On June 26, Azerbaijan will be celebrating the day of the National Army. On that day in 1918, the first independent Azerbaijani army was established by a decree issued by the leadership of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. That was a historic moment for the country. Today, Azerbaijanis are proud to celebrate this historic achievement and show the long history of its armed forces.

Celebration of the National Army day, which has been announced by the government as a public holiday, received an interesting twist, when the Ministry of Defense decided to hold its first military parade since 1992. President Ilham Aliyev personally signed off on the order. In his last meeting with army officers and soldiers, President Aliyev said, “I believe we should hold a military parade and it should be in the largest square in the nation’s capital – Freedom Square.”

For the most part of Azerbaijan’s post-Soviet period, military parades were not held. Only back in 1992, the government of Abulfaz Elchibey held a military parade in Baku at a time when Azerbaijani army was temporarily experiencing military successes in the war against Armenia. However, the subsequent military losses and the resulting occupation of close to 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territories by Armenia made military parades irrelevant. Only short marches of cadets were conducted on the Day of National Independence and Republic Day.

Today, the military parade has its own purpose. Azerbaijan’s growing economic capacity and, as a result, growing military capacity has been drawing the attention of local and regional analysts. The country’s defense budget has expanded from some US$150 million just few years ago to over US$1 billion in 2008. Azerbaijan has established two separate ministries in the past few years – the Ministry of Emergencies and the Ministry of Military Industry – to deal with the growing capacity of the armed forces both in terms purchasing new military hardware and emergency management equipment.

The growing financial capacity of the armed forces allows the Ministry of Defense to build better housing and training facilities for the soldiers and officers, improve the social care of the soldiers, and purchase new military hardware. For example, new jet fighters and military helicopters have been purchased. Day.az reported that the government planned to purchase 10 Hermes-450 Unmanned Aerial Reconnaissance Vehicles from Israel.  The jet fighters have conducted military exercises in the past few weeks over Baku and Balakan as a preparation for the parade. All other types of the Defense forces (army, navy and national guard) will also be present at the parade.

It is clear that Azerbaijan wants to display its growing military capacity to the countries in its region, especially to Armenia. The show of strength is related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the continued deadlock at the negotiation table. Armenia refuses to liberate the occupied territories around Nagorno-Karabakh and does not want to accept anything less for the region than its current de facto status, according to President Serzh Sarkisian’s latest statement. Azerbaijan does not want to compromise on its territorial integrity and agrees only for high-status autonomy for Nagorno-Karabakh.

Thus, the deadlock and diminishing hopes for a breakthrough at the negotiation table inspires Azerbaijan to look for other alternatives. Many in the country believe that military force is the only possible solution to liberate the occupied territories. That is why the policy of current President Ilham Aliyev has been towards modernizing, strengthening and expanding the armed forces. For outsiders, this policy as well as official speeches by the President might appear to constitute a desire to bully its neighbor and start a new war. Yet, domestically that is an over-simplification.

Azerbaijan is committed to peace process and has been engaged in peace talks for more than 14 years already – a proof of Azerbaijan’s commitment to the peaceful resolution of the conflict. Yet, Azerbaijan also wants to keep all options open on the table in order to restore its territorial integrity, especially as peace talks are clearly not bringing the situation closer to a resolution.

From that perspective, the military parade will be important. Roads and nearby parks will be closed. State TV will broadcast the event live. Transportation in the city on that day will be limited. According to Yashar Jafarov, head of Union of Officers in Reserve, “This military parade will not only be a great show case to all parties involved in the conflict, but also a demonstration of the public control over armed forces. The public demands transparency and accountability in military spending and this parade will show for what purpose the funds have been spent so far.” Jafarov is convinced that such parades should be done often in order to raise the spirit of the population.