[Still apparently unable to write anything more deliberate than comments online, I thought I could at least gather some remarks I made in real-time during the Nagorno-Karabakh War of last year. I believe a few of them may have a broader interest than the war itself for people who follow this kind of subject. Lightly edited to avoid (even more) repetition.] Azeri success and the psychology of defeat That the Armenian covering force in the plains to the southeast of Shusha was heavily defeated is not really the mystery. It was a vulnerable position held in insufficient depth by a weaker force. If one adds the devastation caused by Azeri drones in the first days of the war, that this covering force was defeated can hardly be surprising. The puzzle is about what happened next. Put very briefly, Armenian defense in the south concentrated on securing roads leading SW and SE from Shusha, leaving the mass of hills to the immediate south unguarded. And this was where the Azeris made t...