Brokers on the Bloc: Central Asian Alignment Through Collective Security
By John DiPirro
Russia’s diminishing influence in the South Caucasus, highlighted by the nascent Azerbaijan-Armenia rapprochement, has opened political and security space for new actors to shape the regional order not just in the South Caucasus, but across Eurasia—including, most notably, in Central Asia. Türkiye’s expanding military-industrial presence and institutional influence give it the unique opportunity to develop a strong relationship with the Central Asian states. But it cannot do so alone. Azerbaijan, positioned between Türkiye and Central Asia, can serve as a bridge between the two, translating Turkish capacity into Central Asian contexts.
Crossroads of Uncertainty: Iran’s Regional Vulnerabilities and Armenia’s Security Challenges
By Anna Gevorgyan
The foreign and security architecture of Armenia has been largely shaped by the transformations of the role and capacity of regional actors after the 2020 Second Karabakh War. Russia’s continuing weakness due to its invasion of Ukraine, Turkey’s growing role in the region, and Iran’s increasing vulnerability due to security challenges and economic crisis have been the key drivers shaping regional developments. At the global level, the US's growing interest in involvement in regional affairs has become another important feature in Armenia’s future.
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Kazakhstan-Russia Relations After 2022: Sources of Contention, Points of Pressure
By Nargis Kassenova
The dramatic events of 2022 - the January unrest in Kazakhstan and Russia’s war against Ukraine - upended the status quo in Kazakhstan-Russia relations. Astana must now address both long-standing vulnerabilities—security, political, and economic—and new pressures in areas such as inter-elite relations (as they shape up in the process of "denazarbayevization"), nuclear energy, and history writing. The Tokayev government seeks to accommodate Russia as much as possible while advancing Kazakhstan’s sovereignty, which requires constant adjustments and trade-offs.
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Bidzina Ivanishvili: Governing from the Shadows
By Gabriel Chubinidze and Stephen F. Jones
Ivanishvili is the linchpin in the current Georgian political system. If we are to understand the nature of Georgia’s political system today, we need to examine Ivanishvili's personality and history more closely. In Georgia, outsized personalities have always played a decisive role in politics and have consistently abused their power. Ivanishvili is no different. But we argue that he has gone beyond his predecessors, Eduard Shevardnadze and Mikheil Saakashvili, to create an illiberal and anti-European system which leaves no political space for either party opponents or civil society activists. Currently, almost all of Georgia’s major opposition party leaders are in prison. We call it a quasi-dictatorship. In 2025 Ivanishvili’s Georgia has moved closer to the model of Alexandr Lukashenko in Belarus than the illiberal model established in Hungary of Victor Orban.
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