HABBENING: The Iskander Revolution?

Armenian General Staff is demanding a Pashinyan resignation.

Summary from /r/armenia:

In a statement issued on the afternoon of February 25, the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces demanded the resignation of Nikol Pashinyan and his Cabinet., expressing strong disapproval of Pashinyan’s sacking of Tigran Khachatryan, the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff.

Soon after, Pashinyan called the General Staff’s statement a military coup attempt and fired the Chief of General Staff Onik Gasparyan. Pashinyan claims he had signed the papers on the dismissal of Gasparyan and his deputy before the General Staff issued their statement calling for Pashinyan’s resignation. President Armen Sarkissian has stated that he received Pashinyan’s recommendation of dismissal of chief of General Staff Onik Gasparyan, but hasn’t yet signed it. Gasparyan will officially be considered dismissed only after the President formalizes the document.

The General Staff later issued a second statement reiterating their demands and claiming that their call for the resignation of Pashinyan” was not guided by anyone and was not made under any pressure from anyone.”

The two opposition parties of the Armenian Parliament, Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Bright Armenia (LHK) have initiated a petition among lawmakers in order to convene an emergency session of parliament.

There is an opposition rally underway in Yerevan’s Freedom Square, while Pashinyan is giving a speech at Republic Square.

Hilariously, the thing that kicked this off was the Iskander missiles that Russia had supplied to Armenia.

Pashinyan was dissing the Iskanders supplied, dismissing them as a “1980’s technology” and claiming that only 10% of them exploded. General Tiran Khachatrian said that it was nonsense, which prompted his firing.

However, Pashinyan had apparently forbidden the General Staff from using Iskanders against Azeri enemy troop concentrations on account of the backlash it would provoke from the “international community”:

“On the third day of the war, I, as the head of the General Staff, decided to use Iskander in the direction of two strategically important facilities, one of the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipelines. Pashinyan categorically forbade it, although the Russians made it clear that it is your business, it is your war. Three days before the attack on Shushi, I asked Pashinyan for permission to strike with two Iskanders directly at the enormous accumulation of enemy manpower on the outskirts of Shushi. Pashinyan categorically forbade it, saying that the international community would curse us if we killed several thousand enemy soldiers at the same time.

This apparent chutzpah is what provoked this apparent mutiny on the part of the military brass.

Senior policemen have expressed support for the generals, so that suggests there is unity amongst disgruntled siloviks on the questions.

https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1364929278815703041

If so, that is certainly bad news for Pashinyan.

Repeat of Burma on the cards?

I don’t follow Armenia closely and have nothing to add here beyond what is reported in media and on blogs. I don’t view this as a surprise because noting that Pashinyan’s days in power are likely numbered, as I did when Armenia capitulated, was hardly a bold prediction. People don’t tend to like Presidents who lose wars.

Though Erdogan, also unsurprisingly, likes them:

Comments

  1. Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.

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  2. I asked Pashinyan for permission to strike with two Iskanders directly at the enormous accumulation of enemy manpower on the outskirts of Shushi. Pashinyan categorically forbade it, saying that the international community would curse us if we killed several thousand enemy soldiers at the same time.

    LOL, Pashinyan is literally a Turkish spy.

  3. Verymuchalive says

    What took the military so long.
    https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/11/25/artsakh-pashinyan-military-incompetency/

    Colonel General Movses Hakobyan of the Military Supervision Service made a damning testimony on November 19 that revealed how the Armenian leadership made minimal efforts in what was supposed to be a “battle for survival”.

    He revealed that by October 30, more than a month after the war began, that only 70% of Artsakh’s forces and 52% of reservists in Armenia had been mobilized. According to him, Armenia’s military doctrine determines that near full mobilization should be achieved within 48 hours of a war beginning. He also said that on the third day of the war Pashinyan had ordered the supply of regular Armenian reservists to Artsakh be halted and replaced with only volunteer detachments.

    By downgrading mobilization to only volunteer detachments, a potential 200,000 reservists were not utilized. In fact, although government and military officials were calling for diaspora Armenians to fight in Artsakh, it has been revealed, at least in Greece, that volunteers were put on a list and would be deployed only if the situation demanded it. Hovik Kasapian, a leading member of the Armenian National Committee of Greece, also said that many ethnic Greeks had volunteered to fight in Artsakh but were rejected because Armenia did not want to put Athens in an awkward diplomatic situation, despite the fact that many of the Greek volunteers were highly trained ex-special forces. Pashinyan defended the necessity of the highly controversial ceasefire by claiming that Artsakh did not have enough manpower to defend against the Azerbaijani military, but Armenia had not even come close to using all the resources available.

