WAR AND INFORMATION WARFARE: ANALYSIS ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE SECOND KARABAKH WAR

Abstract

One of the means leading to victory in war is skillfully using the power of information. One of the most successful actions that led Azerbaijan to victory in the second Karabakh War was skillfully countering Armenia's disinformation activities. Unlike previous times, during this war, the Azerbaijani leadership, fully aware of the great importance of modern weaponry, military technology, and combat readiness, was better prepared to counter the strong Armenian lobby's attempts to steer international opinion toward Armenia's objectives, gain military-political support from states interested in prolonging the conflict, isolate Azerbaijan, and increase political-diplomatic pressure on its leadership to avert a potential defeat. That is why Armenia's attempts to spread disinformation, which it has been using for many years, did not give the desired result this time. All this justifies the relevance of the article and increases interest in a close study of the struggle of the two states in this area. In the article, the disinformation spread by the Armenian state with the support of its patrons and the Armenian lobby and the activities carried out by the Azerbaijani state to prevent this process were studied with the help of methods of political science such as analogy, comparative analysis, system analysis. To achieve the set objective, statements by government officials on the topic, newspapers and journals from various countries, electronic resources, and scientific works were extensively used, and a fact-based analysis was conducted. The main scientific novelty of the research lies in the analysis of the activities of two states conducting information warfare against each other, based on specific examples. The main scientific result of the article is that the mentioned state, contrary to expectations, was separated from the information war by defeat. This shows that Azerbaijan was also prepared for information warfare.