A Bayraktar TB2 drone seen in flight against a blue sky. Azerbaijan used the Bayraktar to deadly effect against Armenia in 2020, foreshadowing its vital role at the start of the Ukraine war. (Shutterstock/Spiffy Digital Creative)

Here’s Why Armenia Can’t Win an Air War Against Azerbaijan

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Azerbaijan has devoted far greater resources to a modern drone fleet, while Armenia has largely remained dependent on Soviet-era fighter jets and doctrine—with predictable results.

Today, relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan are at a historic peak. Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev signed a peace agreement at the White House in 2025, and Armenia is now in the process of amending its constitution to abandon its claim to the Nagorno-Karabakh region within Azerbaijan.

It is hard to believe that only six years ago, from September to November 2020, the two nations were locked in a bloody war for control over that territory—a war that killed thousands of soldiers on both sides and led to the depopulation of Nagorno-Karabakh in a campaign that some organizations have characterized as ethnic cleansing. The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War has been better remembered, however, for demonstrating to the world how drones, loitering munitions, and electronic warfare would reshape the modern battlefield—serving in some ways as a dress rehearsal to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a little more than a year later.

Aided by that drone fleet, Azerbaijan won the 2020 war, and........

© The National Interest