With the long conflict with Armenia over, many are questioning the traditional role of military service as a rite of manhood. From OC Media.
When the second Nagorno-Karabakh War broke out in 2020, Ravan (not his real name) was not afraid of joining the Azerbaijani army. Even though he was still in school, like many of his peers, he was eager to go to war and even tried to volunteer. Six years later, Ravan looks back on that period, admitting that he was afraid of being left out.
“There was this sense of shame: our peers, even those younger than us, were going to Karabakh to fight; they were suffering there, while we were sitting at home,” he tells OC Media.
Ravan is currently medically exempt from military service in peacetime. Today, he sees this in a new light, as being consistent with his anti-militarist views.
He is not the only one whose attitude towards military service changed after the war. In 12 interviews with young men under 30 in Baku, most from middle-class backgrounds, a similar shift kept cropping up: after the war, those who took part began to question the very purpose of military service and ask, “What is the point of serving after the war has already been won?”
[Military service is mandatory for Azerbaijani men aged 18 to 30 – Transitions note.]
How the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Shaped Attitudes Towards the Army
For almost 30 years, the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh remained frozen, with only periodic violations of the 1994 ceasefire agreement. In September 2020, however, hostilities escalated, leading to the 44-day-long second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Three years later, Azerbaijan launched its last large-scale military offensive on Nagorno-Karabakh, calling it an “anti-terrorist operation.” Days later, the region came under the full control of Azerbaijan.
The overall trajectory of the conflict resulted in a great deal of suffering, pain, and violence. According to various estimates, the number of deaths on both sides over the entire course of the conflict ranged between 17,000 and 30,000, while the number of people displaced from their homes reached around 1.5 million.
Combined with state propaganda and the psychological consequences of the war, the idea of regaining control over Nagorno-Karabakh gradually became one of the central elements of national consciousness in Azerbaijan. But the conflict shaped not only ideas about national duty; it also reinforced a particular image of men as protectors, capable of proving their honor and belonging to the nation through military service. Within this framework, the army became one of the institutions through which young men were expected to affirm their masculinity.
For the generation that grew up during the first Nagorno-Karabakh War, this connection between war, national duty, and the male role was perceived as something self-evident.
As Rasul (not his real name), who served in the army for a year, explains, the generation of the 1990s was born “in the midst of a geopolitical game”:
“They were made to believe that this war was about restoring our dignity and honor, or reclaiming our sense of honor. In this way, it was presented to men as a duty: whatever we do, our ultimate goal must ultimately be centered around Karabakh.”
In other words, Nagorno-Karabakh was presented not only as a territorial or political issue, but also as a matter of male responsibility: a man was expected to be ready to serve and defend the country. As a result, compulsory military service was perceived for decades as a legitimate part of the transition into adult manhood, not simply as an obligation to the state, but also as a way of conforming to the idea of what an Azerbaijani man should be.
“In the actual sense, and this goes back to Soviet education, so to speak, and Soviet mentality, there is very often this idea that, for a man, the army is a kind of school of life, where a boy acquires the qualities necessary for him,” Fikrat (not his real name), tells OC Media.
In turn, Karim (also a pseudonym), explains how this idea works specifically in the Azerbaijani context, where masculinity is tied to the protection of the homeland: “According to ideas instilled in Azerbaijanis for many years, homeland, land, honor, and dignity have been brought together. And an Azerbaijani man, willingly or unwillingly, is expected to protect this.”
This is precisely why the end of the active phase of the conflict placed this framework under a new question. After Azerbaijan regained control over the territories that had been under Armenian control, the previous formula of “serving to reclaim Karabakh” lost its obviousness. As Elmar put it simply, “The times have changed. There is no occupation, there is no war anymore.”
Taleh drew a sharper contrast with the past: “Back then it was an idea of reuniting Azerbaijan, as it is basically internationally recognized borders. Even though it’s questionable, obviously. […] The idea behind that was at least justifiable, you know? But now – no, not really.”
From Defending the Nation to Protecting Oneself
The 2020 war changed not only attitudes toward the purpose of military service, but also perceptions of its potential dangers. It made the boundary between “serving in the army” and “taking part in a war” much less clear to conscripts themselves.
The official position of Azerbaijan was that the 2020 war was fought primarily by professional soldiers, mobilized reservists, and volunteers, rather than by conscripts. However, among young men awaiting conscription, stories continued to circulate about the possible involvement of conscripts in combat and the deployment of soldiers to the Karabakh region.
