The security situation in the wider Black Sea region is quickly deteriorating and growing more dangerous. Six large, fully loaded amphibious assault ships (three from the Baltic Fleet and three from the Northern Fleet) sailed through the Turkish Straits into the Black Sea “for exercises”... MORE

Fifteen years ago, at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, President Vladimir Putin surprised the high-level audience with a speech that explicitly juxtaposed Russian and Western security interests. In retrospect, the tone of the presentation was argumentative rather than assertive, but Moscow added force to its... MORE

Population growth trends are destiny only over the long term, scholars have long insisted. But five years ago, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) demographer Nicholas Eberstadt warned in the research study “Russia in Decline” that the country’s demographic decline is imposing increasingly “unforgiving constraints” on the... MORE

French President Emmanuel Macron held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on February 7 and 8, respectively. Overshadowing the talks were Russian forces staging a war scare near Ukraine’s borders. Macron is attempting a solo act,... MORE

On February 7, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Moscow and spent over five hours talking with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in an attempt to negotiate a de-escalation of the present acute security crisis over Ukraine (Kremlin.ru, February 8). France holds the rotating presidency of... MORE

Chinese Interests Come Under Pressure in Myanmar’s Insurgency Jacob Zenn China’s involvement in economic projects in Pakistan has riled ethnic-based insurgent groups, which believe their peoples’ interests are being ignored, or worse, trampled upon (Terrorism Monitor, May 7, 2021). In Myanmar, however, this trend of... MORE

On February 1, the first day of the legislative spring session, the Georgian parliament adopted a resolution in support of Ukraine that fell short of mentioning the Russian Federation. The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party had tabled this resolution, which lawmakers adopted with 74 votes... MORE

In mid-December 2021, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received an invitation from his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Trend.az, December 15, 2021), and within a month, he was paying a working visit to Kyiv amidst the security crisis around Ukraine and a large-scale cyberattack on Ukrainian government... MORE

Russia’s conventional Armed Forces have deployed approximately 30,000 personnel to Belarus for the joint strategic-operational military exercise Allied Resolve (Soyuznaya Reshimost) 2022, scheduled for February 10–20, by far eclipsing any previous deployment to the country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 (see... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. After the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) predictably rebuked Russia’s maximalist proposals for new security guarantees, President Vladimir Putin promised a “military-technical response. Some in the Russian military expert community have suggested that these... MORE