A while ago Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced, that the Azerbaijani military budget will reach two billion dollars in 2008. That’s not quite as much as the whole of Armenia’s budget for the next year, but is very close, and certainly, is two-three times more than what Armenia can spend on its military.
However, given widespread corruption and ‘dedovshchina’ (bullying) in the Azerbaijani military, it is yet to be seen if the huge military budget will ever translate into quality. There’s some evidence (I’m not sure if it’s genuine) in the YouTube video below, showing bullying in Azerbaijani military. And although the Armenian military also has seen a lot of bullying and cases of murders of conscripts, whatever this particular video illustrates is simply unimaginable!
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ADPMaUmqo”]
Meanwhile, Kornelij Glas has posted an interesting story about export of defective and old Ukrainian tanks to Azerbaijan.
Artur Papyan
Journalist, blogger, digital security and media consultant
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I couldn’t help think of the Three Stooges when I saw that.
Aliyev has kept military spending low, probably to prevent any political threat from the security sector (Kaldor et al.2007, p. 171).
And if there is economic boom that can oppress the Armenian side to draw back, results from a survey carried out in Azerbaijan state that ‘young people would not fight for Nagorno-Karabakh because they think that it would prevent them enjoying the good life that they expect if oil production proceeds in peace and quite’ (Heradstveit 2001, p.108).
Забавно 🙂