On November 19, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev paid a long-awaited official visit to Belarus, where he met with his counterpart, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. On this occasion, the Belarusian and Azerbaijani state news agencies praised the level of bilateral strategic cooperation, widely citing Lukashenka’s words to... MORE

Many military commentators in Moscow and the West have pointed to Russia’s loss of a navy capable of blue-water actions (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, November 30), but they have not focused on the ways in which Russia is beefing up its coastal surface forces and using them... MORE

The Georgian opposition staged a rally, on December 2, in the center of the capital city of Tbilisi, protesting the outcome of last month’s presidential election. Demonstrators called for annulling the results of the vote as well as demanded early parliamentary elections (Agenda.ge, December 2).... MORE

The issue of naming a new secretary general of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has become another bone of contention between supposed allies Armenia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The alliance’s heretofore formal head, General Yuri Khachaturov, a former chief of the General Staff of... MORE

In one pivotal scene in David Lean’s 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, Thomas. E. Lawrence asks the British general in Cairo, Sir Edmund Allenby, to provide the Arab revolt with artillery. The general’s political advisor says that if he gives the Arabs artillery, he will... MORE

Russia’s Gazprom has completed the underwater portion of the TurkStream pipeline, which will be able to carry 15.75 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas a year under the Black Sea, through Turkey, and on to Europe. At a ceremony marking the occasion, Presidents Recep... MORE

Moscow has been expanding the size and capabilities of its Caspian Flotilla. Most directly, this has implications for the Caspian littoral states and their development of oil and natural gas from the Caspian seabed. But it also impacts Ukraine and its coastline because the Russian... MORE

The United States’ Federal Register published the “Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations” on November 5, re-imposing US sanctions on Iran (Federalregister.gov, November 5). This expected action by Washington had raised concerns in Baku about the potential implications of renewed Iran sanctions on Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz-II... MORE

The second round of presidential elections in Georgia is scheduled to take place in a few weeks. The first round of voting, on October 28, did not reveal an outright winner. The candidate from the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party, former French ambassador to Tbilisi... MORE

On October 15, the European Union adopted a new strategy on connecting Europe and Asia (Consilium.europa.eu, October 15), which became a major theme at the latest Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit, held in Brussels on October 18–19 (Consilium.europa.eu, October 19). Under this new connectivity initiative, the... MORE