Subjective reasons for Armenia`s losing 2020 war - Robert Kocharyan 

ArmInfo.  Armenia lost the 44-day war in the fall of 2020 for very subjective reasons. This was stated by the second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan at a meeting with students and teachers of the "Armenian University".

When asked how it happened that 150 thousand Nagorno-Karabakh  defeated 5 million Azerbaijan at the time, Kocharyan suggested  comparing the Karabakh movement and the first victorious war with  subsequent wars for the sake of interactivity of the conversation.

The second President of Armenia stated that there were three, not  two, wars for Nagorno-Karabakh. "The first war was the victorious war  of 1991-1994, the second, which is usually called the Four-Day War,  in April 2016, which I would rate, so to speak, as a draw. We had  certain territorial losses, only about 600-800 hectares, but the  diplomatic achievement was also obvious. I would even say that we  came out of that war with a small plus, and the next war, the one in  2020, we simply lost, and, in my assessment, in my opinion, for very,  very subjective reasons," Kocharyan noted.

Speaking about the advantages of the first war, the second president  stated that Nagorno-Karabakh with a population of 150,000 people won  a victory over Azerbaijan, which at that time had a population of 7.5  million people, and this was in conditions when at that time Armenia  was experiencing an energy crisis, quite serious problems.

"First of all, we in Karabakh were convinced that the Karabakh people  had no opportunity to live as part of Azerbaijan. This is an  existential problem, and this danger, especially after Sumgait, was  so real for all of us that it united all the residents of Karabakh.  It did not matter whether someone loved the other or not. It was just  a common danger that united the entire nation. This was probably one  of the main factors. A fairly high level of organization, in general  in Karabakh, maybe this is Soviet upbringing, but the level of  education in Karabakh, compared to Azerbaijan, was much higher.  People were much more disciplined in all matters, and this discipline  and organization played a significant role when the Soviet Union was  falling apart, when, roughly speaking, chaos reigned in almost all  areas, but we were able to organize and organized ourselves quite  effectively," the politician continued.

He added to this the mobilization resource that was sufficiently  prepared by the Soviet Union. "When we were forming the army in  Karabakh, we had practically no shortage of people with military  specialties. It was just very easy training, very easy intervention,  and the people were ready, they were ready soldiers, and there was a  fairly serious officer corps from the residents of Karabakh who came  to Karabakh and contributed their experience to military activity. A  very important factor at that time was the information that came from  Karabakh and the Karabakh movement, and then from 1991 to 1994 from  the battlefield.  There was truthful coverage of both successes and  failures," Kocharyan noted.

According to him, the presentation of the real situation was an  extremely important circumstance, since without it it is simply  impossible to build trust between the army, the people and the  government.

"Another very important circumstance: in all wars, and especially in  the first war, the Azerbaijanis had a quantitative advantage in all  components: human, financial, military equipment, ammunition. The  main large reserves and military units of the Soviet Union were  located in Azerbaijan and Georgia, and all this simply went to  Azerbaijan. There was almost nothing in Armenia. There was a small  ammunition depot in Balakhovit, but in the first years of the war  there was a fire, and the depot was completely destroyed. But the  difference was that we had a qualitative difference in all  components: organization, knowledge and mobilization, which needed to  be formed. Another circumstance that worked in our favor was the  instability in Azerbaijan, the constant change of power. It was a  story about a chicken and an egg. They suffered defeat, this defeat  led to a change of government, a change of government led to new  defeats, and this cycle continued," Kocharyan said, noting that while  he was the president of Artsakh, 5 presidents changed in Azerbaijan.  He stressed that at that time the government in Armenia was much more  stable, there were internal political problems, but this situation  was incomparable with Azerbaijan.

Speaking about the Four-Day War of 2016, Kocharyan began to present  facts working against Armenia, namely stability in Azerbaijan, while  Armenia already had a certain level of internal tension.

The second president drew attention to the subversive work carried  out in Armenia by numerous NGOs.  Kocharyan noted that only recently  it became known how much money USAID spent on the creation and  implementation of such systems in countries like Armenia, which  played a very serious role in the destruction of both domestic  political and national unity in Armenia.

"And what else worked against us? The Azerbaijani army was much more  combat-ready than during the first war. So, they drew conclusions and  very consistently prepared for a new war, and for the first time it  became obvious that drones would play a serious role in future wars.  This should have been a very serious signal for serious changes in  our understanding of what the next war could be.

But, I repeat, the Armenian army was qualitatively combat-ready, and  this combat readiness was demonstrated during the four-day war. I  repeat, there was a danger, the problems were already visible, which  means that it was necessary to look at the current situation from a  completely different angle and take drastic measures. I know that the  authorities tried to take quite serious steps, they did, but  everything changed after 2018, because, let me open the brackets  here, they really did take serious steps concerning the attitude  towards air defense, and drones, and the structure of the army.  Equipping the front line with various equipment that allows for  preventive actions. So what do we have since October 2020? The  polarization of society in Armenia has already reached a fantastic  level, society is divided into black, white, old, new, robbers and  robbers, and all this was spread not only at the political level, but  was also projected onto the army," the politician continued.

He noted that the generals were intimidated, and in the public  consciousness at that time, the generals began to be perceived as a  stratum that robbed the army and had nothing to do with the army, and  even then I realized that generals with a military past began to  appear more often in public places in civilian clothes.

"It was a tool for undermining the army, for destroying it. Whether  it was done consciously or unconsciously, I do not know, and I do not  want to give an assessment in this case, but it was a fact. If any of  you had studied the press of 2018, 2019, 2020, you would have seen  that this was one of the main, primary topics in the information  field, and this could not but have a serious impact on the army,  because intimidation of the command staff in the information field  occurred every day. At that time, the situation in the country as a  whole changed significantly, the model of government changed, and  populism really became a serious factor, in almost everything,"  Kocharyan noted.

The politician noted that the people who came to power in 2018  ignored the necessary reforms that needed to be made after the  lessons learned in the 4-day war, and the main topic in the Armed  Forces was the strawberry reform, and not the combat readiness of the  forces.

"I was in Karabakh on the third day after the war began. I stayed in  Karabakh for two weeks, and I must say that after my arrival, on the  second or third day, I asked both Bako Sahakyan and Arkady Ghukasyan  to organize a meeting with Arayik Harutyunyan. My main message was to  do everything possible to stop the war, because every day of the war  brings more and more problems, because we are not ready. In this  form, in this changed situation, you will not have a victory. Then  Arayik Harutyunyan said: "If I meet with Kocharyan, Pashinyan will  eat me." Bako Sahakyan conveyed this to me verbatim. And we got what  we got in Karabakh. Already in 2016, the first signs appeared, from  which we simply had to draw very serious conclusions, not to buy  Su-30 for the sake of selfies, anti-aircraft systems were needed,  very serious investments in air defense were needed, but this was not  done. These are the main reasons why we survived this evolution in  1991-1994, the war in 2016, which was interesting because it was very  short, but it predetermined the trend, and we, in fact, did not draw  any conclusions from it. So, let's come to the following conclusion:  during this time, we began to yield to Azerbaijan not only in almost  all quantitative indicators, but also began to sharply yield in  qualitative issues related to our security," Kocharyan summed up.