Ministry of Defense

From the very beginning of its existence as a post-Soviet independent republic, Azerbaijan faced a single compelling national security issue: its enduring struggle with Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territory. The withdrawal of Russian troops and matériel left an Azerbaijani army ill-equipped and poorly disciplined. Government efforts to build a new national defense force achieved only limited results, and Armenian forces continued to advance into Azerbaijani territory during most of 1993. By the end of that year, the Aliyev regime had bolstered some components of the Azerbaijani military, however.

Even before the formal breakup of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, Azerbaijan had created its own Ministry of Defense and a Defense Council to advise the president on national security policy. The national armed forces of Azerbaijan were formed by presidential decree in October 1991.

Beginning in 1991, Azerbaijan's external national security was breached by the incursion of the Armenian separatist forces of Karabakh militias and reinforcements from Armenia. Azerbaijan's main strategy in this early period was to blockade landlocked Armenia's supply lines and to rely for national defense on the Russian 4th Army, which remained in Azerbaijan in 1991. Clashes between Russian troops and Azerbaijani civilians in 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, led Russia to a rapid commitment for withdrawal of troops and equipment, which was completed in mid-1993.

Under those circumstances, a new, limited national armed force was planned in 1992, and, as had been done in Armenia, the government appealed to Azerbaijani veterans of the Soviet army to defend their homeland. But the force took shape slowly, and outside assistance--mercenaries and foreign training officers-- were summoned to stem the Armenian advance that threatened all of southern Azerbaijan. In 1993 continued military failures brought reports of mass desertion and subsequent large-scale recruitment of teenage boys, as well as wholesale changes in the national defense establishment.

In the early 1990s, the domestic and international confusion bred by the Karabakh conflict increased customs violations, white-collar crime, and threats to the populace by criminal bands. The role of Azerbaijanis in the international drug market expanded noticeably. In 1993 the Aliyev government responded to these problems with a major reform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which had been plagued by corruption and incompetence, but experts agreed that positive results required a more stable overall atmosphere.

In December 1993, Azerbaijan launched a major surprise attack on all fronts in Karabakh, using newly drafted personnel in wave attacks, with air support. The attack initially overwhelmed Armenian positions in the north and south but ultimately was unsuccessful. An estimated 8,000 Azerbaijani troops died in the two-month campaign, which Armenian authorities described as Azerbaijan's best-planned offensive of the conflict.

Azerbaijan reportedly receives weapons of uncertain origin from various Islamic nations to assist in the struggle to retain Nagorno-Karabakh. In late 1993, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made an official report to the CSCE on the weapons at Azerbaijan's disposal, fulfilling the requirement of the 1991 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. According to this report, during 1992 and 1993 Azerbaijan received more than 1,700 weapons--including tanks, armored personnel carriers, aircraft, artillery systems, and helicopters--from Russia and Ukraine, far above the CFE Treaty limits. According to IMF and Azerbaijani government data, defense expenditures placed a severe burden on the national budget. In 1992 some US$125 million, or 10.5 percent of the total budget, went to defense. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict also raised expenses for internal security to 4 billion rubles in 1992. By 1994 military expenditures officially reached US$132 million, although unofficial estimates were much higher.

By 2004 the active armed forces included 66,490 personnel. The forces remain conscript-based and comprised three arms of service: ground forces, joint air force and air defense forces, and navy, as well as a reserve base.

Changes were made in the call-up rules in Azerbaijan in April 2009. The first of these changes was that Organization Mobilization Department (OMD) of Armed Forces Headquarters would distribute the draftees among the units. Information about vacancies in the units and army corps (driver, communicator, computer operator, rifleman etc.), and the list of draftees submitted by the Republic Military Commissariat will be collected in the computer base of the OMD. The Organization Mobilization Department will issue order to send a draftee to the units and army corps taking into account these vacancies. The draftees are distributed among the military units under the decision of commanders of units and army corps after attending course. The draftees were to be registered in the e-base of the OMD with special numbers and these numbers will be given to them. The second change is that the draftee will be informed about the troops beforehand. When receiving the call-up paper, the draftee will be informed where he will serve (Landing Troops army corps, Border Troops, Interior Troops, National Guard, Justice Regiment, military unit of the National Security Ministry, Naval Forces, Air Defense Troops etc.). Third, parents can get information about the army corps and troops, where their children serve, on hotline created in OMD. The authorities of the district military commissariats were restricted. The district commissariats will draw up the list of draftees, organize medical commissions and deliver notifications of call-up to the citizens further, unknown sources at the district commissariat told APA. The commissariats lost their authority to deploy the draftees among the military units. The draftees were deployed according to the list drawn up by the commissariats for numbers introduced by the troops and army corpses from July 2004 until January 2009. It caused some negative cases. The deployment of draftees among the military units was conducted by order of military unit commanders.