Radar Armenia‘s interlocutor is Armen Petrosyan, an expert on regional issues.
– In 2025, Azerbaijan will significantly reduce defense and security expenses by almost 7%. How do you interpret this circumstance?
– The reality of the reduction of military expenses by Azerbaijan should be evaluated in terms of the total proportion of total costs. At first impression, it seems that 7% is an impressive expense reduction. Still, it should be understood that before that, the costs directed to the military sector were relatively high. Second, in parallel with the reduction of these costs, more significant amounts of money are provided or planned in a more strategic direction for Azerbaijan, for example, on investments in Artsakh, territories passed under Azerbaijani control, which is more promising for Azerbaijan, taking into account the challenges it may face in the future. Baku, especially after the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, in the area or the world, becomes predictable. That is, after the change of the world order or the establishment of a certain status quo, when various international actors and individual states and organizations will try to exploit the ethnic cleansing carried out by Azerbaijan in Artsakh and will try to force Azerbaijan to ensure the return of Artsakh Armenians. Therefore, we can predict that if military expenses are reduced, these funds will be directed to solve other problems of strategic importance, which are again anti-Armenian in their content.
– Is this a step towards peace with Armenia?
– I don’t think that Azerbaijan wants to go to peace with Armenia, at least in the period of this inter-world order, when the Azerbaijani side tries to sell the topic of peace to Armenia in every way, trying to achieve more significant unilateral concessions in return. Therefore, according to this logic, at least in the short term, even if a peace agreement is signed, there are some strategic issues for the solution of which Azerbaijan will use its military superiority. Azerbaijan’s calculations are such that it will maintain its military supremacy in the region over its two neighbors, Armenia and Georgia. In other words, the reduction of expenses with the same total volume does not mean that they are still ahead of both Armenia and Georgia in terms of providing direct financial resources, taking into account the structure and incomes of the economy of the region’s three countries.
This step cannot be evaluated as an indicator of going to peace. Even with a reduced budget, Azerbaijan continues to invest or use more money in the military sector than its neighboring countries. Moreover, maintaining military supremacy over its neighbors is Azerbaijan’s strategic direction.
– What messages does this step of Azerbaijan convey to foreign political actors?
-The messages are propaganda messages, especially in the context that the Azerbaijani side constantly accuses Armenia of increasing military spending and arming itself, Western players—France and the USA—in the eastern direction for expanding military cooperation with India. It is the same as France arming Armenia.
This is a propaganda bubble that Armenia’s accusations as if Azerbaijan continues to arm itself, do not correspond to reality. And so, numerically, it shows that we are reducing financial expenses. At the same time, Armenia continues to arm itself, and European countries want to destabilize the region, arm Armenia, and strengthen themselves in the area. They want to create fake propaganda with some title. Allegedly, they are reducing the military budget expenses. Still, in reality, they will continue to spend more money to expand the military sphere, increasing the geography of the acquisition of weapons.