Regardless of how closely these stories corresponded to reality, they shaped the perception of the army as a space where a conscript could potentially find himself much closer to war than the formal distinction between compulsory military service and active combat would suggest.
Three young men who have yet to complete their military service described it as “the fear of ending up in combat,” because “no one knows what might happen.”
Ali (not his real name), who has already served, describes how he formed his expectations about the army based on stories from people he knew: “My friends, my cousin, my friend’s brother – they were at war. I also understand that they leave things unsaid or skip over certain moments. It’s horrible; it’s really horrible, you know?”
This fear was also fueled by the scale of human losses. Ravan recalls how, during the first weeks of the war, the number of deaths came as a shock to society:
“When the number of martyrs reached 2,900, everyone was in such shock because they had not expected a number like that. Until then, people at home were okay with it, thinking, ‘Well, let him go, he is my son, whatever.’ Because if the number of deaths is low, then the likelihood of my child dying is also low. But after they saw the number, a great silence fell, a very deep silence, for days even. It was not only at home; there was silence all along the streets and everywhere. No one was talking. Everyone was in shock.”
Before the war, for many families, compulsory military service was perceived as a risk that had to be accepted: if the likelihood of dying seemed low, it was easier to send a son to the army. The scale of the 2020 casualties made this risk much more tangible. Almost everyone who spoke to OC Media for this article had a personal story of a war-related death: for some, it was a neighbor; for others, a childhood friend; for others still, a relative.
One such story was shared by Ravan, who spoke about his neighbor and childhood friend: “I remember the moment when we found out that he had been killed. It was so random; we had absolutely no idea.
“My mother was with me. We saw that a lot of people had gathered in the neighborhood, and there were police officers there as well. My mother said, ‘Most likely, someone has died.’ We approached the police. My mother asked which street the deceased person was being brought to. The police officer pointed to our street. My mother just started crying. I immediately realized that it was him.”
In this way, the war became part of the personal memory of an entire generation.
At the same time, the war unexpectedly made the army the subject of a broader public conversation. If previously compulsory military service had been perceived as an almost inevitable part of a man’s life, after 2020, discussions around it increasingly came to include not only duty and masculinity, but also risk, safety, and the conditions of service.
“The issue of indifference towards veterans and soldiers, along with the increasing development of social media and the sharing of these things on social media, has in itself brought about certain changes and a kind of shift in people’s views. Some people have even started to put ideas such as the so-called ‘school of manhood,’ ‘a duty to the state, a duty to the homeland,’ and feelings of national identity somewhat into the background, while social problems related to military service have begun to come to the forefront,” Rasul says.
Public appearances of war veterans and numerous protests over inadequate social benefits and problems obtaining disability status in the first years after the second Nagorno-Karabakh War had a significant impact on this shift.
The war also exposed deeply rooted problems within the army itself: according to respondents, corruption surrounding the practice of “pay and don’t go” decreased, while medical examinations of conscripts became more rigorous.
“Now, it is not possible to pay money to avoid serving. It has been about five or six years since this kind of reform was introduced. Because Azerbaijan is now trying to NATO-standardize its military, so this is no longer possible,” Misha (not his real name) tells OC Media.
Nevertheless, the question of safety in the army remains open. Hazing, which persists in some military units in Azerbaijan, as well as the lack of adequate service conditions, continues to fuel young men’s reluctance to serve. According to respondents’ accounts, soldiers in some units lack water, food, heating, and other basic living conditions.
“The food was just terrible, because there were so many people there, and they literally understood that, say, there wasn’t enough soup. They would just take a huge, huge bucket of hot water, boiling water, and pour it in to dilute it, you know. And you would basically sit there and drink water, [expletive], with a spoon,” Karim says.
Taleh says that the main problem was water: “The water is salty. It’s difficult to bathe, your hair falls out, you know? You understand that I’ve had dandruff and an itchy scalp from the army until today. You brush your teeth with the water; many people’s teeth decay. The water there is unclean.”
He went on to add that this was the moment he realized how terrible it was to go without water: “I couldn’t even move my lips with my tongue like this; they wouldn’t get moist, you know? I felt as if I was losing consciousness from dehydration.”
Elmar (not his real name), who has yet to serve in the military, is also already concerned about the conditions he may face during his service, admitting that there are units and regions where he definitely would not want to end up.
