Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan & General Sun Tzu

 

If you ask the average Armenian on the street who Sun Tzu is, probably his/her reply will be : ”I have no clue.” But for those who have studied issues of war and peace, The Chinese Gen. Sun Tzu (544BC-496BC), and the masterpiece he wrote “The Art of War”  remain one of the most important sources of military strategy that are regularly consulted in military academies all over the world. Rarely in the Western world a military officer graduates from an academy without studying extensively Gen. Sun Tzu or without being exposed to the tactics and strategies of another military theorist known as Gen. Carl Von Clausewitz (1780-1831).

Analysts who had monitored closely the Artsakh war that started on Sept. 27, 2020 and lasted almost six weeks, unanimously agree today that three parties have emerged victorious from the military campaign: Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Russia. Only The Republic of Armenia was forced to swallow the bitter pill of a humiliating defeat, and unfortunately, instead of relying on “Cold Logic” to understand why The Armenian nation is facing a disastrous outcome, Armenians turned their anger inward and jumped to the conclusion that “someone” must pay the price, and no one is better positioned to pay the price than Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. If heads must roll, the first head should be the Prime Minister’s head simply because he attached his signature to the humiliating conditions imposed by Putin and Aliyev to end military hostilities.

Armenians, blinded by pain and anger, failed to understand that Prime Minister Pashinyan is an agent recognized by international forums as the representative of The State of Armenia. Like every political decision-maker running a country, Pashinyan relies on experts before shaping a decision. If those who were entrusted with the task of advising Pashinyan, conveyed the wrong advice/s for x number of reasons, we have no right to anticipate a good outcome or end result. Bad advice/s equals bad/disastrous end results.

Who were the parties who failed to provide good, timely, accurate professional advice to Pashinyan? I am not an expert on the intelligence community of Armenia, but based on information available online The National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia shoulders the following duties:

“Within the framework of its functions the intelligence authority obtains, develops and analyses intelligence to report to the top leadership of RA in order to confront the national security challenges of RA and external threats against the state, as well as to give effective solutions to the problems concerning the vital interests of RA in the area of foreign policy. While carrying out its intelligence activities to deal with the problems it faces, it also supports the normal development of Armenia in the fields of military technology, economy, science and technology, etc.”

At face value The NSS of Armenia shares the key three basic tasks any intelligence agency performs; collecting information, analysis of information, and dissemination to internal decision makers.

Gen. Sun Tzu emphasized greatly the following principles that guarantees success in a war: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

It seems that NSS failed to know the enemy, while the enemy knew far more than it needs to know by simply stealing the state secrets that NSS was supposed to protect.

In April 2019, multiple sources on the internet reported a major hacking operation conducted by an anonymous group known as “Sea Turtle”. The group, concentrated its efforts on targeting military and intelligence sites of several countries including Armenia. Following the discovery of the widespread successful hacking measures, experts released the following dire warning:“… we do not want to overstate the consequences of this specific campaign, we are concerned that the success of this operation will lead to actors more broadly attacking the global DNS system…”

Did NSS do a major damage assessment of its IT system following the scandal? Did NSS warn Prime Minister Pashinyan that the assets of The Armenian Army have been compromised? Did NSS alert The Minister of Foreign Affairs that the communication network of The Ministry with its foreign embassies, have become extremely vulnerable to interception by the enemies of Armenia?

Observers cannot tell what were the measures adopted by NSS to address the threat, or what appropriate counter measures were set up to prevent the haemorrhage of vital information to the enemy (Turkey, Azerbaijan, Israel). At the end of the day, the result is the same. Nikol Pashinyan is not responsible for the failure of professionals expected to protect the vital information of The State. At best, after the fact he could have replaced the key figures of the organization, but probably the move would have been considered too little too late. Gen. Sun Tzu would have pointed out that your enemy knew more about you, and gained a major tactical advantage in preparing itself for the next war. Gen. Sun Tzu would have blamed NSS for undermining the critical need to keep your enemy in the dark by protecting your secrets. 2500 years ago he reiterated several times the importance of protecting State secrets: ”Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

Did NSS monitor the vital statistics about Azerbaijan published online? Did NSS warn the Government of Armenia about the billions of dollars Azerbaijan has been investing in modern weapon purchases? Is NSS familiar with “Open Source” economic reviews provided by Bloomberg back in 2016?

Bloomberg reported in April 2016 that: “Buoyed by a surge in oil revenue, Azerbaijan has raised its military spending by at least 10-fold over the last decade to as much as $4.8 billion last year, according to authorities in Baku. That dwarfs the outlays from Nagorno-Karabakh’s ally Armenia, which saw a threefold increase to $447 million…”

Did NSS assume that Azerbaijan was investing billions of dollars in modern military hardware, simply to have more colourful military parades? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the purchased weapons will one day be used to destroy Artsakh and humiliate Armenia. Aliyev was simply following the recommendation of Gen. Sun Tzu “He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.”

Was NSS closely monitoring the quantum leaps in the field of UAVs as part of its mandate to understand key advances in military technology? Or did it make the bad assumption that with trench warfare, reminiscent of tactics used in WWI, you can prevent your enemy from controlling the skies of your battlefields along the contact line?

Did NSS know that too many academic institutions known as “Think Tanks” predicted with a high degree of accuracy how the Artsakh war will end? Some of the opinions expressed were so accurate that I thought the architect of the agreement (Mr. Putin) had sent memos to the think tanks prior to sending a copy for signature to PM Pashinyan.

Gen. Sun Tzu insisted that “All warfare is based on deception”. For us the key question to be asked is clear: “Did NSS engage in a sophisticated game of self-deception, or did Azerbaijan manage to deceive us with a sophisticated game of smoke and mirrors behind which it managed to hide its real intentions?

We have five years to do an honest inventory of our defeat, and try to understand why 2,317 of Armenia’s finest soldiers fought epic battles and made the ultimate sacrifice by hugging martyrdom in the hills, forests, and gorges of Artsakh. So much loss of life will be absolutely meaningless and absurd, if we cannot figure out why we failed. Once we discover the roots of our own failure, then we can get ready for the next battle when the terms of the current agreement signed by PM Pashinyan expires, or even prior to the expiry date.

Admin©2020