    This seems a very odd way to fight a “battle for survival.” Was Pashinyan completely incompetent, or was he “just following orders”? If the latter, from whom.

  4. For a brief moment, I was imagining Singapore had expanded its borders, at Malaysia’s expense, and was thinking, “Wow, I really didn’t see that coming; based Chinese!”

    BTW, I rather like the phrase “Lebensraum for Singapore.” Divorced from actual acts of aggression or war, it is a rather comedic phrase – at least, to my mind.

  5. 4Dchessmaster says

    No, Pashinyan is simply a pathetic coward.

  6. 4Dchessmaster says

    The “International Community” that Pashinyan has spent his time kissing up to was nowhere to be found when we were protesting all over the world. This news does not surprise me one bit.

    Also, the fact that killing a bunch of Azerbaijani soldiers would cause “outrage” among members of the “International Community” during a WAR, LOL, Pashinyan’s excuses are just pathetic beyond belief.

  7. Hyperborean says

    How soon before Armenians end up being painted as falling for the stab-in-the-back “myth”?

  8. However, Pashinyan had apparently forbidden the General Staff from using Iskanders against Azeri enemy troop concentrations on account of the backlash it would provoke from the “international community”

    How quaint that he would think that the “international community” would even be paying attention. It’s not like there are many Jews or African Americans in Artsakh.

    AK: Erdogan survived a coup attempt a few years back, so I’m not surprised that he would discourage that sort of thing. He wouldn’t want Turkish generals to get any ideas.

  9. How soon before Armenians end up being painted as falling for the stab-in-the-back “myth”?

    If Armenia was “stabbed in the back”, it was by the generals, although more likely, they were just extremely incompetent.

    It’s not surprising that they’ve tried to shift the blame to the President.

    It seems that militaries that are good at coups are bad at wars.

  10. I presume they were going to use thermobaric warheads. I was surprised to hear that the Rhodesians developed and deployed their own version of this type of bomb, but use of such weapons seems more common than I once thought. For instance, there are rumors that they were used (handheld versions?) in 1993 against the Russian parliament.

    BTW, Rhodesians apparently also developed a bomb with flechettes (in this case nails missing the heads). But they only deployed it against more distant targets, places where there were no international observers nearby.

  11. Bernies sanders mittens says

    Armenia need to get rid of Pashinyan

    He is a NATO puppet He clearly is someone bought by the west

    There is something wrong with him that he holds onto power after the loss of the war.

    He clearly lost the war with Azerbaijan I am shocked by the comments about the conduct of the war – not wanting to kill the enemy!!!! Not using qualified troops or volunteers

    Why is Turkey defending him? I think it’s clear why

    The armed forces have mutinied this puts the country in danger

    What if Turkey or Azerbaijan attack?

    Armenians talk about their history but it’s as if they don’t really know their history

    They are in a geographical location with enemies to the on all sides ( except Iran who won’t fight for them)

    Too many Armenians are in the west and forget that Armenia has no friends in their neighbourhood only Russia who they abuse

  12. Hyperborean says

    If Armenia was “stabbed in the back”, it was by the generals, although more likely, they were just extremely incompetent.

    It’s not surprising that they’ve tried to shift the blame to the President.

    It seems that militaries that are good at coups are bad at wars.

    Throughout his term as PM (not President, by the way) Pashinyan has geopolitically acted like an utterly horrid AI in a video game, in what possible way is he getting unfairly blamed?

  13. He’s not wrong though.

    Especially the US would come out with Intergalactic Trade Federation levels of chutzpah regarding this. Then suddenly sanctions and/or “advisors” appear, followed by blossoming lily pads.

    Anyway there is probably a few pages of Radio Yerewan jokes in the whole situation.

    Radio Yerevan was asked: “Is it true that our new Iskander missiles ‘explode only by 10%’?”

    Radio Yerevan answered: “In principle, no. But when you are unware of 90% of reality it may well seem that way.”

    There is already an entry at Wikipedia, too: Armenia

    Also, yesterday there was a Letter of Great Unhappiness about what can only be regarded as “Iskander FUD” at RT.

  14. Pashinyan’s role was to remove Karabakh as an issue – he did it at Armenia’s expense – so focus can be on uniting countries on Russia’s periphery for the coming offensive. They are lining up like nice puppets: Ukraine, Georgia, Baltic, Poland, Romania…Armenia and Azeris could be added now. Belarus is a work in progress, nice to have, but not necessary. Maybe Uzbeks can be added, even North Caucasus could be reactivated.

