Red Lines Without Deterrence: Risking Peace Through Surrender After being defeated in the 2020 and 2023 wars, with no military deterrence potential and no ally bound by a mutual defense treaty, Armenia has only one realistic alternative to a new war - reaching agreements with Azerbaijan on negotiated de-escalation. However, the weakness that necessitates negotiation also makes it a dangerous process. Without clear red lines on issues not officially on the negotiating agenda, further concessions could turn Armenia into a dependent state and convince Baku that it can endlessly increase its demands at almost no cost. However, even such concessions will not necessarily prevent a new attack. The negotiation process provided a temporary de-escalation, but did not lead to a ratified peace agreement. The underlying power asymmetry remains unresolved. Comparative analysis of other conflicts and studies of asymmetric negotiations point to one thing: the most fragile agreements are those that preserve the original power imbalance and rely on the goodwill of a single patron, rather than on binding multilateral mechanisms for securing agreements. From this perspective, the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process is closer to the failed Algiers agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea than to the Dayton Accords on Bosnia or the Belfast Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland. How to maintain red lines Armenia is unable to enforce its red lines by military means.

Red Lines Without Deterrence: Risking Peace Through Surrender After being defeated in the 2020 and 2023 wars, with no military deterrence potential and no ally bound by a mutual defense treaty, Armenia has only one realistic alternative to a new war - reaching agreements with Azerbaijan on negotiated de-escalation. However, the weakness that necessitates negotiation also makes it a dangerous process. Without clear red lines on issues not officially on the negotiating agenda, further concessions could turn Armenia into a dependent state and convince Baku that it can endlessly increase its demands at almost no cost. However, even such concessions will not necessarily prevent a new attack. The negotiation process provided a temporary de-escalation, but did not lead to a ratified peace agreement. The underlying power asymmetry remains unresolved. Comparative analysis of other conflicts and studies of asymmetric negotiations point to one thing: the most fragile agreements are those that preserve the original power imbalance and rely on the goodwill of a single patron, rather than on binding multilateral mechanisms for securing agreements. From this perspective, the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process is closer to the failed Algiers agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea than to the Dayton Accords on Bosnia or the Belfast Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland. How to maintain red lines Armenia is unable to enforce its red lines by military means.

Instead, she must use three tools. The first is the sequence and mutual conditioning of the steps: do not move forward in fulfilling Azerbaijan's preconditions until the corresponding conditions of the Armenian side are met.