The events that unfolded in Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023 crystallized a painful reality for the South Caucasus. In a lightning offensive launched by Baku on 19 September, Azerbaijani forces quickly asserted control over the territory that until then had been governed by ethnic Armenian authorities. Within days a ceasefire was brokered and the de facto authorities agreed to disband, but the human consequence was immediate and vast as most of the enclave’s population fled to Armenia.
Two linked dynamics explain the operational outcome. First, Azerbaijan applied a coercive campaign of blockade, information pressure and targeted military action that had been building for months. Second, Baku exploited an asymmetric military advantage in unmanned systems and precision munitions that had been matured since 2020. The result was a rapid collapse of organized resistance and a mass movement of civilians who feared reprisals or loss of community life under new rule.
The technical and doctrinal lesson from the operation is now familiar. Unmanned aerial systems provided persistent surveillance, target acquisition and strike options that multiplied Azerbaijan’s conventional fires and mechanized maneuvers. Open source reporting and specialist analysis show that systems acquired from Turkey and Israel were integrated with artillery and electronic warfare to degrade Armenian defensive networks and logistics, compounding the effects of a long blockade. In practical terms an adversary with modest numbers of modern drones can impose intolerable costs on static defenses that lack layered countermeasures.
External suppliers matter. Investigations and reporting in the aftermath highlighted steady arms linkages into the region in the years before 2023, including the provision of loitering munitions and precision systems that underwrote Baku’s capabilities. Those transfers altered the balance of deterrence between Armenia and Azerbaijan and reshaped the set of feasible political options for both capitals. The operational success of unmanned systems in 2020 set the strategic conditions that made a rapid settlement in 2023 possible.
The human toll and displacement were acute. International and interagency tallies recorded more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians crossing into Armenia in the weeks after the offensive, representing the vast majority of the enclave’s remaining population. The chaotic movement produced casualties and suffering, including deaths and serious injuries during a fuel depot explosion as people sought to flee. Humanitarian agencies and UN interlocutors documented shortages, logistical bottlenecks and the strain this wave of displacement placed on Armenian reception systems.
Moscow’s role and credibility were another casualty. Russia had deployed a peacekeeping contingent after the 2020 war and played a central broker role, but the rapidity of the 2023 operation, the deaths among Russian peacekeepers reported during the fighting, and the subsequent withdrawal and dismantling of some observation posts exposed limits in Russia’s leverage and created acute political ripples in Yerevan. Those dynamics prompted public questioning in Armenia of long standing defense assumptions and of the reliability of prior security guarantees.
For Baku the benefits are both tangible and symbolic. Azerbaijan restored administrative control and declared sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh. Politically the operation enhanced President Ilham Aliyev’s position domestically and advanced a long term national objective to reintegrate the territory. Strategically it also showcased a pathway for other states to leverage unmanned systems to resolve frozen disputes on favorable terms. That precedent is likely to influence procurement and doctrine choices across the region and beyond.
But the strategic picture is more than a single victory. The exodus has shifted demographic realities, undercutting any near term prospect for a multiethnic, locally autonomous polity in Nagorno-Karabakh as it existed. It also accelerated political realignments. Armenia’s leadership responded with sharper criticism of Moscow and expressed interest in diversifying security partnerships and European integration pathways, while Turkey and Azerbaijan have deepened ties centered on defense and economic cooperation. These shifts complicate the regional great power balance and create new arenas for competition over reconstruction, resettlement policies and the international legal handling of displacement claims.
Policy makers who care about stability in the South Caucasus should draw three pragmatic conclusions. First, the diffusion of affordable unmanned systems demands immediate investment in layered air defenses and electronic warfare, not only by frontline states but also by donors focused on crisis prevention. Second, durable stability will require credible protections for minority rights and mechanisms for safe return if such return is to be possible; without legal and institutional guarantees displacement risks becoming permanent. Third, external suppliers and private defense firms need clearer export and post sale transparency, because technology transfer in the absence of political safeguards can convert local disputes into rapid, irreversible outcomes.
The Nagorno-Karabakh exodus is a reminder of how rapid military change, weak institutions and geopolitical hedging combine to produce strategic surprises. Azerbaijan’s operational success relied on technology, planning and coercion in roughly equal measure. The long term question for the region is whether new security architectures can be built that reduce the incentives for forced population movements and create durable incentives for coexistence. That will require patient diplomacy, practical safeguards for civilians, and a realistic accounting of how unmanned systems will rewrite the calculus of coercion across contested spaces.