For the January 2024 EVN Security Report, Dr. Nerses Kopalyan introduced a rationalist explanation of war to address the causal mechanisms shaping Aliyev’s incentives for being conflict-prone. He speaks with EVN Report's Editor-in-Chief Maria Titizian about how rationalist models of war are applied to account for the decision-making and policy preferences of the Aliyev regime and why peace for the Azerbaijani president is deemed an “irrational” preference.