former identified as “TSR’s founder” and the latter as “TSR’s second banana.” Three years later in an interview, Gygax cast the situation more formally: “I am the President of TSR, and Brian Blume is V.P. and Secretary.”

By the end of 1977, there were 1,933 shares of common stock outstanding from an authorized 5,000, and the governance of the company was effectively stable: only 105 more shares would be issued in 1978, and after that, the number of shares outstanding would increase by just 23 over the next seven years. Sometime in 1978, the Blume family position in TSR Hobbies diluted below a 50% stake—no single party would own controlling interest in TSR again until 1985. As the 1970s wound to a close, TSR Hobbies still valued its sharesrepresentatives from the south and the east.

A coherent strategy is needed to deal with Russia, because building security and stability on Russia’s borders through democratic integration and collective security in the Black Sea region is seen as a threat by Moscow. Russia sees the further implication from either the EU or NATO in the region as a clear challenge to its regional hegemony. As far as regional security is concerned, in Putin’s view, Russian “peacekeeping forces” in the region are more than able to handle the situations of conflict, with the Russian Black Sea Fleet at its disposal in Sevastopol as a peace-maintaining force and an instrument of human-rights protection according to the Kremlin. In light of Russia’s new assertiveness in the Black Sea neighborhood, there is indeed