    After they are all united and after dissent in the West is gone, they would like to try one more march into the depths of Russia. Sweden tried, as did Poland and Turkey, then French with Napoleon. And not that long ago Germans with almost all of the continental Europe joining them. There were Dutch and Norwegian SS units, French and Italians, and all those in Eastern Europe who were not slated for extermination were also asked to join. (Sorry Poland, as much as you wanted and offered repeatedly to jointly attack Russia, Germans were just not interested – something to do with bad Polish plumbing and where Poles live, they had different plans for both.)

    But they are moving way too slowly: with Trump’s silly time-wasting interlude and the Chinese around the corner, they could run out of time. You know what happens when you mis-time your march on Moscow? Yeah, oops…but look at the bright side, all the retarded what-if anglo buffs will be able to pontificate for decades, “we were that close“, “if just the rains didn’t come“, and that damn swarthy Pashinyan…

  15. Relieved to see that another country besides my own (USA) is making inexplicably stupid decisions verging on national suicide.

    Rule of thumb: if a politician’s action is utterly baffling, they are either compromised or bought off.

  16. Throughout his term as PM (not President, by the way) Pashinyan has geopolitically acted like an utterly horrid AI in a video game, in what possible way is he getting unfairly blamed?

    You’re right: PM, not President. My bad. My point was that he’s the senior civilian leader, rather than a general.

    Geopolitics aside, too many Armenian positions were too poorly covered and too exposed. Shusha was captured suspiciously quickly. These are military matters, not geopolitics. The generals should take the blame for this embarrassing performance, not the PM.

  17. After they are all united and after dissent in the West is gone, they would like to try one more march into the depths of Russia.

    You must be joking.

    Napoleon is gone. He isn’t coming back.

  18. Felix Keverich says

    Important to note that this is NOT a coup. The army did NOT secure government buildings, did NOT arrest Pashinyan and his allies. What they’ve done is write open letter to Armenian public, expressing their exasperation…

    This is so Armenian! These people would rather sing and dance, than for once do their job. The country is a fucking failed state.

  19. The first time I see a country being called a failed state on account of there being no coup.

  20. I guess you read the accusations that the civilian leadership didn’t mobilize the resources and forbade the use of certain weapons. Also preparations usually depend on the civilian leadership to an extent.

    My take is that both the civilian and the military leadership failed, but the failure of the military was incompetence while the failure of Pashinyan was not even trying too much.

  21. 4Dchessmaster says

    Aside from Pashinyan and his fans, nobody else in Armenia thought it was a coup. You should be blaming the international media for deciding to create a sensationalist news story when they ignore us the rest of the time. The BBC, TRT, and Reuters are the ones who made a big thing out of nothing.

  22. Could also be that their major skillset lies in getting elected / nominated.

  23. He’s actually twice gone!

    And yeah, those historical events have not much in common except that there existed a large landmass that could be invaded. In particular, WWI was a “use it before you lose it” scenario where Prussia had to hit hard quickly. It was a quick trip from Russia to Berlin, but from Prussia to Moscow, not so much.

    Plus, leaving out Mongol invasions.

    Plus, leaving out the march of the Red Army into Europe for no good reason except the urge to liberate the workers in 1920.

    Anyway, a nice chart from

    Increasing Energy Inefficiency: We are getting less efficient at converting energy into usable forms

    https://spectrum.ieee.org/image/Mzc1NzU4Mg.jpeg

    Perhaps the most celebrated graphic image of all time was published in 1869 by Charles Joseph Minard, a French civil engineer. He traced the advance of Napoleon’s army into Russia and its retreat from 1812 to 1813 by a sequence of thinning bands representing the total number of men. Four hundred twenty-two thousand soldiers crossed eastward into Russia, 100,000 reached Moscow, and 10,000 crossed the Neman River westward to Prussia, at which point the Grand Armée had lost 97.6 percent of its initial force.

    (Interestingly, Minard already uses the “au-dessous de” adjectivization which I would associate with uncough “jeunesse” unable to use their own language as the correct way is evidently “en-dessous de”.)

    But this is kinda off-topic.

  24. Hyperborean says

    Like reiner Tor said, maybe the military was incompetent but Pashinyan didn’t even try.

    Also, since Pashinyan conducted purges of top-level cadres he is not blameless in causing/intensifying the military’s incompetence in the first place either.

