Politics is dirty business, I know that. But I do wonder what exactly we are valuing so much in a relationship with a tiny totalitarian petro-monarchy that we are willing to condone ethnic cleansing and genocide committed by our “willing partner”. .Department of State

Only in Tbilisi: united South Caucasus against Russian influence.

🇬🇪🇦🇿🇦🇲

So tough to watch but this captures the essence of successful civic disobedience campaigns: disciplined, peaceful, diverse. With women at the frontline, and nonviolence practiced with religious zeal, the protesters should be able to grow their numbers. Numbers matter greatly.

Riot police moved in to disperse demonstrators in the Georgian capital tonight, using shields and tear gas to push back crowds demanding the government drop its controversial “foreign agent” law. trib.al/IBlzsr8

Looking forward to speak at EVN Report Media Festival in May. Will touch on regional security in South Caucasus, Eurasia's shifting geopolitics and small state agency, media and armed conflict, among other topics. Oh, yes, also, will focus on 'Putin's Pivot'. See you in Yerevan.

The use of violence as a backdrop of diplomacy will continue to derail and dilute the fragile liberal ordering of the world. Azerbaijan's creeping revisionism of that order is an existential threat for Armenia, but also a threat for the South Caucasus. Violence is not a strategy.

Following Putin's brutal war against Chechnya, the voting rights of the Russian delegation in PACE were suspended.

However, a little later PACE relented and reinstated the voting rights of the Russian delegation.

Then in 2014, when Putin annexed Crimea, PACE again suspended the…

BREAKING: Following the global lack of accountability for its 2020-23 genocide in Artsakh, Azerbaijan appears to have abandoned its relatively restrained behavior toward Armenian heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh: it has now flattened Shushi's Kanach Zham (that it had damaged in 2020)

Join us here, details below. I will focus on Armenia but from a regional lens - “Georgia on my mind”!

The deepening of 🇨🇳🇷🇺 alignment is one of the most consequential geopolitical outcomes of Russia's war against Ukraine. How so, and why is this important? I wrote about it in a new essay for Foreign Affairs. Some key takeaways in a🧵1/20 foreignaffairs.com/china/putin-an…

What an eminently interesting take on the IR cosmology provided by the concept of ‘Dharma’…

Friends in the Boston area, perhaps I will see some of you at Fletcher School tomorrow?

Is Israel redefining its objectives and climbing down from a more maximalist agenda?

I remain an avid reader of POLITICOEurope but neutral language in covering global violence is problematic. Precision is needed to cover armed conflict. Autocrats build “legitimate” conflicts under the radar of int-al law through such media manipulation.
politico.eu/article/clashe…

Baku has been trying to build a new conflict with Armenia - a territorial conflict- having ethnically cleansed Nagorno-Karabakh. Numerous reasons as to why Aliyev needs it for regime survival, including keeping Russia tied to the South Caucasus. Latest effort below.

Looking forward to give a talk at The Fletcher School
Tufts University on April 9. Will draw from my last book, with an emphasis on policy implications for Washington. Details on content and logistics are below. Daniel W. Drezner
Arik Burakovsky Chris Miller

sites.tufts.edu/fletcherrussia…

Can you imagine with what joy an autocrat takes down a parliament? The Aliyev family has been in power in Azerbaijan since 1969. The symbolic significance of this act is self-evident. The silence surrounding it is disturbing and is a signal of encouragement for all dictators.

EUMA patrolled along the AM-AZ border all day long, everything is calm and quiet, no unusual movements observed. EUMA wishes everybody a peaceful Easter! ✨

Intimidation is becoming the biggest tool in RU foreign policy toolbox: threatening the West with a nuclear war, pointing a finger at neighbors and promising consequences... it's not just 'when all you have is a hammer' situation, it's the overall fetishization of that 'hammer.'

Please join the debate.

My response to Fareed Zakaria column in The Washington Post
last week:

1. Zakaria argues that the 'The world of a rules-based international order... emerged from the European enlightenment', mentioning specifically Hugo Grotius and Immanuel Kant.

My…