Azerbaijan Adopts NATO Military Standards gemini.google.com/share/99b2…
You are correct. Recent statements from the highest levels of the Azerbaijani government confirm a formal move to align the country’s military with NATO standards.1This is a significant development in Azerbaijan’s long-standing relationship with the alliance.
Key Aspects of the Alignment
Official Announcement: In early November 2025, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev officially announced that the country’s army is transitioning to NATO standards.2
Close Cooperation with Turkey: This military reform and modernization is being carried out in close cooperation with Turkey, a NATO member and one of Azerbaijan’s strongest allies.3
Ongoing Modernization: The transition is part of a broader, ongoing effort to modernize Azerbaijan’s armed forces following the Second Karabakh War.4A Long-Term Partnership
This recent announcement is the latest step in a partnership that has been developing for decades.
Partnership for Peace (PfP): Azerbaijan joined NATO’s PfP program in 1994.5
Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP): The country has long participated in this program, which is designed to help partner nations advance their defense reforms and bring their forces closer to NATO standards.6
Operational Interoperability: For years, Azerbaijan has participated in NATO programs like the Operational Capabilities Concept (OCC).7 This involves training and evaluating Azerbaijani units to ensure they can operate effectively alongside NATO forces in joint exercises and potential missions.8
Contributions: Azerbaijan has contributed to NATO-led missions in the past, including in Kosovo (KFOR) and Afghanistan (ISAF and the Resolute Support Mission).9In short, while Azerbaijan has worked with NATO for many years, the recent statements from its leadership signal a more formal and comprehensive commitment to adopting NATO standards throughout its military.10
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) Nov 17, 2025
Day: November 17, 2025
The agency announced savers will be able to set aside more money in their workplace retirement plans next year.
Courtesy Omnitron Systems
- Eric Aguilar was a Tesla engineer working on the rollout of the company’s Model 3.
- Aguilar left Tesla in 2018 and cofounded Omnitron Sensors a year later.
- His goal is to make lidar more affordable and reliable.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes lidar is a “fool’s errand.”
A former Tesla engineer, Eric Aguilar, cofounded an entire company to perfect it.
His bet: all robots — whether vehicular or humanoid — will need lidar to see.
Lidar is a sensor that uses laser light to detect the distance of objects. Historically, the sensor has been used for mapping, but in recent years, it’s become an extra set of eyes for self-driving cars, including Waymo’s robotaxis.
Aguilar cofounded Omnitron Sensors in 2019 and serves as CEO. He has worked with sensors for over 20 years, at Google X’s drone delivery project, Tesla, and Argo AI, a robotaxi venture backed by Ford and Volkswagen, before it shut down in 2022.
When Musk moved to forgo lidar, Aguilar, an electrical engineer by training, understood some of the Tesla CEO’s misgivings about the sensor. They can be costly and not built as efficiently as they could be, Aguilar says.
With Omnitron, he aims to make lidar both more affordable and durable by utilizing silicon and the semiconductor manufacturing process to produce the components inside the sensor at scale.
“This is what will unlock the market,” he told Business Insider. “This is what will open up the market to get companies like Mercedes and GM to buy lidars and put them in their vehicles.”
The problem with lidar
As more automakers explore driverless functions, Aguilar believes lidar will be an essential part of tomorrow’s cars.
Lidar can be a little like a disco ball: a laser is pointed at a mirror that is constantly moving on an electromagnetic motor, and the reflected light measures the distance of objects around whatever it’s mounted on, such as an autonomous vehicle.
To achieve a better range with a lidar, you need a larger laser and, consequently, a larger mirror. That makes lidars more expensive, and when placed in a moving vehicle, the sensor could require constant adjustment. Companies have to “recalibrate those sensors, redo alignment, or replace those sensors,” Aguilar said.
Aguilar said the problem with many lidar systems is how they’re built. There can be numerous moving parts inside the sensor, which require frequent calibration and are susceptible to wear and tear when placed on top of a frequently moving car, the cofounder said.
