In his study of warlordism in Georgia and Tajikistan, political scientist Jesse Driscoll emphasizes how the collapse of the Soviet Union precipitated the rise of militant, independence-seeking nationalist movements within the republics—particularly within the Central Asian and Caucasus regions—resulting in armed conflict and civil war. Many strongmen warlords had served in the Soviet military, police units or intelligence services and had experience operating within highly organized bureaucracies. These warlords formed well-structured militias that not only established political and economic control over territories, but institutionalized bureaucracies to establish and maintain their monopolies over violence and rent and "incentivizing the behavior of citizens within a particular geographical space". Driscoll termed this warlordism "militia coalition politics". A truce was reached without any disarmament of militias; instead, the warlord coalitions reached a non-violent "order producing equilibrium", and eventually agreed upon a warlord-friendly civilian figurehead to assume head-of-state duties to demonstrate the legitimacy as a sovereign state to the rest of the world. This opened up Georgia and Tajikistan as states eligible to receive international aid, which thereafter became a major source of "rent" for the warlords, providing them with resources to increase their power and influence over these societies. As Driscoll observed, the "warlords colluded to create a state".