Beka Kiria is a 2023 Millennium fellow and the senior policymaker at Georgia’s Ministry of Defense, responsible for conceptualizing vital national defense and security documents, including the National Security Concept, Threat Assessment, and Strategic Defense Review. Kiria is also the founder and director of the Gagra Institute, a cloud-operated think tank focusing on the South Caucasus, Ukraine, and broader Eurasia. The Gagra Institute was named among the top five startups at the Global Media Forum Innovative Lab. Kiria writes prolifically on transatlantic relations, as well as Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific security. His recent book chapter, “The US strategic dilemmas in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region,” features in Threats to Euro-Atlantic Security, published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Kiria holds a Marshall Memorial Fellowship at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and is a member of NATO Future Alumni and the Younger Generation Leaders Network. Kiria holds a master’s degree in public international law from the University of Leicester, and previously studied international relations at the Cambridge College of Arts and Sciences.