“Shock and awe” is a US military term describing the use of overwhelming power to demoralize the enemy, as applied by the American military in Iraq. “Shock and awe” would also aptly describe my emotional state when I entered, at the age of 23, the magnificent reading room at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. This was the moment when I – a former paratrooper and an officer with one of Israel’s security services – understood how badly I want to acquire an education. Not technical knowledge or skills, but an education.

“Roulette until six in the evening. Lost everything”, notes Leo Tolstoy on July 14, 1857. He did not pen these words in Moscow or St Petersburg”, writes Elizabeth Neu. “It was in Baden-Baden that Tolstoy closed his diary with a sigh that night.”

February is usually a good time to take stock of the country’s economic performance because at the beginning of the month statistical agencies release data on many baseline indicators for the previous year. Preliminary data reveals that the annual GDP growth rate in 2014 was 4.7%, which fell short of the 5% that had been expected.

In December 2014 ISET-PI has been awarded a 5-year grant by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) providing the Institute with the opportunity to transform itself into the premier economic policy think-tank in the South Caucasus.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is critical to every developing county, and Georgia is no exception in this regard. Georgia wants to grow out of poverty and catch up with the economically more developed regions of the world – for this to happen, foreign resources are needed, in particular, if the domestic savings rate is as low as in Georgia.