more for short operations conducted in harsh weather conditions or in hard-to-reach mountainous areas, two features inherent in much of the territory retaken by Azerbaijan in 2020, including the provinces. Lashin, Hadrut, and Kalpajar.

Commandos receive a more intense training program, are armed only with hand-held weapons such as sniper rifles and high-explosive grenades, and use light armor.

As for the conventional special forces, they are equipped with heavy armor, large-caliber rifles, grenade launchers, mortars, portable missile systems and other complex equipment.

So far, Azerbaijan has announced the establishment of five commando units, two of them in the provinces of "Hadrut" and "Kalbajar", while the locations of the other three units have not yet been announced, but we can easily assume that the three units will be near the border with Armenia, and from the line Contact with the provinces controlled by the Russian peacekeeping forces.

Moreover, another expansion is expected. Adalat Wardiev, an Azerbaijani military expert, said that Azerbaijan plans soon to double the number of commando units and conventional military units in the Karabakh region.

For their part, Azerbaijani officials did not disclose the current numbers of commandos in their country, but "Aliyev" previously announced that they are now "in the thousands".

Azerbaijani commando units will operate directly under the "Land Forces Command", a command completely copied from its Turkish counterpart.

That command was established in 2021, and the leadership seat was taken by Lieutenant-General Enver Effendiyev, a graduate of the Turkish Military Academy.

The new command will coordinate all ground operations instead of the General Staff, which in the past oversaw all military operations in any field.

Since its establishment, the Land Forces Command has opened a new command center and a number of facilities.

The new National Defense University, which had just been established in March 2022, was also inspired by its Turkish counterpart, and was based on standards set by the Turkish Defense University (Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced its establishment in Turkey in 2016).

In conjunction with these Azerbaijani reforms, Baku increased the number of its officers studying in Turkey itself, where more than two hundred officers are currently studying there.

Bayraktar revolution

However, there are limits to the influence of the Turkish army in Azerbaijan.

While rumors have been circulating since the outbreak of the last Nagorno-Karabakh war about the possibility of Turkey inaugurating a military base in the country, Aliyev put an end to the rumors, saying, "This option has not yet been discussed with Turkey."

Azerbaijan's military doctrine does not allow the establishment of foreign military bases on its territory, but "Aliyev" with his statement left the door open, saying: "If there is a serious threat to Azerbaijan, we will use this opportunity because Turkey is our ally."

Perhaps the clearest and most famous aspect of the Turkish influence on the Azerbaijani army is armament. The Bayraktar (TB2) drones played a decisive role in the victory over Armenia in 2020, but they are, of course, not the only Turkish weapon in Azerbaijan’s arsenal.

Baku has received the Dragoneye photoelectric sensor system, the Cobra 2 armored vehicles, the TRG-300 guided missile launch systems, the TRLG-230 laser-guided missiles and the T- multiple launch missile system. 122 Sakarya", and many others.

The modernization of the Azerbaijani army is part of a broader military expansion after 2020, and Aliyev has pointed out that the risk of Armenian retaliation is to blame.

However, the most likely incentive for this expansion is the deterioration of security in the regional periphery of Azerbaijan in general. There is now a full-blown systemic war in Ukraine (a former member state of the Soviet Union until the early 1990s, like Azerbaijan), in addition to the relative success in defending the country that it showed The Ukrainian armed forces, trained by NATO, came to demonstrate the importance of military reform and bypass the Soviet model, and strengthen the arguments of those who demand it within Azerbaijan.

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Translation: Noor Khairy

This report is translated from Eurasianet and does not necessarily reflect the Medan website.