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ISRAELI ARMS EXPORTS FUEL ARMENIAN-AZERI CONFLICT, COULD FOMENT MAJOR REGIONAL WAR - OPED
Eurasia Review
Oct 24 2012
By: Richard Silverstein
October 24, 2012
Global Post has published an important overview of Israel's role as
major arms exporter fueling the Armenian-Azeri conflict. Recently
Azerbaijan announced a $1.6-billion arms deal with Israel that would
bring its drone fleet to 100 including Israel's most advanced Heron
model. Here's an inventory of arms sales to one of the region's
wealthiest, most corrupt and autocratic leaders:
Azerbaijan had acquired about 30 drones from Israeli firms Aeronautics
Ltd. and Elbit Systems by the end of 2011, including at least 25
medium-sized Hermes-450 and Aerostar drones.
In October 2011, Azerbaijan signed a deal to license and domestically
produce an additional 60 Aerostar and Orbiter 2M drones. Its most
recent purchase from Israel Aeronautics Industries (IAI) in March
reportedly included 10 high altitude Heron-TP drones - the most
advanced Israeli drone in service - according to Oxford Analytica.
Collectively, these purchases have netted Azerbaijan 50 or more drones
that are similar in class, size and capabilities to American Predator
and Reaper-type drones, which are the workhorses of the United States'
campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.
Azerbaijan
There is a cold war going on between the Azeris and Armenians that
regularly flares into deadly confrontations in which scores have been
killed. Given that there has been no resolution of the conflict and
no serious attempt to do so, any match dropped into the oil could be
the one that causes an explosion:
The International Crisis Group warned that as the tit-for-tat incidents
become more deadly, "there is a growing risk that the increasing
frontline tensions could lead to an accidental war."
With this in mind, the UN and the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have long imposed a non-binding arms
embargo on both countries, and both are under a de facto arms ban
from the United States. But, according to the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), this has not stopped Israel and
Russia from selling to them.
Who knows whether Israel's drones, used by the Azeris to keep an
eye on their Armenians and the Iranians, might be the tipping point
toward war. Azerbaijan has an extremely tense relationship with Iran
as well. So the Azeris and Israelis both have a mutual interest in
monitoring and even sabotaging their mutual enemy.
Israel's role in Azerbaijan reminds me of the drug dealer only too
happy to provide the poison to satiate his customer's craving. In
this case, it's a mad craving for advanced weapons systems:
Flush with cash from energy exports, Azerbaijan has increased its
annual defense budget from an estimated $160 million in 2003 to $3.6
billion in 2012. SIPRI said in a report that largely as a result of
its blockbuster drone deal with Israel, Azerbaijan's defense budget
jumped 88 percent this year - the biggest military spending increase
in the world.
Israel, the drug dealer, has greater strategic ambitions which can
be satisfied by drawing Azerbaijan ever closer to its orbit. But it
has also used such arms deals with Russia and the latter's allies
to encourage Russia to withhold major weapons systems from Israel's
enemies:
Israel has long used arms deals to gain strategic leverage over its
rivals in the region. Although difficult to confirm, many security
analysts believe Israel's deals with Russia have played heavily into
Moscow's suspension of a series of contracts with Iran and Syria that
would have provided them with more advanced air defense systems and
fighter jets.
Stephen Blank, a research professor at the United States Army War
College, said that preventing arms supplies to Syria and Iran -
particularly Russian S-300 air defense systems - has been among
Israel's top goals with the deals.
"There's always a quid pro quo," Blank said. "Nobody sells arms just
for cash."
This passage outlines Israel's strategic thinking regarding the role
Azerbaijan can play as a bulwark against Iran:
In Azerbaijan in particular, Israel has traded its highly demanded
drone technology for intelligence arrangements and covert footholds
against Iran. In a January 2009 US diplomatic cable released by
WikiLeaks, a U.S. diplomat reported that in a closed-door conversation,
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev compared his country's relationship
with Israel to an iceberg - nine-tenths of it is below the surface.
