Shaffer: Military outcome paved way for Armenia-Azerbaijan peace

Professor Brenda Shaffer has argued that Azerbaijan's military liberation of territories occupied by Armenia paved the way for peace between the two countries, while years of activity by international mediators had contributed to prolonging the conflict.

According to Report, she made the remarks in an article for RealClearWorld.

Shaffer said the UN and other organizations spend billions of dollars in public funds on conflict resolution but rarely achieve results, describing the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict as a clear example.

The author recalled that six years ago Armenia and Azerbaijan were at war, but said the situation in the South Caucasus had improved significantly since then and that the governments of the two countries were now working together to ensure regional security and prosperity.

She wrote that while the world was searching for new energy routes bypassing Iran, Yerevan and Baku were working to establish trade.

Shaffer drew five main lessons from the new situation that has emerged in the South Caucasus.

In her view, the first lesson is that military action can determine diplomatic outcomes, despite repeated assertions by many European and Western policymakers that such actions cannot resolve international conflicts.

The second lesson, she said, is that international and regional institutions often fail to play a constructive role in resolving conflicts. Shaffer noted that the UN Security Council adopted four resolutions in 1993 aimed at restoring peace in the region but took no steps to ensure their implementation.

The third lesson concerns the importance of leadership. According to Shaffer, the leadership of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been particularly important in achieving peace between the two countries. She argued that their approach would allow both peoples to enjoy greater security and prosperity in the long term.

In Shaffer's view, the fourth lesson is the difference between the positions of Armenian diaspora organizations in the United States and Armenia itself. She said Pashinyan is now seeking cooperation with Türkiye and Azerbaijan, while many diaspora organizations continue to oppose such cooperation and peace itself.

She wrote that such differences were not unusual, arguing that diaspora communities were often dominated by uncompromising nationalists who opposed compromise without personally bearing the costs of war. Shaffer added that US policy toward the conflict had for decades been strongly influenced by Armenian-Americans, whereas the second Trump administration had instead prioritized direct engagement with Yerevan.

The fifth lesson, according to Shaffer, is that the conflict was never fundamentally about religion, culture or history, but rather represented traditional geopolitics.

Shaffer argued that the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict demonstrates the advantages of Donald Trump's unconventional approach to peacemaking.

She wrote that instead of becoming absorbed in history, religion, culture, and the agendas of diaspora organizations and international institutions, Trump focused on the national interests of the parties to the conflict. According to Shaffer, the United States bypassed the years-long processes promoted and sustained for decades by career diplomats and the UN, and as a result became a significantly more important player in the South Caucasus.