Despite the statements quite frequently voiced by the Azeri authorities on the possibility of resuming hostilities against Armenia, it is yet extremely premature to speak about prospects of a new war. There are no objective prerequisites in current circumstances that would indicate launch of war in the near future.

Azerbaijan is building its statehood on oil, and oil tariffs nowadays reflect quite positively on main economic indicators. In that view it is highly unlikely that Azerbaijan would go for a cardinal change of situation, especially with most indefinite outcome prospects.

What tangible loss would Azerbaijan suffer in case of resuming the war over Karabakh?

First of all it is Azerbaijan's appeal for investors in the oil sector, in other words – the only stable base for state construction.

In September of 1994, in Baku palace of Gyulistan, an agreement was signed which was later called the Contract of the Century. Thirteen companies were presented in that document among them British Petroleum, McDermott, Lukoil, Turkish Petroleum, and others from eight countries such as Turkey, USA, Japan, Great Britain,etc.

In fact, yet in autumn of 1992, former British Prime-Minister Margaret Thatcher visited Baku as a representative of British Petroleum, however the Contract of the Century was not signed because of the Karabakh war.

Naturally, none of the investing companies in that period could invest big money in Azerbaijan. Only the signing of cease fire in May of 1994 made it possible for the contract to be signed later that year, in September.

As president of State Oil Company of Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) Rovnag Abdullayev said, “as of today the foreign investment into oil-gas sector of Azerbaijan is over $38 billion”.

It is obvious, that a new war would bring to naught Azerbaijan's appeal to investors, completely destroy the country's economic and even political structure, and Ilham Alliyev would never sign up for to it.

Besides the fact that a new war minimizes the country's attraction for investments, it is fully capable of destroying practically the whole pipeline fairly enough considered the main blood vessel of the Azeri state organism.

The thing is that practically all Azeri hydrocarbon is transported through four pipelines, three of which pass only a few kilometers away from the frontline, on the northern borders of both Karabakh and Armenia: Baku-Tbilisi-Jeihan oil pipeline opened in July of 1996, Baku-Suspa oil pipeline functioning since 1999, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzrum gas pipeline (South-Caucasian pipeline) officially put into operation in March 2007.

It's not a big secret that Armenian cannons are pointed directly at these communications and in case war would start the destruction of that vitally important to Azerbaijan infrastructure would be the top priority.

As a result, Azerbaijan can lose not only its appeal as a secure investment ground, it might be deprived of all its means of transporting oil and gas to the outer world.

A new war would mean that Azerbaijan might also lose control over a strategic sector of river Kura, along which Baku-Tbilisi railroad lies (it continues further to Turkey). That railroad runs parallel to the pipelines and is again only a few kilometers from the frontline.

One quick-march would be enough to take control over this strategic sector, after which the correlation of power in the region would become principally different.

Armenia, which has been in a blockade for the past twenty years first all by Azerbaijan, can quite successfully explain to the international community the solid reasons for such a step.

Armenian control over a sector of Baku-Tbilisi railroad would in fact cut Azerbaijan not only from Georgia, but also Turkey. The only railway vector into the outer world would, in that case, be the “northern” one connecting to Russia.

The Azeri president is well aware of the scale of these threats, and, not less importantly, their feasibility. He would not go for such obvious risks in exchange for the unobvious prospect of establishing control over Nagorno Karabakh – a territory that has no connection to Azerbaijan whatsoever, neither has it any influence on the tempo of its development.

The only layout of events that could theoretically be in favor of a new war is either drastically shaken positions of Aliyev clan in Baku fraught with an inevitable reprisal, or catastrophic drop of oil tariffs (below $15 per barrel). None of it can be observed at the moment.