...In the end, "Israel's main goal is to preserve Azerbaijan as an
ally against Iran, a platform for reconnaissance of that country and
as a market for military hardware," the diplomatic cable reads.
One thing that previous Middle Eastern conflicts has taught us is that
we have no ultimate control over how our allies use the weapons we
provide. The drone Israel arms for Azerbaijan today to protect its
Iranian flank could just as easily be turned on Armenia and fuel a
conflict there. Israel may have no interest in an Azeri-Armenian war.
But if either of those parties do, then Israel will be dragged along
into the fray, if only as an accomplice.
The more weapons proliferate in the region the easier it will be to
start a war. I just read a chilling TV review of a PBS documentary
about the Cuban missile crisis, which found that a single Russian
security officer is all that stood between a Russian submarine firing
a nuclear-tipped torpedo at a U.S. ship during the crisis. Think
what this means. If such a confrontation could take us to the brink
of nuclear annihilation, do we have so much hubris to believe that
some petty Caucasus dictators couldn't do the same? With all the
advanced weaponry both sides are furnished by Israel and Russia,
the result would be a war much more damaging than the earlier
Nagorno-Karabakh War:
[U.S. Army War College Prof. Stephen] Blank said Israel has
made a risky move by supplying Azerbaijan with drones and other
high-tech equipment, given the tenuous balance of power between
the heavily fortified Armenian positions and the more numerous and
technologically superior Azerbaijani forces. If ignited, he said,
"[an Armenian-Azerbaijani war] will not be small. That's the one
thing I'm sure of."
Israel is one of the world's leading arms proliferators. Not only
does it have 200 nuclear weapons of its own, but it exports some of
its most advanced weapons systems to regions fraught with conflict.
Not content to stir the pot in its own little Middle East backyard,
where its wars of choice are commonplace, Israel could do the same
for other regions. One result of not reigning in the Israeli-Arab
conflict and solving it, is that Israel is left to its own devices
to provoke conflict and arms races in other regions outside its own.
Once again, we have only ourselves to blame.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/
http://www.eurasiareview.com/24102012-israeli-arms-exports-fuel-armenian-azeri-conflict-could-foment-major-regional-war-oped/
Eurasia Review
Oct 24 2012
By: Richard Silverstein
October 24, 2012
Global Post has published an important overview of Israel's role as
major arms exporter fueling the Armenian-Azeri conflict. Recently
Azerbaijan announced a $1.6-billion arms deal with Israel that would
bring its drone fleet to 100 including Israel's most advanced Heron
model. Here's an inventory of arms sales to one of the region's
wealthiest, most corrupt and autocratic leaders:
Azerbaijan had acquired about 30 drones from Israeli firms Aeronautics
Ltd. and Elbit Systems by the end of 2011, including at least 25
medium-sized Hermes-450 and Aerostar drones.
In October 2011, Azerbaijan signed a deal to license and domestically
produce an additional 60 Aerostar and Orbiter 2M drones. Its most
recent purchase from Israel Aeronautics Industries (IAI) in March
reportedly included 10 high altitude Heron-TP drones - the most
advanced Israeli drone in service - according to Oxford Analytica.
Collectively, these purchases have netted Azerbaijan 50 or more drones
that are similar in class, size and capabilities to American Predator
and Reaper-type drones, which are the workhorses of the United States'
campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.
Azerbaijan
There is a cold war going on between the Azeris and Armenians that
regularly flares into deadly confrontations in which scores have been
killed. Given that there has been no resolution of the conflict and
no serious attempt to do so, any match dropped into the oil could be
the one that causes an explosion:
The International Crisis Group warned that as the tit-for-tat incidents
become more deadly, "there is a growing risk that the increasing
frontline tensions could lead to an accidental war."
With this in mind, the UN and the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have long imposed a non-binding arms
embargo on both countries, and both are under a de facto arms ban
from the United States. But, according to the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), this has not stopped Israel and
Russia from selling to them.
Who knows whether Israel's drones, used by the Azeris to keep an
eye on their Armenians and the Iranians, might be the tipping point
toward war. Azerbaijan has an extremely tense relationship with Iran
as well. So the Azeris and Israelis both have a mutual interest in
monitoring and even sabotaging their mutual enemy.
