Survival has remained the most fundamental principle in the minds of Armenians. Despite genocide, ethnic cleansing, and geopolitical location in the crossroads of hostile neighbors, Armenian civilization’s survival for over two thousand years is tremendously impressive. There have been many questions since at least the 2016 Four-Day War regarding Yerevan’s national security strategy, military preparedness, and arms procurement. In a 2022 academic article for the U.S. Army War College, Armenian Colonel Zhirayr Amirkhanyan wrote that, “the root cause for the defeat of the Armenian forces in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War (2020) was flawed military doctrine inherited from the Soviet Union.”

Colonel Amirkhanyan, who is the current Assistant to the Chief of the General Staff for the Armenian Ministry of Defense, articulated three crucial arguments. First, he analyzed how Azerbaijan was able to defeat his country’s armed forces. Second, he criticized Soviet Doctrine as a viable method of warfighting for Armenia, and third, he outlined several lessons Yerevan did not learn in the 30-year period from the First Nagorno-Karabakh War through the end of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. This analysis will bulwark Colonel Amirkhanyan’s criticism on Armenia’s reliance to the Soviet method of warfighting. It will offer new considerations for Yerevan to focus on maneuver and survival.

Soviet Attrition Warfare Works for Some, But Not for Armenia

Soviet military doctrine was unique in its strict top-down hierarchical system to levy overwhelming mass to outmatch and exhaust the enemy through long periods of attritional warfighting. “Attrition” means to grind the opposition down through sustained attack and pressure to force the enemy to expend resources. If one side cannot (or is unwilling to) exert necessary manpower, firepower, and/or economy, among other methods of state power, the losing side will be compelled to cede most or all of its authority to the winning side. The Soviet attritional model has been heavily used by each side in the Russia-Ukraine War. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff and one of most important modern Russian military strategists, has praised Soviet military doctrine forefather Aleksandr Andreevich Svechin and others. Through attrition doctrine, Moscow has utilized a similar attritional method of warfighting which may prove to succeed in Ukraine despite taking more casualties. Yet, Russia can employ Soviet warfighting whereas Armenia cannot.

The Armenian Armed Forces’ (AAF) reliance on Soviet military doctrine comes from its legacy as a former Soviet Republic and the AAF’s leadership historically trained in the Soviet thinking. However, it is difficult to compare modern Armenia’s security posture to the Soviet Union, Russia Federation, or Ukraine. Armenia is drastically smaller in size and population. Consider how many casualties the Soviet Union’s Red Army suffered in Stalingrad alone, or how Nazi Germany was able to capture vast amounts of Soviet territory before its Eastern Front collapse. Would the same Soviet method of attritional........

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