Most of the army's staff officers were members of the former Soviet military. An estimated 5,000 Armenians were serving as high-level officers in the military at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Almost immediately after its independence, Armenia was embroiled in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War with neighboring Azerbaijan. Intending to establish a force of 30,000 men, the army's standing force increased to 50,000 by early 1994. During the war, the military remained on high alert and bolstered defenses in the region of Zangezur, opposite the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan. Purported artillery bombardment in May 1992 from the region led to skirmishes between the two sides, including the Armenian army's incursion into several villages into Nakhichevan. The Armenian government invited Norat Ter-Grigoryants to assume command of the Ground Forces in 1992. The position of the overall Armenian Ground Forces commander was phased out in the course of the ongoing military reform by Levon Ter-Petrosyan. His development of the ground forces emphasized the role of motorized brigades to allow for operational mobility and flexibility.