This essay explores the relationship between democratization in Armenia and Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The author argues that the potential for conflict existed throughout Soviet times yet the quasi-democratization of the Soviet Union was instrumental in the breaking out of full fledged war. Though today, the conflict is an obstacle to democratization, the solution of the war in the long run also rests with democratization. These intertwined dynamics call for a long term vision of incremental democratization.