Karterados- I’m happy to report that my work in Georgia is cited in a new book Wars and the World: The Russian Army in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia, and Popular Culture by Tim Kucharzewski of the University of Potsdam in Germany.…
New York- I’m pleased to be featured in another Noiser podcast on the life of, and mass violence orchestrated by, Joseph Stalin. The horrors ordered and overseen by the Soviet leader only really ended with his death in early 1953.…
Albuquerque- I’m briefly featured in an episode of a new podcast series entitled Real Dictators being produced by Bristol-based Noiser that was founded in 2019. The series is hosted by British actor and voice talent Paul McGann who grippingly narrates…
New York- I have a new article out in the June issue of the Combating Terrorism Center’s Sentinel journal on the decline, or perhaps dismemberment is a more apt term, of the Caucasus Emirate (CE) as an insurgent outfit in…
Georgia’s Forgotten Frozen War from Derek Flood on Vimeo. Barcelona- In the new issue of Jane’s Intelligence Review, (subscription required) I have an interview out with Ambassador Kaha Imnadze who represents the Republic of Georgia at the United Nations along…
New York- I attended a Georgian diplomatic party marking the restoration of Georgian independence this week hosted by Ambassador Kaha Imnadze. Georgia was briefly independent from 1918-1921 following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and the collapse of the Romanov dynasty. The…
New York- I have an article out in this month’s edition of the CTC Sentinel about the evolution over the last two decades of the fight for the North Caucasus which has morphed a great deal. In my view, Syria has…
New York- The Sochi Olympics currently plod awkwardly ahead, the trendy stories have tended to be about the brand new, dilapidated hotels confounding journalists and athletes alike in this modern day “Potemkin village” and gay rights or lack thereof in the…
New York- While concluding a nearly month-long research trip to the Republic of Georgia in October, on my final night in Tbilisi I met with an analyst from Georgia’s MFA to discuss current trends in Islamic militancy in the North Caucasus…
New York- Sitting in a cafe on a bitterly cold winter day, I’m doing some writing regarding a character in my as yet unpublished manuscript who I found out perished fighting jihad in Syria’s tragically beleaguered Aleppo Governorate in late May…
New York- As the worst year of my life comes to a quiet close, I can look back and be thoroughly grateful for the two reporting trips I was able to make to Iraq and Georgia and for the friends I…
New York- When news broke on December 8 of organized protestors toppling a Lenin statue in Kiev, after pro-Moscow (generally speaking) President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned the EU Association Agreement in what is believed to have been under Kremlin pressure at…
New York- I haven’t done a blog post in nearly a month and felt like posting a few images if for no other reason than to do an update for the sake of doing an update. In October I visited the…
Tbilisi- The Republic of Georgia is on the cusp of a presidential election that is shaping up to be the country’s first non-ultra dramatic transition of power (think the coup against President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the Rose Revolution ousting Eduard Shevardnadze). Buzz here…
Tbilisi- After inhabiting this post-9/11 realm for so long now, I occasionally find myself in locales of yore retracing old steps in the name of an unfinished book. I sometimes photograph places and people (if I can still find them).…
New York- I finally found Marsho (“Freedom” in Chechen) by director Murad Mazaev in its entirety online. Marsho is Chechnya’s first film shot on location in Georgia’s Pankisi valley in 2002. The film is notable in that it was shot…
Abu Dhabi, UAE- Well it’s that time again. The end of the road. I’ve been going non stop for almost four months. The timeline goes something like this: Depart NYC July 30th-Arrive Abu Dhabi, Six nights at my friend Arif’s…
Birkiani, Georgia- I returned to Georgia’s once infamous Pankisi Gorge yesterday after visiting the area seven years ago when it was hyped to be one of the most dangerous places in the world (which it sort of was). Revisiting…
Gori, Georgia- This photo hangs in a museum that has not been updated since it opened thirty years ago at the twilight of the Brezhnev era. It is the B-side to the photo on the cover of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Young…
Tbilisi, Georgia- I had a meeting here with the Deputy Counter Terrorism Chief from the Ministry of Internal Affairs relevant to some book research I’m doing here. My contact there showed me the cornered end of the hallway where the…
Gori, Georgia- I hopped in a marshrutka (giant, ubiquitous post-Soviet sphere minibus) today in Tbilisi to make the pilgrimage to the birthplace of the original “Man of Steel” Ioseb (Georgian (which is actually Kartuli in its endonym) Dzugashvili aka Joseph…
Tbilisi, Georgia- I’ve just completed a mostly sleepless journey from Ezrurum, a dull, cold city in eastern Turkey, to the lush, rolling hills of temperate Tbilisi. At the border at 1am, I joined an already rolling bus from Trabzon and…
Erzurum, Turkey- En route to the next geopolitical basket case. Oil pipeline politics, Russian recognized republics and NATO issues; sounds like a real party! Georgia is a favorite proxy backwater of plenty of people on the Hill.