“When you talk to OEMs — Mercedes, Volvo, BMW, GM — they don’t want lidar to have to be replaced every two or three months,” he said. “And that’s what I was experiencing working at these companies: Every two to three months, something would break in this thing and we’d have to get them replaced.”
That’s where silicon comes in. With silicon, Aguilar said, you’re dealing with fewer and lighter moving parts that can last longer.
Silicon is much more durable, the Omnitron CEO argues, and could handle the kinds of temperature fluctuations an autonomous vehicle would experience. Then, by using a chip manufacturing process, the parts are built with nanometer-level precision and can be built at scale.
“So you get a wafer with hundreds and thousands of these devices instead of building one at a time,” Aguilar said.
Around the time Aguilar was at Google’s moonshot factory, a single lidar unit could cost $120,000. Today, a similar model could cost around 10 grand — a significant drop, in part thanks to better designs and increased manufacturing scale.
Aguilar says Omnitron’s process brings down those same lidar units to “the hundreds of dollars.”
Why self-driving cars and robots need it
In self-driving cars, Aguilar sees lidar as the key to covering rare edge cases on the roads.
Cameras are “terrible” in low-light situations, he said. The cofounder used shadows as an example.
“When a shadow is being cast, a car can get confused as to: Is that a real object or is that a shadow?” Aguilar said. That’s where lidar comes in.
The Omnitron cofounder also sees humanoid robots as a ripe market for sensors.
Companies like Agility Robotics use lidar to help their humanoid robots navigate their environments.
Much like humans rely on sensors beyond their eyes to determine the amount of force needed to pick up objects, Aguilar said robots will need lidar to understand the depth of their surroundings and the objects and people within them.
Aguilar’s case for lidar in cars or robots echoes what many CEOs in the self-driving space have already said on the sensors: It all comes down to safety.
“The bar for integrating (robots) into the human experience — it’s going to be much higher,” he said. “I’m not going to let this thing hold my baby, for example, if I don’t know that this thing is robust and this sensor is really, really important for that.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
Most of Gaza’s schools are destroyed and hundreds of thousands of children cannot go back to class [deltaMinutes] mins ago Now
Ilham Aliyev has stated that Azerbaijan’s army is aligning with NATO standards – Google Search google.com/search?q=Ilham+Al…
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) Nov 17, 2025
The German government says it’s lifting restrictions on exports of military equipment to Israel [deltaMinutes] mins ago Now
NATO’s South Caucasus Partnerships Evolve gemini.google.com/share/15a0…
NATO’s engagement with the South Caucasus region is highly active and has entered a dynamic new phase, particularly following the August 2025 Washington-brokered peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.1The relationship is not a single bloc policy but rather three distinct, parallel partnerships with each of the South Caucasus nations—Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia—each with different goals and trajectories.
Here is a detailed breakdown of NATO’s relationship with each country as of late 2025.
🇬🇪 Georgia: The Aspiring Member
Georgia has the deepest and most advanced relationship with NATO in the region, with the stated goal of eventual full membership.2
Official Position: At the 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO allies agreed that Georgia will become a member of the alliance.3 This promise has been consistently reaffirmed.
Current Status: Georgia is one of NATO’s closest partners and is considered an “aspirant” country.4 However, it has not yet been granted a formal Membership Action Plan (MAP).5
Practical Cooperation: The primary vehicle for cooperation is the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package (SNGP).6 This package includes:
Support for defense reforms.7
Joint training and exercises.8
Measures to improve the interoperability of Georgian forces with NATO standards.9
A NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Centre in the country.
Challenges: The primary obstacle to membership remains the unresolved conflict with Russia, which occupies two of Georgia’s regions—Abkhazia and South Ossetia—following the 2008 war.
🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: The Strategic Partner
Azerbaijan maintains a pragmatic and strategic partnership with NATO, focusing on military modernization, energy security, and interoperability, but it does not formally seek membership.10
Recent Developments (November 2025): Azerbaijan has recently taken significant steps to deepen its military cooperation with NATO.11
Military Alignment: President Ilham Aliyev has stated that Azerbaijan’s army is aligning with NATO standards, a process being heavily supported by NATO member Turkey.12
Russian Reaction: These moves have reportedly caused significant concern in Moscow, which views the South Caucasus as its traditional sphere of influence.13
Practical Cooperation:
Partnership for Peace (PfP): Azerbaijan has been an active member of the PfP program since 1994.14
Energy Security: Azerbaijan is a key partner for NATO countries in energy security, providing a non-Russian source of oil and gas to Europe.15
Peacekeeping: Azerbaijan was a contributor to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan.16Regional Context: The nation’s strategic autonomy is central to its policy. It balances its strong ties with Turkey and growing partnership with NATO against its complex relationship with Russia.
🇦🇲 Armenia: The Newcomer (Re-evaluating)
Armenia, traditionally a close military ally of Russia and a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), is actively and publicly diversifying its security policy and deepening its ties with NATO.17
Shift in Policy: Following the 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and dissatisfaction with the CSTO’s response, Armenia has been on a clear path to build new security partnerships.
Practical Cooperation:
PfP & Peacekeeping: Like its neighbors, Armenia has been a NATO partner since 1994 and has a long-standing contribution to the NATO-led KFOR mission in Kosovo.18
New Programs: Armenia is now working with NATO to finalize an Individually Tailored Partnership Program (ITPP), a more advanced form of cooperation.19
“Crossroads of Peace”: Armenia is promoting a regional connectivity project, which it frames as a key part of establishing lasting peace and linking East and West, a concept it discusses with its Western partners.20
Context: This pivot is a strategic re-evaluation for Armenia, aiming to reduce its long-standing security dependence on Russia by building stronger institutional ties with NATO and the European Union.21— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) Nov 17, 2025
Categories
share.google/aimode/gizbTkGT…
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) Nov 17, 2025
share.google/aimode/gizbTkGT…
NATO and South CaucasusThrough political dialogue and practical cooperation programs. NATO seeks to promote stability, security, and democratic reforms in the region, which is strategically important due to its energy resources and location between Europe and Asia, amidst waning Russian influence. NATO’s relationship with theSouth Caucasus involves partnerships withArmenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
Key Aspects of the Relationship
Partnership for Peace (PfP): All three South Caucasus nations joined the PfP program in the 1990s, the primary framework for practical military and defense cooperation with the Alliance.
Political Dialogue: NATO maintains high-level political engagement, including the position of the Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia to coordinate partnership policy. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visited all three countries in March 2024 to underscore the alliance’s commitment to the region’s security and sovereignty.
NATO Liaison Office in Georgia: A dedicated NATO Liaison Office is based in Tbilisi, Georgia, with a mandate for the entire South Caucasus region, facilitating cooperation and reform efforts.
Focus Areas: Cooperation includes areas such as defense institution building, military education and training, counter-terrorism, and cybersecurity.
Energy Security: The region is a crucial energy and transit corridor, particularly the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey link. Ensuring the security of this infrastructure is a key interest for NATO and its European members seeking to diversify energy sources away from Russia.
Country-Specific Relations
would eventually become a member. Cooperation is extensive, but Russian military presence in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia complicates its path to membership.Georgia:Georgiahas a strong aspiration for full NATO membership, a goal acknowledged at the 2008 Bucharest Summit, where Allies agreed thatGeorgia
pursues a multi-vector foreign policy, joining the Non-Aligned Movement but also engaging as a reliable NATO partner, particularly on energy security and contributions to past NATO-led operations.Azerbaijan:Azerbaijan
is a member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) but has recently taken steps to diversify its foreign policy and “freeze” its participation in the CSTO. NATO supports Armenia’s sovereignty and is developing an Individually Tailored Partnership Program to define key areas of future cooperation.Armenia:Armenia
Geopolitical Context
NATO’s increased engagement in the South Caucasus is partly a response to the strategic void left by Russia’s focus on the war in Ukraine. This shift is reshaping the regional power dynamics, presenting opportunities and challenges as the South Caucasus nations navigate the complex balance between Western integration and traditional ties to Russia.— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) Nov 17, 2025
Gardaí are still assisting at the scene of the blaze.