The Chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, Viktor Zavarzin, disclosed last week some details of previously secret future defense budget procurement plans. Procurement expenditure on new weapons will grow dramatically from 380 billion rubles ($12.7 billion) in 2010 to 980 billion rubles ($32.7 billion) in... MORE

Turkey and Syria held the second ministerial meeting of the High Level Strategic Cooperation Council in Syrian city of Latakia. The Turkish delegation, headed by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, was composed of twelve ministers including Taner Yildiz, Vecdi Gonul and Besir Atalay (the energy, defense... MORE

The withdrawal of the last combat units of the U.S. army from Iraq at the end of August attracted reactions from various Iraqi insurgent groups. On September 1 the number of U.S. troops in Iraq dropped to less than 50,000 personnel. The U.S. army announced... MORE

Having received unequivocal backing from voters in the constitutional referendum, the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) has moved to address Turkey’s structural problems, most notably the Kurdish question, through a combination of domestic measures, as well as regional and international diplomacy. The resolution of... MORE

Two shifts in Russian foreign policy attracted much international commentary last week: President Dmitry Medvedev’s decree on curbing military cooperation with Iran, and Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, participating in an Arctic conference in Moscow. Both issues, however, are loaded with controversies that muddle the substance... MORE

China’s diplomatic, economic, and security interests in the Middle East continue to expand commensurate with its energy interests and growing international clout. As the world’s second-largest consumer of oil and the third-largest net importer of oil overall, Beijing's energy security rests on the steady flow... MORE

Armenia and Iran are pressing ahead with the long-awaited implementation of fresh joint energy projects that will cement closer ties amid Tehran’s deepening standoff with the West. The two neighboring states are expected to start building, before the end of this year, two major hydro-electric... MORE

As the United States ends the combat phase of its occupation of Iraq and begins an “advisory phase” known as Operation New Dawn, there are fears that a resurgent Islamic State of Iraq (ISI – closely tied to al-Qaeda in Iraq) may target Iraq’s oil... MORE

Having emerged from a period of religiously inspired terrorist violence in the 1990s, Egypt has since been regarded as a regional bulwark against Islamist militancy in the Arab Middle East. However, a new ideological struggle is emerging between the religious scholars of Cairo’s al-Azhar University... MORE

Recent media reports suggest that a new phase of Syrian-Turkish military cooperation has begun against Kurdish militants of the Parti Karkerani Kurdistan (PKK - Kurdistan Workers Party) in Syria. However, a closer examination of the rapprochement between Damascus and Ankara and their respective policies on... MORE