“It’s a unit somewhere in the mountains, where it’s very cold or very hot, where there is no water and no proper conditions […] And in such conditions, it is very easy to get sick and never fully recover for the rest of your life. I really don’t want to end up in conditions like that.”
As a result of inadequate physical conditions for service, many soldiers die every year in non-combat circumstances. According to monitoring by the Caspian Defense Studies Institute, as of the beginning of August, 38 soldiers have lost their lives in 2026. OC Media contacted Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry to request official figures on the number of military personnel who died in non-combat-related incidents in 2026, but received no response.
‘What Is There Left to Defend?’
After the war, the necessity for compulsory military service no longer seems as self-evident as it once did.
“There is this idea that someone who has served in the army is somehow ready for anything, capable of anything, able to defend his country. That he has, so to speak, become a real man. Naturally, most of the time, that is complete bullshit,” Kerim says with a smirk, describing the role of the army in the life of an Azerbaijani man.
Like Kerim, almost all of the respondents expressed skepticism toward military service, trying to understand what purpose it serves today. For many, this shift is directly connected to the end of the war.
“I think personally, it’s a waste of time. I think our political state right now is much more stable than it used to be, especially if we look at our political relationship with Armenia, to the point where I think having ahold of military power is not as necessary as it used to be,” Fikrat says, before adding: “Having to serve a year if you have a degree, or even more if you don’t, is a massive waste of time, waste of potential, and it has some big downsides.”
It is precisely the disappearance of the immediate military threat that seems to undermine one of the key foundations of the service’s former legitimacy.
“Maybe people used to have this kind of [loyal] attitude toward the army because of the state of war, who the hell knows, maybe because of something else. But now you just don’t really see much point in it,” Fikrat notes.
Alongside its practical necessity, the sense of pride associated with military service is also gradually disappearing. If returning from the army was once seen as proof of masculinity, a sign that a man had gone through the “school of life,” the older generation’s reaction now increasingly seems to be one of indifference.
At the same time, this is not only about the end of the war itself, but also about a crisis in the relationship between citizens and the state.
Many respondents note that, for them, masculinity nowadays is connected to financially supporting their family and loved ones, and against this background, military service takes a back seat.
Taleh, in turn, jokingly sums up his thoughts: “There’s a saying in the army: ‘If you have money, you’re a man; if you don’t, you’re shit,’ you know?”
New Meanings of Military Service
Against the backdrop of the declining social meanings of military service and the continued existence of mandatory conscription, young men are forced to look for new explanations of why the army is needed at all. Among those who still have to serve and those who have already completed their service, two rationales come up most often: the army as an opportunity to “take a break from people” and the army as a space for growing up and developing a “proper” masculine subjectivity.
Respondents describe this “break” in different ways. Mamed recalls that it was in the army that he learned how to be bored: spending hours standing guard when “nothing is happening” forced him to give up his constant consumption of information and discover the value of doing nothing. Others describe military service as an opportunity to develop discipline.
“A good acquaintance of mine went into the army saying, “I wasn’t ready for this before, but now I’m ready to discipline myself in absolutely Spartan conditions.’ And perhaps this really is very important – to completely remove the things that distract him in everyday life and distance himself absolutely from everything that modern society has to offer. So to speak, quiet down and calm himself,” Kerim says.
Ali, meanwhile, describes military service as “timeout from civilian life,” an attempt to “temporarily escape everyday responsibilities, people, and monotony.”
At the same time, the respondents themselves question whether this experience needs to be gained specifically in the army.
“Everything you can get from the army, you can also get in civilian life,” Mamed emphasizes, listing social skills, discipline, and physical training. In his view, the positive aspects of military service do not compensate for its negative consequences: “the trade-off is not worth it.”
Taleh similarly agrees that while the army can teach responsibility, including responsibility for others, attentiveness, and the ability to fulfill one’s duties, he emphasizes that these duties often have no connection to logic: “You have to be responsible for everything, even for things you didn’t do.”
It is precisely this “have to” that becomes an important element of the new narrative around military service. The army is not necessarily perceived as rationally necessary, but the very fact that one has to go through it turns service into a test that a man is expected to endure. This is where the contradiction emerges: respondents reject the very idea of the army as a “school for men,” yet continue to describe military service through the same qualities traditionally associated with masculine adulthood such as responsibility, the ability to act in critical situations, cope with difficulties, and provide protection.
“You don’t need the army to become a decent person,” Taleh says.
