Latest Articles about United States
Beijing Rejects Any Involvement in Nuclear Arms Limitation Talks
Introduction Recent years have been contentious in terms of nuclear arms control negotiations between the United States and the Russian Federation. The United States withdrew from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in February 2019, citing Russian violations of the agreement. In April 2019,... MORE
Rethinking the “Quad” Security Concept in the Face of a Rising China
Introduction On October 19, it was announced that Australia would be joining India, Japan, and the United States in the 2020 Malabar Exercises for the first time since 2017. The 2020 Malabar Exercises are anticipated to be held in the Bay of Bengal and the... MORE
Three Seas Initiative Turns Five Years Old, With Summit Focusing on Digital Sphere
On October 19–20, Tallinn, Estonia, hosted the fifth summit of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI), a forum for dialogue involving a dozen European Union member states located in Central and Eastern Europe (ERR, October 19). The regional initiative was informally inaugurated in September 2015, on... MORE
Pompeo’s Call to Lukashenka and Aversion to Consensus-Building in Belarus
Following United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s Saturday (October 24) morning call to Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Belta, October 24), the international dimension of the situation in Belarus has grown even more intricate. According to reporting by the Telegram channel “Poole One,” “Lukashenka described... MORE
Kremlin Overrules Own Defense and Foreign Policy Establishment on Arms Control
With the election in the United States less than three weeks away, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise strategic concession to the Donald Trump administration—apparently against the consensus opinion of Russia’s military and diplomatic bureaucracy. The Kremlin proposal looks designed to help US President... MORE
Diplomatic Visits, New Arms Sales, and PLA Provocations Raise Tensions in the Taiwan Strait
Introduction Events throughout 2020 have seen a measured but steady increase in tensions surrounding Taiwan. The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues to deny any legitimacy to the democratically-elected government of the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. The PRC also continues... MORE
The Kremlin Is Contingency Planning for a Biden Presidency
The Russian state TV propaganda machine continues to ridicule Democratic Party presidential contender Joseph Biden and promoting the incumbent, Donald Trump, portrayed as strong and full of energy after overcoming his bout with the COVID-19 coronavirus (Vesti, October 13). The message to the Russian public... MORE
Russian Disinformation Shadows Ukrainian-British-US Joint Endeavor 2020 Exercise
The Russian Armed Forces’ largest military exercise of the year, Kavkaz 2020, was held on September 21–23, in the southwestern part of the country (TASS, September 20). Although, officially, the Kavkaz maneuvers were presented as having nothing to do with Ukraine, some non-Russian experts warned... MORE
Post-Lukashenka Belarus: Close Ties to Moscow but Improved Relationship With the West?
Arriving at some clarity regarding the situation in Belarus has become harder than ever before. An unstable equilibrium begets a cacophony of opinions that do not lend themselves to generalization or to teasing out a common idea. Alexander Klaskovsky of Belapan writes, “[Presidents Alyaksandr] Lukashenka... MORE
Russia, Iran Expand Military Cooperation Against US and Europe in Gulf
The intensification of the military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in recent days has overshadowed what may prove to be an equally, if not more, fateful shift in the Caucasus: the expansion of Russian and Iranian military-to-military ties, involving not only joint maneuvers in the... MORE