Latest Articles about Domestic/Social
Attack in Dagestan Undermines Claims That Republic Is Stable
On December 29, unidentified individuals carried out an attack at the Naryn-Kala fortress, a well-known tourist site in Derbent, Dagestan, killing a Russian border guard officer and injuring 11 other people (Lifenews.ru, December 30, 2015). The slain border guard officer was identified as Semyon Sporyshev.... MORE
Russian Strategy Seeks to Defy Economic Decline With Military Bravado
President Vladimir Putin concluded 2015 with the approval of a revised National Security Strategy, which defines the strengthening of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a threat and commits to countering it by securing the unity of Russian society and by building up the... MORE
Italy’s Lady Jihad: Maria Gulia Sergio of the Islamic State
The Islamic State has drawn an overwhelming number of female followers, who play a key role in recruiting other female volunteers, promoting the organization’s propaganda online and even engaging in combat operations. This contradicts perceptions that women are less prone to partake in violent Islamist... MORE
Waking Up? China Moves on Environmental Issues at Paris Summit
In 2009, the image of Chinese ministers asleep at their desks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was taken as a metaphor for the world’s torpid movement on environmental issues. With the results of the recent Paris Conference on Climate Change showing... MORE
China’s Draft Cybersecurity Law
In early December, China and the United States reached an agreement in their first round of high-level dialogue on fighting cybercrime and other malicious cyber activities (China Daily, December 2; Legal Daily, December 2). The meeting marked a significant step for both countries in establishing... MORE
Mapping China’s Small Arms Trade: China’s Illicit Domestic Gun Trade
This is part one of a two-part series examining China’s arms trade. China is one of the world’s top small arms producers, and the products of official arms companies such as Norinco (北方工业) make regular appearances in conflicts around the globe. In 2014, Chinese arms... MORE
Office of Largest Opposition Party in Georgia Comes Under Attack
On the night of December 9, unidentified assailants attacked an office of the most influential opposition party of Georgia, United National Movement (UNM), in the town of Dedoplistskaro, near the capital of Tbilisi (Civil Georgia, December 10). Former Georgian president (2008–2013) and the current governor... MORE
Young Islamic Radicals Carry out Arson Attacks on Sufi Tombs in Chechnya
Chechnya’s two-century-old Sufi tradition experienced its first crisis 30 years ago, when the first Salafists appeared in the republic. The Salafists did not simply proclaim the supremacy of their teachings, but aspired to take power in the republic. The Salafist aim of grabbing power sparked... MORE
Islamic State and West Africa
2015 marked the year when “Boko Haram” evolved from an ostensibly domestic-rooted and globally unaffiliated militant group into a “Province” in the Islamic State’s global structure. This transition was formalized on March 7, 2015, when “Boko Haram” leader Abubakr Shekau pledged baya’a, or allegiance, to... MORE
Europe’s Jihadist Pipeline to Syria
As previous papers have outlined, the Islamic State poses a range of different threats to different people. One is a more or less conventional threat to the state structure in the Middle East. The other is an unconventional threat to countries further afield, including in... MORE