Armenia (right), Azerbaijan (left), courtesy of wikipedia.org

I meant for this most latest article in the Faster Times to come out right on the tail of my last, provocatively-headlined article, but a vacations got in the way.

In it, I take a look at a fascinating game theory study done by a master’s student in Tbilisi and the international controversy it caused. Check it out!

The four-year-old International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University (ISET) in Tbilisi, Georgia was founded to unite students and faculty from all three South Caucasus countries for a Western-style education in economics. And, as if undergoing a rite of passage in its growth as an institution, it underwent its first major academic controversy this year.

Students were agitated, donors threatened to withdraw funding and an ambassador warned of unilateral sanctions.

What caused all the fuss? — A master’s thesis that used game theory to create a model for the probability of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Ani Harutyunyan, 23, originally of Vanadzor, Armenia, set out last November to create a model that could determine the probability of all-out war breaking out between the two countries over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh based on a variety of factors.

Now, mind you, creating a game theory model is not the same as predicting whether war will happen or not – it’s not a magic eight ball.

To keep reading click here.

Three Kings is logging on from back home in Kansas this week as a part of a two-week vacation back in the mother country.

Here’s some of the recent news that caught my eye:

1.) RUSSIA-  The number one story has got to the that Russia is will be firing up Iran’s first nuclear reactor, although it’s not nearly as alarming as it sounds. First off, Russia will move all plutonium that could be weaponized back to Russian territory as a part of the deal, and just because the Russians are forging ahead with this deal doesn’t necessarily mean they are abandoning the U.S. on sanctions.

Russian officials, who are also concerned about Iran’s nuclear progress, had long appeared to use the plant’s construction schedule and the drawn-out start-up process as leverage with Iran’s leaders and in wider Russian diplomacy in the Middle East. Often, delays for ostensibly technical reasons have come just days after Russian leaders made statements critical of Iran.

2.) TURKEY – Der Speigel is reporting that photos obtained by German journalists, politicians and activists purportedly provide evidence Turkey has used chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels in its restive Eastern regions.

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Saakashvili meets with Georgian troops at the Krstanisi military base in February.

Apparently I missed a rather odd weekend in Tbilisi.

Throughout the region, local journalists and politicians mark August 7-8 on their calendar for the usual stories and statements about the anniversary of the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia. The political leaders of Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia snipe and grandstand and journalists write up something quick about where the two sides stand today.

I didn’t stay for the fireworks and instead marked the war’s birthday by trekking my way through Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park in central Georgia.

Surprisingly, what I missed in Tbilisi was, indeed, fireworks.

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I will always think fondly upon Barbara Slavin as the person who gave me my first start in this wacky, and sometimes unforgiving business. It’s good to see she is doing well after bumps in her own career.

A week or two after graduating from American University I nervously approached the offices of the Washington Times. I was overdressed for the casual, coffee-stained nature of the newsroom and I had probably over-caffeinated myself as I tried to remember the points I wanted hammer into my pitch for why they should give regular freelance work to a 21-year-old kid headed to a tiny post-Soviet republic.

Barbara Slavin, via AOLnews.com

After eating a cafeteria lunch with Foreign Editor Willis Witter, I was led around the newsroom, and eventually to the office of the head honcho — Managing Editor Barbara Slavin. She listened and took notes through my jittery spiels on story ideas, and then tried to hone in on what could be a tighter focus within a few of them. She then asked me a key question “Вы говорите по-русски? (Do you speak Russian?)”

I explained in Russian that I did, and the conversation continued in that language. Eventually she asked me where I learned it. “I spent a year studying in St. Petersburg,” I said. “Where did you learn Russian?” I asked her. “In Leningrad,” she smiled. She then officially welcomed me to the team and bid me a “всего хорошего!” as I walked out with a smile.

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… or just stoking domestic support as usual?

Such is the question I posed in my most recent article in the Faster Times.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have had quite a summer of discontent, and it’s already come to blows once. Is now the time that the two sides will fight it out once and for all?

"Occupant killer" Ensign Mubariz Ibrahimov.

“Bellicose” has become the favorite word of South Caucasus diplomacy this summer as rhetoric and actions have been ramping up between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the past few months despite several moderated peace summits, leading some to fear a definitive heating up of the two nations’ frozen conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

After backing an ethnic-Armenian secession movement in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan in the early 1990’s, Armenia continues to militarily control most of Karabakh and other Azeri lands.

To a certain extent, these new daggers in the dialogue are not surprising as politicians from both sides have made diplomatic sniping into a sort of sport, but Azerbaijan has increasingly shown its dissatisfaction with the peace talks, with statements focusing on a expedient resolution “by any means possible.” On June 25, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said publicly that if the long-running peace talks did not yield a positive result soon, then Azerbaijan was prepared to retake Karabakh and the Azeri territories surrounding it by force.

To keep reading click here.