But the social meanings of military service are not constructed by young men alone. Even when they stop seeing the army as a rational necessity, military service continues to shape their position in civilian life. The military ID becomes a social pass. It may be required when looking for a job, particularly in the public sector, and even play a role in assessing a man as a potential husband.
Ravan explains that the problem for an employer is not so much the fact that someone has not served, but the uncertainty that comes with it: “It is a major risk for employers. I’ll hire this person, and then, say, three months later, if he hasn’t served in the military, they’ll take him away. And I’ll create an obligation for myself to keep the position open for him, and then hire him again when he returns, and so on. It’s an additional burden.”
Mamed describes the same situation as a limitation on his own opportunities.
“As a master’s student, I face an issue that other master’s students do as well: if I want to find a stable job, not a part-time job, a lot of employers will say no. Why? Because they know I’m here for a year or two. After my master’s, I have to serve, and they will lose an employee. Hence, this decreases my potential choices a lot.”
At the same time, the requirement to provide a military ID extends far beyond positions where military training might actually be relevant:
“Sometimes they even ask for it when hiring a cashier. What difference does it make whether a cashier has completed military service or not? It is always required for security guard positions, which you can understand. But a cashier – why would they need it!?,” Misha says.
In family life, completing military service becomes a marker of male suitability.
Lala Mahmudova, who has worked on questions of male socialization in Azerbaijan, identifies three key stages in an Azerbaijani man’s life: circumcision, military service, and marriage. In this sequence, military service is not an isolated event that shapes masculine subjectivity, but part of a broader trajectory of becoming a man, directly connected to the subsequent transition into family life.
“Some families ask a guy: ‘Has your son served or not?’ At 25, they probably ask because they want to know whether he is going to have to go to the army. Like, will he leave his wife for a year, you know? And at 35, it is purely psychological, you know, has this person experienced hardships in life or not?,” Taleh says.
At the same time, attitudes toward service are indeed changing. Military service is losing some of its symbolic prestige without losing its social power. A young man may consider it meaningless, yet still need it to obtain a job, avoid uncertainty, or conform to expectations about what an adult man is supposed to be.
Between Doubt and Inevitability
The world is changing, and Azerbaijan is changing with it. The war, the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent socio-economic changes have affected how young men perceive gender norms, civic obligations, and the very necessity of military service. Yet older ideas have not disappeared: the image of the man as a protector, military service as a mandatory test, and the army as part of becoming an adult man all continue to exist, but are increasingly met with scepticism.
Almost all respondents agreed on one thing: the current system of compulsory military service needs to change, although opinions differed on what exactly those changes should look like. For Taleh, this means reducing the length of service: “A guy is 18 years old. A year and a half is a very long time. You understand, you could lose your youth there. A year and a half is really not a short time. That’s 548 days. The army taught me to count days, to count weeks.”
Some, like Rasul, lean towards alternative service: “I’m a teacher by profession. I would like the state to send me for one year to some mountain school where teachers don’t want to go, and let me teach there. They could cover my rent and pay me a salary equivalent to the minimum wage, and it would count as my military service.”
However, the majority lean towards a professional, contract-based army.
“In ‘normal’ countries military service does not exist in the way it does here. There, you only serve on a contract basis, whereas here you have to go through conscription, and, as far as I understand, probably 99% of people think that this is very meaningless. I think so too, because if someone wants to become a soldier, they can decide for themselves, sign a contract, and do it comfortably; they can build a career there as well,” Deniz says.
This demand for change is driven not only by the loss of the service’s former meaning, but also by a broader question of what the state has the right to demand from its citizens. And yet compulsory military service continues to remain part of young men’s lives. Many of those who see little meaning in serving still plan to go, not because they are convinced of its necessity, but because they do not yet see another way out.
Perhaps this is the central contradiction of military service today: its social legitimacy is becoming increasingly difficult to take for granted, while the obligation itself remains.
“I still don’t have a choice. I’ll go, serve for a year, and only then come back. And I promised myself that exactly one year after that, I would come back here, light another cigarette, and remember those first days. I’ll tell people how cool I was in the army,” Taleh says with a laugh.
Jamila Alisheva is an independent researcher and feminist writer from Baku, with research interests in gender, conflict, and post-Soviet studies. She is currently pursuing a degree in gender studies at Central European University.
This article originally appeared on OC Media and is republished under a Creative Commons license.
