When Peace Becomes Possible: A Lesson from the South Caucasus

For more than three decades, Armenia and Azerbaijan seemed trapped in a conflict that had become almost permanent. Borders hardened, generations grew up knowing one another primarily as enemies, and war repeatedly appeared easier to imagine than reconciliation.

Today, something remarkable is happening in the South Caucasus. And one year after the historic breakthrough in Washington, there is growing evidence that this is becoming more than a diplomatic promise.

On Aug. 8, 2025, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met at the White House with President Donald Trump. Their foreign ministers initialed an agreement establishing peace and interstate relations, while the leaders signed a joint declaration intended to turn decades of confrontation toward normalization, connectivity and economic cooperation.

A year later, the Armenia-Azerbaijan border has remained stable, while the two governments have continued taking steps toward normalization, border delimitation and confidence building.

Perhaps most significant is what is happening with the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP.

Originally announced at the 2025 White House summit, TRIPP is designed to create multimodal transportation connectivity through Armenia, including a link between Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, while connecting the broader region to the Trans-Caspian trade network.

Last January, the United States and Armenia published a detailed implementation framework. That was followed by a formal framework agreement establishing plans for a U.S.-Armenian TRIPP Development Company to oversee infrastructure development. Armenia began the ratification process this summer.

The potential projects go well beyond a single road. The framework contemplates railways, roads, oil and gas pipelines, electricity infrastructure and fiber-optic networks.

That matters because peace becomes far more powerful when it moves from paper to infrastructure.

Azerbaijan has already demonstrated how consequential such connectivity can become. The Southern Gas Corridor stretches approximately 3,500 kilometers, carrying natural gas from Azerbaijan’s Caspian fields through Georgia and Türkiye into Europe. Azerbaijani gas has become an increasingly important part of Europe’s effort to diversify its energy supplies and reduce dependence on Russia.

The emerging Trans-Caspian, or Middle Corridor, could similarly strengthen an East-West commercial route connecting Central Asia and the Caspian region with Europe while reducing dependence on transportation corridors controlled by Russia or Iran.

And there are already tangible signs of what greater regional connectivity can mean. Since Azerbaijan unilaterally lifted transit restrictions last October, more than 65,000 tonnes of goods have passed through Azerbaijan to Armenia, while Azerbaijan has exported around 20,000 tonnes of gasoline and diesel to Armenia.

TRIPP could become another crucial piece of that architecture.

This should matter greatly to Israel.

Israel and Azerbaijan have developed a strategic relationship encompassing energy, trade, security and diplomacy. Located next to Iran, Azerbaijan is a Muslim-majority nation where a longstanding Jewish community has lived with an unusual degree of security and acceptance.

In a world where relations between Jews and Muslims are too often discussed exclusively through the language of conflict, Azerbaijan represents something worth noticing.

For Israel, a stable and increasingly interconnected Azerbaijan strengthens a friendly regional partner. But the larger lesson transcends strategy.

Peace becomes durable when nations have something tangible to lose by abandoning it.

A railway crossing borders, a pipeline supplying distant homes, businesses dependent on regional commerce and communities benefiting from investment create constituencies for stability. Economic interdependence cannot guarantee peace. But it can make conflict increasingly expensive and cooperation increasingly valuable.

Jewish tradition understood that peace cannot remain an abstraction. The Psalmist commands us, “Seek peace and pursue it.”

Our sages teach that peace is the vessel capable of containing blessing. The language is active. Peace must be pursued, constructed and then filled with something.

That is precisely why the developments in the South Caucasus deserve attention.

A year ago, TRIPP was an ambitious declaration. Today, governments are creating the legal, commercial and engineering structures necessary to build it. The vision is moving, however gradually, from diplomacy toward roads, railways, energy and commerce.

There remain difficult questions, political disagreements and painful memories. Implementation will take years, and no infrastructure project can erase generations of conflict.

But history should also teach us not to become so accustomed to war that we fail to recognize progress when it appears.

At a moment when much of the world seems consumed by expanding conflict, Armenia and Azerbaijan offer another possibility: former enemies attempting to replace a geography of confrontation with a geography of connection.

For Israel, and for everyone who believes that seemingly permanent conflicts need not remain permanent, what is unfolding in the South Caucasus deserves to be recognized, encouraged and protected.

Peace is not simply something nations sign.

It is something they build.

Rabbi Israel Barouk completed Smicha and Dayanas at Yeshivat Or Elchonon. Originally from Jerusalem, New York City and Paris and currently based in Los Angeles, Rabbi Barouk works with leaders and communities across the globe to study, understand and engage with how “positive multiculturalism” serves as a powerful mechanism toward peace.