    “Over the past year, the Armenian military lost contact with Moscow, and all contacts in the intelligence sphere between the two countries were curtailed – and this was done at the initiative of the political leadership of Armenia. During the period of Nikol Pashinyan’s premiership, three intelligence chiefs were replaced, and one of them had no competence and was a purely political appointee from the West. All this was accompanied by internal anti-Russian rhetoric, multiplied by national arrogance… Moreover, over the last six months, in the General Staff of Armenia has been mass dismissal of officers who were trained in Moscow. The ostensible reason for this was the wedding of the Chief of the General Staff’s daughter, who allegedly ‘did not follow the rules of conduct in the coronavirus pandemic.’”

    Pashinyan’s rationale for the dismissal of General Artak Davtyan was announced on June 8. At the same time he also sacked the chiefs of the police and national security administration. That, according to the Russian assessment, left Pashinyan in charge of a command-and-control system which was hollow. The Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev saw the opportunity to strike.

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/military-lessons-of-karabakh-war-2020/

  25. The Alarmist says

    Democratic Processes … lulz

  26. Inaction of Armenia proper in this recent war very much resembles the inaction of Serbia proper during Operation Storm when the Croatian army took all of Krajina (self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina) in a matter of few days in Aug 1995. Krajina was given up so easily that it seemed that there was a tacit deal between the ‘West’ and Serbia that the latter would not interfere with the fall of Krajina maybe in exchange for some kind of recognition of Bosnian Serbia, which actually became reality with the Dayton Accord just a few months later in Dec 1995.
    Some elements of the Armenian leadership and/or administration might have been promised the opening of the Turkish border (and the Azeri border) if they would not interfere with the expected fall of Karabakh. I would not be surprised if the first trucks, buses, trains, and planes enter Armenia via Turkey before the end of 2021, provided Armenia declares that it does not claim any territory outside its internationally recognised borders.

  27. This isn’t a color revolution. This is a ballistic revolution. LOL

  28. Verymuchalive says

    Obviously, some of the blunders and incompetence goes back a long way. They had 15 years, for example, to integrate Armenian air defence with Russia’s. But some of the allegations go way beyond mere incompetence. I would hope that a new government – consisting of new officials, not from Pashinyan’s or previous governments – conducts a thorough inquiry into the conduct of the war. As far as possible, the findings must be made public.

    If this is not done, and done quickly, these matters will fester for decades. Polarisation of Armenian society will become even more marked. Not that Pashinyan and his cronies will be around to give evidence or deal with the findings. I expect that very shortly all will be living in exile, most of them in France.

  29. Marching takes different forms. But once all is ready, the anglos will march. Maybe in a video-game and twitter abuse, maybe with rainbow flags, but with all this preparation, somebody will do something. That’s just physics.

    And yeah, the Mongols…sure, add them. But that 1920 stuff is way off, wasn’t that still officially in their own country?

  30. sudden death says

    why the heck Napoleon went into deep heartland when Moscow was not even capital at the time? IIRC the main beef at the time was that Russian empire kept trading with Britain thus violating French continental blockade, so why not just concentrate on grabbing all the eastern Baltic coasts and be content with it instead of going to central parts at the autumn/winter?

  31. “coup” accusations

    The liberast Armenian diaspora is going to be insufferable again, aren’t they?

    But what about proper Armenians in Armenia? I can’t imagine someone as apparently incompetent as Pashinyan being very popular after the debacle of N-K, but they themselves put him in power. I wonder, has the new reality made them reconsider?

    There is an opposition rally underway in Yerevan’s Freedom Square, while Pashinyan is giving a speech at Republic Square

    Relevant to my question, but the “opposition rally” link just leads to the same “emergency parliamentary session” article.

  32. Verymuchalive says

    Contrary to his admirers, Napoleon was not some military and political genius. This was evident early on. Instead of remaining in France to further his political ambitions, he set off on a military expedition to Egypt, with no clear aims and objectives, other than conquest.

    He was away from France for 18 months – May 1798 to October 1799. During that time, any change in political affairs in France might have nullified any ambitions he may have had. In the event, most of his troops succumbed to disease or loss in battle. Very few returned to France. Even on the return, he narrowly avoided capture by Lord Nelson. Viewed objectively, the campaign was disastrous and unnecessary. But hey, nothing succeeds like failure, and Napoleon quickly became First Consul.

    In 1812, the pressing need was for the French to deal with the Peninsular War. This was the bloodiest part of the Napoleonic Wars – over a million died. So what does Napoleon do. He declares war on Russia and marches on Moscow, where he finds nobody at home. As with Egypt, very few troops returned home.

