Introduction In May 2018, the World Bank opened bidding to “all eligible firms from any country” on a $72.6 million submarine fiber-optic cable system that sought to enhance the Internet infrastructure of three Pacific island nations: the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Kiribati, and Nauru... MORE

U.S.-China relations appear headed for further deterioration despite the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) efforts to lure back American multinationals and Beijing’s relatively limited support for Russia in its war with Ukraine. Washington has characterized the "existential competition" with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as... MORE

Introduction In 2016, President Xi Jinping visited Nanchang University in Jiangxi Province to learn more about the work of the National Silicon-based LED Engineering Technology Research Center (Jiangxi News, September 25, 2019). The center caught the attention of China’s leadership after it received first place... MORE

After implementing a number of trans-Eurasian energy and logistics mega-projects, such as the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan oil pipeline, Southern Gas Corridor and Trans-Caspian International Transportation Route, Azerbaijan has also strategically committed itself to policies designed to turn the South Caucasus country into a regional digital hub (see... MORE

Three months into Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, the role of Russian military reconnaissance and communications satellites remains noticeably underdeveloped. Although Moscow has 102 military satellites in orbit, the efficiency of its battlefield reconnaissance, surveillance, targeting, and command-and-control systems still seems to be... MORE

Are President Xi Jinping’s recent turn to liberalized measures on technology firms and his commitment to using infrastructure projects to boost the economy an indication that the supreme leader has adopted a relatively pro-market approach to policymaking? At a late April Politburo meeting, Xi, who... MORE

On February 24, without officially declaring war, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine (Dpsu.gov.ua, February 24). The aggressor attacked Ukraine by land, air and sea. But alongside those military operations, Russia continued to wage its warfare in the cyber and information domains. The Kremlin’s... MORE

At the beginning of April, the hampered and decimated Russian forces that had been trying to conquer the Ukrainian capital retreated from the Kyiv region to resupply and regroup. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), a new potential direction... MORE

Russia has not entirely avoided contravening international laws and norms since the Geneva summit in mid-June, but its behavior has been an improvement compared to many periods in recent memory. United States President Joseph Biden impressed upon President Vladimir Putin, over the course of their... MORE

The final months ahead of the elections to the Russian State Duma (lower chamber of parliament) were marked by a total cleansing of the political field (see EDM, September 13). This included an aggressive crackdown on the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) (RIA Novosti, June 9), entailing... MORE