The outbreak of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan has thrust the long-running dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh (Mountainous Karabakh, known to Armenians by its ancient name, Artsakh) into the international limelight.

The rhetoric of violence — especially coming from Azerbaijan and Turkey — is deafening, while the racist, jingoistic, and dehumanizing language employed by Azerbaijanis, Turks, and Armenians on social media is at fever pitch. Beyond the flag-draped body bags carrying Armenian and Azerbaijani boy-conscripts and innocent civilians to their graves, there are many other casualties amid all this noise: truth, information, and any serious will to resolve the conflict once and for all.

Fears that tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan might plunge the Caucasus into war are nothing new. For over a quarter century, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a stalemate over the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh. While the latest escalation seems to have caught many off guard, more astute observers could see it coming. Writing in the aftermath of four days of intense fighting in April 2016, Laurence Broers, a leading authority on the conflict, warned of the dangers of failed negotiations and unchecked nationalism leading to a “defaulting to war.”