  33. He was a genius of military tactics, he won almost all of his battles even when the enemy outnumbered him significantly (and he was often outnumbered), and he only lost battles when he was greatly outnumbered and in a very unfavorable position. He also had some political talents (it’s unclear to me if he had the ambition of becoming First Consul or Emperor as early as 1798, but very far from an expert on Napoleon), but obviously his overall conduct was perhaps less successful than even Hitler (and Hitler is generally viewed as a failure, with justication).

  34. I was more interested in the article where you got that picture from. Not to detract from your post.

  35. sudden death says

    …but obviously his overall conduct was perhaps less successful than even Hitler (and Hitler is generally viewed as a failure, with justication).

    well, Hitler at least didn’t overthrow Franco before going into USSR 😉

  36. I would say Imperial France was a much stronger power relative to its enemies than Nazi Germany. For example the main enemy of Napoleon, Britain, was arguably not stronger than France, and the US was not yet in the picture at all. Napoleon certainly didn’t face so overwhelming odds as Hitler.

  37. Verymuchalive says

    For the most part, he was fighting against substandard opponents who made numerous errors as Correlli Barnett and others have emphasized. He had no understanding of naval power, despite being an islander, and was very fortunate to get back from the Egyptian Campaign.
    Wellington, his nemesis, defeated all Napoleon’s Marshals and finally Napoleon himself. That’s all you need to know.

  38. Verymuchalive says

    For example the main enemy of Napoleon, Britain, was arguably not stronger than France,

    This is erroneous. The Royal Navy controlled most sea lanes, especially the Atlantic ones. The French Navy was blockaded in port for much of the time, and French colonial trade, including the lucrative sugar exports, were seriously affected. The Royal Navy prevented French reconquest of Haiti, the world’s most lucrative slave colony.
    French naval weakness meant there was never any serious attempt to invade Britain, and few attempts to confront the Royal Navy at sea. British colonial and overseas trade was little affected, and they even found time to settle a new continent, a little place called Australia.

    Related to overwhelming naval superiority was overwhelming financial superiority.

    Critical to British success in confronting Napoleon was its superior economic situation. It was able to mobilize the nation’s industrial and financial resources and apply them to defeating France. With a population of 16 million Britain was barely half the size of France with 30 million. In terms of soldiers, the French numerical advantage was offset by British subsidies that paid for a large proportion of the Austrian and Russian soldiers, peaking at about 450,000 in 1813.[55]

  39. Britain and France were of about equal power, but it was the classic land/whale problem.

    • Britain: Naval dominance
    • France: Land dominance
    • Britain: Industrialization levels per capita twice as high, matching France in terms of gross output despite population 50% as large.
    • Britain: Just as strong fiscally, with gross tax revenues exceeding France’s by 1800, as well as much deeper credit markets, by several factors. Hence could afford to subsidize 100,000’s of Austrian, Prussian, and Russian soldiers.

    That said, France could have lasted indefinitely, if Napoleon’s ambitions hadn’t gotten the better of him.

  40. Verymuchalive says

    That said, France could have lasted indefinitely

    I must disagree. Napoleon had provoked total war in Iberia and it went very badly for the French. Even without the disastrous march on Moscow, this would have been sufficient to remove Napoleon eventually.

  41. reiner Tor says

    I fail to see how the loss of Spain could have led to the defeat of France. It was a theater of secondary importance, much like Italy in WW2.

  42. reiner Tor says

    Compare that situation with Hitler. The US and Britain combined had an overwhelming naval superiority, but they also had an economic might several times larger than Germany and her allies and satellites and the occupied territories combined. They also had an overwhelming air superiority which didn’t yet exist in Napoleon’s time. It’s pretty obvious that Imperial France had a much more favorable ratio relative to Britain than Germany relative to the USA and the British Empire combined. Imperial Russia was perhaps similar relative to Imperial France as the USSR relative to the German Reich. So all this gives us the conclusion that Imperial France was in a much more favorable position than Nazi Germany.

  43. reiner Tor says

    Wellington, his nemesis, defeated all Napoleon’s Marshals and finally Napoleon himself.

    Wellington wasn’t alone in that battle, and he’d have lost without the Prussians. Not to mention that Napoleon was outnumbered in that battle as in each of his lost battles. He was outnumbered in many of his victories as well. That he faced “substandard” enemies is meaningless. He faced the generals his enemies (all the major powers of Europe at the time) sent against him, and he defeated almost all of them despite often being outnumbered. So if basically all of the generals the European powers sent against him were “substandard,” then this means that Napoleon was the only “standard” you measure them against.