Israel's role in Azerbaijan reminds me of the drug dealer only too
happy to provide the poison to satiate his customer's craving. In
this case, it's a mad craving for advanced weapons systems:
Flush with cash from energy exports, Azerbaijan has increased its
annual defense budget from an estimated $160 million in 2003 to $3.6
billion in 2012. SIPRI said in a report that largely as a result of
its blockbuster drone deal with Israel, Azerbaijan's defense budget
jumped 88 percent this year - the biggest military spending increase
in the world.
Israel, the drug dealer, has greater strategic ambitions which can
be satisfied by drawing Azerbaijan ever closer to its orbit. But it
has also used such arms deals with Russia and the latter's allies
to encourage Russia to withhold major weapons systems from Israel's
enemies:
Israel has long used arms deals to gain strategic leverage over its
rivals in the region. Although difficult to confirm, many security
analysts believe Israel's deals with Russia have played heavily into
Moscow's suspension of a series of contracts with Iran and Syria that
would have provided them with more advanced air defense systems and
fighter jets.
Stephen Blank, a research professor at the United States Army War
College, said that preventing arms supplies to Syria and Iran -
particularly Russian S-300 air defense systems - has been among
Israel's top goals with the deals.
"There's always a quid pro quo," Blank said. "Nobody sells arms just
for cash."
This passage outlines Israel's strategic thinking regarding the role
Azerbaijan can play as a bulwark against Iran:
In Azerbaijan in particular, Israel has traded its highly demanded
drone technology for intelligence arrangements and covert footholds
against Iran. In a January 2009 US diplomatic cable released by
WikiLeaks, a U.S. diplomat reported that in a closed-door conversation,
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev compared his country's relationship
with Israel to an iceberg - nine-tenths of it is below the surface.
...In the end, "Israel's main goal is to preserve Azerbaijan as an
ally against Iran, a platform for reconnaissance of that country and
as a market for military hardware," the diplomatic cable reads.
One thing that previous Middle Eastern conflicts has taught us is that
we have no ultimate control over how our allies use the weapons we
provide. The drone Israel arms for Azerbaijan today to protect its
Iranian flank could just as easily be turned on Armenia and fuel a
conflict there. Israel may have no interest in an Azeri-Armenian war.
But if either of those parties do, then Israel will be dragged along
into the fray, if only as an accomplice.
The more weapons proliferate in the region the easier it will be to
start a war. I just read a chilling TV review of a PBS documentary
about the Cuban missile crisis, which found that a single Russian
security officer is all that stood between a Russian submarine firing
a nuclear-tipped torpedo at a U.S. ship during the crisis. Think
what this means. If such a confrontation could take us to the brink
of nuclear annihilation, do we have so much hubris to believe that
some petty Caucasus dictators couldn't do the same? With all the
advanced weaponry both sides are furnished by Israel and Russia,
the result would be a war much more damaging than the earlier
Nagorno-Karabakh War:
[U.S. Army War College Prof. Stephen] Blank said Israel has
made a risky move by supplying Azerbaijan with drones and other
high-tech equipment, given the tenuous balance of power between
the heavily fortified Armenian positions and the more numerous and
technologically superior Azerbaijani forces. If ignited, he said,
"[an Armenian-Azerbaijani war] will not be small. That's the one
thing I'm sure of."
Israel is one of the world's leading arms proliferators. Not only
does it have 200 nuclear weapons of its own, but it exports some of
its most advanced weapons systems to regions fraught with conflict.
Not content to stir the pot in its own little Middle East backyard,
where its wars of choice are commonplace, Israel could do the same
for other regions. One result of not reigning in the Israeli-Arab
conflict and solving it, is that Israel is left to its own devices
to provoke conflict and arms races in other regions outside its own.
Once again, we have only ourselves to blame.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/
http://www.eurasiareview.com/24102012-israeli-arms-exports-fuel-armenian-azeri-conflict-could-foment-major-regional-war-oped/