Several regions of the globe have witnessed serious and sustained disorder since the end of the Cold War era in 1991. The Horn of Africa, the Balkans, African Great Lakes: all have hosted wars, terrorism, ethnic strife, foreign interventions, intractable and flawed diplomacy. Few have seen more of it in a relatively compact area than the southern Caucasus: Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia have been particularly troubled territory over the past 35 years. The area was boiling over during the author’s initial military assignment in Erzurum, a short drive from the Soviet border in 1991 – and has not cooled below a simmer since.