On October 28th, 2025, the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the American Foreign Policy Council hosted a webinar introducing Dr. Eduard Abrahamyan’s new book Small States, Russia, and the West: Polarity, Constellations, and Heterogeneity in the Geopolitics of the Caucasus. The book explores how small states in the Caucasus navigate intense great-power competition, particularly amid Russia’s resurgence as a regional power. Abrahamyan argues that these nations’ foreign policies reflect not only Russian or Western influence but also their unique cultures, domestic power dynamics, and worldviews. Using an expanded Constellation Theory, he provides a fresh framework for understanding how non-Western regional orders form in today’s increasingly multipolar world.
Watch the full discussion here or on YouTube!
The discussion explores three strategic shocks that Abrahamyan examines in his book. He notes that despite similar geopolitical realities, the three Caucasus states have varied responses to the 2008 invasion of Georgia, 2014 occupation of Crimea, and 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Vitally, the speakers also focus on the potential for greater regional unity and strategic development, and emphasize the importance of this region, noting that “what happens in the South Caucasus rarely stays there”—highlighting its broader strategic significance.
Feature Speakers:
Dr. Eduard Abrahamyan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Yerevan-based Institute for Security Analysis and a Teaching Fellow in International Relations at University College London. He served as an aide to the President of the Republic of Armenia on foreign affairs from 2019 to 2021 and was a Rumsfeld Fellow in 2017.
He spoke in conversation with Prof. Tengiz Pkhaladze, Professor at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs and a Senior Fellow at the European Centre for International Political Economy. Previously, Pkhaladze was an Advisor and Foreign Relations Secretary to the President of Georgia. Dr. Pkhaladze previously served as Chairman of the International Centre for Geopolitical Studies (2008–2014). Both Dr. Abrahamyan and Dr. Pkhaladze are former CAMCA (Rumsfeld) Fellows.
The discussion was introduced by Lindsey Cliff, a Researcher at AFPC’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and a graduate student in Georgetown’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies.
