You Can Win Without Firing a Shot

Asked whether Ilham Aliyev will simply wait out a five-year timeline, Arthur G. Martirosyan reaches for Clausewitz to explain the mechanics of coercion. You can push the other side into concessions just by threatening war. You do not necessarily need to fight. The threat does the work, especially when the opposing leadership is already telling its own population that avoiding war requires one more concession.

That, he argues, is a perfect setup for Aliyev. When Armenia’s government frames every demand through the question of whether people want another war, it hands Baku a lever it can pull at will. Martirosyan sees Aliyev as interested in the longer game rather than grabbing everything immediately, feeding his own public the promise that patience will deliver, much as it did with Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh). But he adds a hard caveat: if Aliyev, possibly with Turkey, spots an opening to take what he wants by force and get away with it, he will not shy from using it.

The clip is a tight lesson in leverage that travels well beyond this one conflict. It names the dynamic plainly: a side that signals it will concede to avoid war has already surrendered much of its bargaining power. For viewers following the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process and Pashinyan’s 2031 timeline, it reframes the talks as a contest of resolve, where the credible threat of force, not the paperwork, is setting the terms.