It has become clear that China intends to wage a prolonged war of psychological attrition against Japan with regard to the disputed Senkaku Islands, a crisis with profound international repercussions. Russia’s position in this struggle, therefore, provides a revealing picture of its foreign policy goals... MORE

In early September, the United Nations once again warned of the growing risks of another global food crisis, following particularly bad harvests in the United States, Russia, Ukraine and other grain-producing countries. These negative developments have already led to a rapid erosion of grain reserves... MORE

On November 1, Georgia’s new prime minister, the leader of the “Georgian Dream” coalition, Bidzina Ivanishvili, announced the creation of the position of the Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Relations with Russia. He appointed Zurab Abashidze, Georgia’s ambassador to Russia in 2000–2004, to the post... MORE

Russian psychiatrists are pressing the Duma to return the Soviet-era law on psychiatric assistance that allowed doctors at Moscow’s Serbsky Institute and elsewhere to indefinitely detain and treat people whose only “symptoms” were opposition to Soviet leaders and their policies. For more than 40 years,... MORE

To the relief and near jubilation of the Russian officer corps, President Vladimir Putin finally sacked his controversial Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov on November 6, replacing him with Sergei Shoigu. However, the initial Russian media frenzy that ensued masked the deeper reasons for Serdyukov’s dismissal... MORE

Since the Mongolian parliamentary elections of June 28, 2012, won by the pro-Western Democratic Party, there has been a re-emphasis on strengthening Mongolian-Russian political and military relations as part of the new government’s efforts to counter-balance China’s monopoly over Mongolia’s economy. On November 3, 2012,... MORE

One of the closest associates of Georgia’s Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, State Minister for Reintegration Paata Zakareishvili, has unveiled the government’s idea to unblock the railway link that connected Russia with the South Caucasus republics in Soviet times.In an interview with the Moscow paper Kommersant... MORE

On November 7, the Circassian activist group Justice for the North Caucasus issued an emergency statement on the situation in Syria. The group called on the international community to send “relief to hundreds of men, women, children and elderly who have been under siege for... MORE

The Russian political class had hardly any time last week to contemplate the consequences of US President Barack Obama’s re-election for a second term or to follow the tense atmosphere at the 18th Communist Party Congress in Beijing—it was the cutthroat clash of Kremlin clans... MORE

Earlier this month, a delegation from the Chinese National Defense University made an official visit to Kazakhstan, marking yet another high-profile exchange between the two countries’ defense establishments. According to Major General Yedil Urazov, the head of the military education and science department in Kazakhstan’s... MORE