On October 5, 2020, when the full-scale war between Azerbaijani and Armenian armed forces had just started in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, President Ilham Aliyev was already talking about military reform. In an interview with Turkish state-run broadcaster TRT, Aliyev said that his intention was to remake the Azerbaijani military “based on the Turkish model but on a smaller scale.”

That reform had been underway for several years as Azerbaijan sought to move away from a Soviet model of the armed forces – featuring a heavy use of conscripts and large quantities of infantry and armor units – toward a more NATO-style professional, mobile, high-tech force. As Turkey was Azerbaijan’s closest ally, it was naturally the NATO military Baku sought to emulate.

Turkey’s heavy military support to Azerbaijan in the war against Armenia solidified that orientation. As Aliyev put it in the interview: “Turkey’s moral support and the Turkish defense industry products at our disposal strengthen us, and the whole world can see that. The Turkish Army is the second strongest army in NATO today, and no one can confront it.” Continue reading →