The New Iveria spoke with Tom G. Palmer, a social theorist, political scientist (Oxford D.Phil.), and long-time activist for liberal principles. Tom smuggled forbidden literature, photocopiers, and other tools into Communist countries in the 1980s and has worked globally with classical liberal think tanks. He is affiliated with many organizations, including the Fundación para el Avance de la Libertad in Madrid, the Cato Institute, Atlas Network, and IES-Europe. The views expressed are his own.

The full-scale aggression launched by Russia against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, marked the beginning of irreversible geopolitical shifts. In those difficult days of February, perhaps no one could have imagined that the war would last more than 1,400 days, surpassing even the ‘Great Patriotic War’ in duration, all while Russia’s global influence would be noticeably weakened in the fourth year of the war.

საქართველოს შესახებ ცოდნამ ამერიკის შე­ერთებულ შტატებამდე გვიან მიაღწია. ევროპელ მოგზაურებს, ვაჭრებსა და მისიონერებს საქარ­თველოსა და კავკასიასთან გაცილებით ადრე ჰქონდათ შეხება. შავი ზღვა და აბრეშუმის გზა უხსოვარი დროიდან იზიდავდა როგორც ევროპის სავაჭრო იმპერიებს, ისე სახარების მქადაგებელ მისიონერებს, განსაკუთრებით ვატიკანიდან. ამის ნათელი მაგალითებია კათოლიკე მისიონერები - არქანჯელო ლამბერ­ტი და დონ კრისტოფორო დე კასტელი, რომლებიც XVII საუკუნეში ქართული კულტურისა და ადათ-წესების გულმოდგინე მკვლევრებად ჩამოყალიბდნენ.

Truth will always carve its own path, and it is the truth that will ensure the regime is brought to justice. Not only here, at the site of the crimes, but also before the international community. Consequently, accountability will take many forms—criminal, leading to imprisonment; financial, which may prove most painful for them; and moral, which, though perhaps least concerning to them, remains nonetheless essential.

That day, something exploded right above my head. Of all the familiar sounds, this one most resembled an explosion—the blast of a shell. Yet there was no shockwave. No one was killed, and there was no fire or smoke. You’ve now spent about as much time reading this as I did thinking about it back then. To stop wasting your time: it was just a sound barrier breaking ‘burst’.

‘A strong doubt arose in his heart. Now his only concern was to find out where he had gone wrong: was it really a pretence and a false execution, or was it a real execution? To tell the truth, what upset his heart most was that in the first case he had been deceived: “How could a pretence show me a lie as the truth, to a man of my age and experience?” But if the truth itself turned out to be a lie, it would be nothing; our Petre could somehow come to terms with it much more easily.’

In 2007, the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy, and Development, with the support of the Cordaid Foundation (Netherlands) and the Open Society Institute Research Centers Foundation (Hungary), published the sixth book in the ‘Society and Politics’ series.

In recent years, the question of Georgian cultural-political identity has once again become topical. The liberal vector is being replaced by a conservative one. For change to be effective, it must manifest on a symbolic level. Therefore, the symbolic manifestation of the national habitus has become a political issue.

— Leo Trotsky was a fan of yours, wasn’t he? You sympathized with him too. — Only halfway. He used to say that revolution is initially followed by blood and torment, but after a while, the people will achieve universal happiness. I was, and still am, convinced of this only halfway—because I believed only the first part of that idea,’ replied the gaunt, intelligent-looking old man with an ironic smile.

I want to write about Tbilisi, the Tbilisi I grew up in! A flood of facts, images, and memories rushes over me, but I don’t know where to begin... I feel exactly as I did during those Georgian language tests at school, when I had a hard time starting an essay, tempted to tear out the page in frustration at my own primitivity.

Two days after hostilities broke out in Abkhazia on August 16, 1992, Georgian military units made a naval landing in the Gagra area. Georgia did not possess any military vessels at that time, so the Shevardnadze government received ‘friendly assistance’ from the Russian army.

A very wise man once said, ‘What does not kill us, makes us stronger.’ I do not think so. If a universal saying (or formula, or phenomenon) has exceptions, then it cannot be universal. A situation or a condition may not kill a person, but at the same time, it can damage their psyche for a long time. In my opinion, if a person remains strong after an ordeal, it happens not because of the hardship they endured, but despite it.