Russia’s post-Soviet counter-transition arrived at its logical conclusion in 2020: Starting from a fledgling democracy in the 1990s, the country shifted to an “enlightened authoritarianism” in the 2000s, evolving into a barely disguised autocracy during the 2010s, now having finally settled into a quasi-dictatorship. That... MORE

Introduction Recent clashes between India and China over the Line of Actual Control (LAC) have created a potential existential crisis for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The dispute flared up in May of this year, escalating in June and resulting in the first deaths of... MORE

In the wake of Azerbaijan’s successful offensive against the dug-in Armenian forces in Karabakh and surrounding Azerbaijani districts, the defense ministers of Turkey and Russia, General (ret.) Hulusi Akar and General Sergei Shoigu, respectively, met on November 11 and penned a memorandum of understanding to... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently supplanted the Minsk Group’s triple co-chairmanship (the United States, France, Russia) as mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It was Putin, not the Minsk co-chairmanship, who... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Azerbaijan’s successful military action against Armenia’s occupying forces in Karabakh this autumn disproved Western diplomacy’s admonitions about post-Soviet “frozen conflicts” having “no military solutions” but “only political, negotiated solutions” with “no alternatives.” Armenia, however, had imposed its own... MORE

In the wake of the December 14 vote by the Electoral College, which officially confirmed the election of Joseph Biden as the next President of the United States and Kamala Harris as Vice President, Russian President Vladimir Putin finally, and reluctantly, congratulated the US President-elect.... MORE

The Azerbaijani military’s use of Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), purchased from Turkey, played such a prominent role in Baku’s victory over Armenian forces during the Second Karabakh War (September 27–November 9, 2020) that defense analysts around the world are now focusing on how... MORE

The Second Karabakh War (September 27–November 9, 2020) has resulted in an Azerbaijani national triumph, a self-inflicted Armenian trauma, geopolitical gains for Russia, another debacle of Western diplomacy, and Turkey’s reassertion as a regional power in the South Caucasus. The significance of Azerbaijan’s military victory... MORE

The United States and other Western countries have worked long and hard to marginalize Iran as punishment for its transgressions on the international stage. Nevertheless, Iran’s neighbors as well as states further out, including Russia, China and the Central Asian republics, understand that their plans... MORE

On December 11, project operator Nord Stream 2 AG restarted construction work on the Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline after an almost year-long break. This development, however, does not mean that completion of the 55 billion cubic meter (bcm) gas transit line expansion is... MORE