Murad Nasibov

Three Post-Soviet Regions, Three Distinct Geopolitical Functions for Russia: Depth, Frontage and Hinge Regions. The post-Soviet space—referring to the former USSR republics except for the Baltics—is often collapsed into a single category. There are grounds for this, but not always, and not in every sense.

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Merz’s MSC Speech: Power-Aware Rule-Based Order Vision Germany’s Attempt to Reconcile Power Politics with Rule-Based Constraint

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Two Regimes of Scholarly Attention (Evidence from German International Politics scholarship, 2010-2025). Second Post In my previous newsletter (click here to read it), I asked whether scholarly attention rewards depth or breadth. The answer was neither in isolation.

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Comforting Narratives and Strategies for Confronting Them Comforting narratives are those free from friction and, therefore, elegant. They carry the most telling labels, neatly attached to actors and processes within the story.

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Are Citations Driven by Breadth or Depth? Evidence from German Professors of International Politics, 2010–2025 Why do some scholars accumulate attention steadily over time while others experience brief surges in visibility that fail to compound? Existing discussions often point to productivity, interdisciplina...

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Board of Peace: US Aligning with Critical Regional Actors to Preserve Its Hegemony For decades, US power rested on the international institutions it had built, just as much as these institutions relied on US hegemony. It was an uneasy but functional compromise.

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Three Foundational Shifts in the 2026 US National Defense Strategy The newly released US National Defense Strategy (NDS) can be read as a catalogue of threats, priorities, and military initiatives. However, when read more carefully, it alters three fundamental princi...

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How the Iranian Regime Can Survive This Wave of Protests The persistence of a large-scale protest wave in Iran - one that the Islamic regime has never faced before - has once again revived expectations of the regime's collapse. These expectations can be mor...

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Is a Non-Hegemonic Stability Emerging? Much of today’s debate about international order is shaped by a sense of loss: the decline of U.S.

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Europe-Central Eurasia: A Trans-Regional Convergence in Response to Russia and US-China Rivalry. The End of Europe's Strategic Comfort Zone For much of the post–Cold War period, Europe approached its eastern surroundings through a hierarchical and Europe-centric lens. The South Caucasus and Centr...

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Regime Change and the Question of Azerbaijanis in Iran Venezuelan President Maduro’s capture in an overnight US operation, followed by the mass protests in Iran, has triggered questions about a possible regime-change scenario in the latter. Accordingly, a...

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Der "Mittelkorridor ... ermöglicht es Europa ... & dem Südkaukasus sowie Zentralasien ..., durch die Kooperation mit der jeweils anderen Region einen übermäßigen Einfluss der 🇺🇸 bzw. Chinas auszubalancieren." - @nasibovmurad.bsky.social.
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Red. @zois.bsky.social

The Ukraine Deal: Implications for Central Eurasia The geopolitical ripple effects of a “sphere of security” in Ukraine — from the Black Sea to the Caspian.

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Europe's Missing Leader & Long-Term Strategic Vision Why does it matter today?

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Beyond Major Powers: Why Secondary States Matter More Now for the International System How they are silently transforming the international system

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Redefining Central Asia's Boundaries Historical Background The story of regionalism in Central Asia has seen ups and downs since the early years of their independence. The first format that emerged in 1992 was called Central Asian Union ...

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A Counterfactual Look at Georgia’s Autocratic Shift: What policy implications for the EU and domestic actors? A counterfactual look is, at its core, about asking “what if.” It is not merely an intellectual exercise but a mode of inquiry that helps disentangle the factors contributing to a given outcome.

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Would Russia’s Full-Scale Attack on Ukraine Have Occurred Without the Belarus Protests of 2020-2021? In the previous series, I focused on the case of Georgia, more precisely, its autocratic shift. In that piece, using the counterfactual approach, though more casually, I sought to answer the question ...

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Beyond Provocation: Airspace Violations as Nerve Signaling in Russia’s Psychological War In recent months, with its drones and jets, Russia has repeatedly violated the airspace of European states, including those of the EU and NATO member-states.

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Caught Between Deterrence Credibility and Escalation Risk How Russia Plays Europe's Strategy

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What drives Turkic regionalism in Eurasia? Why the Pursuit of Autonomy — Not Economics — Fuels Turkic Regionalism

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Why did the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh fail? And, a personal reflection on the Track II dialogue of the past years. Following the outbreak of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1992, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) established the so-called Minsk Group, initially a forum of ele...

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The Liberal International Order: Between Illusion, Imposition, and Aspiration Power, Promise, and Pretence

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The Liberal International Order: Between Illusion, Imposition, and Aspiration The liberal international order, that grand architecture of norms, institutions, and alliances forged in the aftermath of the Cold War, stands today at a crossroads. It is poised delicately between il...

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What Russia’s Generational Legacy Reveals About Its Path to 2045 How three generations shaped by collapse, control, and conflict will influence Russia’s political trajectory over the next two decades

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Recalibration Ahead: The Global South and the Emergence of a Thin Liberal International Order In the coming years, the Global South (GS) may need to reassess the distanced or cautiously sympathetic stance it developed during the early phases of the war in Ukraine. This posture was not merely a...

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What Russia’s Generational Legacy Reveals About Its Path to 2045 Over the next two decades, Russia’s political system is likely to remain authoritarian and centralised, shaped by the experiences and expectations of three generational cohorts: those born in the 1950...

What Russia’s Generational Legacy Reveals About Its Path to 2045
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Baku’s Diplomatic Spring In the span of just a few days, Baku has found itself at the centre of an intense flurry of diplomatic activity. This surge of high-level visits signals how Azerbaijan is punching well above its tradi...

Baku’s Diplomatic Spring
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It was a very good workshop. Thanks to all organisers and participants. Based on the feedback I recieved, particular but not only from Bernhard Zangl, I updated my mansucript and submitted to the journal. It is now under review.