When Arin stepped onto the overlook that surveyed the valley of Zangezur, he thought about peace—not as a word, not as a dream, but as a process shaped by the brittle moment when guns fall silent.
For centuries, philosophers and diplomats alike had spoken of peace as an ideal: a state of mutual respect, built on rationality and cooperation. But truth—the working truth of history—was harsher. Peace could not be invoked like a prayer during times of silence. It was born only when fighting first stopped.
That insight was once academic, confined to dusty journals. Modern peace scholars described how ceasefires are an essential structural prerequisite in any conflict’s transformation, serving as bargaining structures that temporarily suspend violence and create conditions for negotiation—but not peace itself.
Arin recalled lectures from university: a ceasefire—even a temporary one—is often the bare minimum start to a political process. Without it, warring parties cannot speak face-to-face, trust cannot begin to be built, and humanitarian needs cannot be met. But ceasefires by themselves are fragile—they weaken if not backed by monitoring, verification, and political engagement.
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In 2025, this truth was writ large across the world’s map.
In the South Caucasus, two longtime adversaries—Armenia and Azerbaijan—had signed a pact in Washington intending to end decades of conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The ceremony was crafted with grand speeches about cooperation, bilateral trade, and even a proposed transit route through Armenia to connect Azerbaijan with its exclave Nakhchivan. Peace planners called it a breakthrough—a ceasefire elevated into a political settlement.
But even here, the deeper question remained: would violence truly end, or simply lie dormant beneath the rhetoric? Hardliners on both sides still questioned whether former refugees could ever safely return. The peace—even if formalized—might hinge on whether ceasefire mechanisms were strong and trusted enough to support lasting political reconciliation.
Far to the north, in the long shadow of the Ukraine war, diplomats grappled with the same dilemma. Kyiv insisted that an unconditional ceasefire was the only way to begin meaningful negotiation with Moscow—yet Moscow refused to freeze the fighting unless Ukraine agreed to territorial concessions. The two sides talked in Istanbul, but without a ceasefire in place, the meeting collapsed.
In Southeast Asia, a border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand erupted into violence in 2025 before an initial ceasefire halted hostilities. But the pause was tenuous—fighting flared again months later before renewed diplomatic pressure eased tensions. This cycle illustrated how even when guns fall silent, the underlying causes of conflict still needed political attention if peace were to take root.
And in places like Myanmar, conflict actors temporarily lay down arms in the aftermath of a disastrous earthquake—an unplanned ceasefire that opened a narrow window for humanitarian cooperation and diplomatic outreach.
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Arin remembered how peace researchers described two faces of peace:
• Negative peace—the absence of shooting and bombs.
• Positive peace—the deeper conditions of justice, security, governance, and mutual recognition.
Ceasefires could create negative peace. They stopped violence, saved lives, allowed hospitals to function, and won space for negotiation. But they did not alone create positive peace—trust, shared economic growth, justice for victims, reconciliation of narratives—all of these had to be built later, brick by brick.
On the overlook, as the sun set over the valley, Arin imagined a bridge over the old line of control—one that might someday carry traders and travelers instead of soldiers. That bridge would be a symbol not of peace spoken in abstract, but of peace built from the very moment that fighting stopped—a process born out of ceasefires that, by design and determination, led people to speak to one another across old divides.
And in that moment he understood:
Peace was not the absence of war alone, but the choice of humanity to choose negotiation over annihilation—once the guns fell silent.
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All names of people and organizations appearing in this story are pseudonyms
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