*Read Part One. Russia’s war aims in Ukraine fall into two main categories: pre-programmed goals, which were announced from the start of the war (still being paid some lip service to date), and opportunity goals, which the Kremlin might have anticipated when planning the war... MORE

Russia’s political and military aims in Ukraine are continuously evolving throughout the course of the ongoing war. Its blitzkrieg in February and March 2022 failed to defeat and subdue Ukraine outright. Moscow accordingly reverted to the strategy and tactics of gradualism. From last March onward,... MORE

On March 9, Czech president-elect and former North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Chairman Petr Pavel will take office in the Prague Castle. As only the fourth president of the republic, Pavel plays a central role in shaping presidential norms and influencing the political climate of... MORE

Introduction Taiwan will hold closely watched presidential and legislative elections next January. While the major parties' presidential candidates have not been officially chosen, the nominee for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, 民主進步黨) has been all but formally anointed and, barring an unexpected event, will... MORE

Introduction Against the backdrop of the grisly Russia-Ukraine war, the security situation in East Asia may appear conducive to the continuation of the long peace that the region has enjoyed for decades. However, the devastating European war has cast a long shadow eastward. While Russia’s... MORE

The growing costs of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the Western sanctions imposed at the end of February 2023 on Atomflot, the Russian company that builds icebreakers for Moscow, have forced the Kremlin to cancel plans to build two of three massive nuclear-powered icebreakers capable... MORE

The Russian Navy’s participation in the war against Ukraine has been mostly limited to the Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla. Yet, even with these limitations, Russia has still lost one of its five cruisers and several ships of other types during the conflict (see... MORE

A wide gap, a chasm in fact, persists between Ukrainian and most Western official definitions of what would constitute a successful outcome in Ukraine’s struggle to defeat Russia’s full-scale invasion. Washington, Berlin and Paris have again indicated most recently that their support for embattled Ukraine... MORE

On February 19, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended the discussion panel regarding the South Caucasus at the Munich Security Conference. Afterward, they held a face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the conference with the mediation of United States Secretary... MORE

Squeezed between two major centers of power, Russia and the European Union, Belarus is supremely vulnerable to external influences. Consequently, one lingering area of inquiry is how exactly outside factors affect Belarus. Much of what has been published in conjunction with the one-year anniversary of... MORE