Executive Summary: Moscow’s first direct attack on a NATO country may come against Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, a possibility that continues to divide NATO on whether a Russian move there would require an Article 5 response. Moscow’s interest in Svalbard, a demilitarized region, has grown because... MORE

Executive Summary: Azerbaijan and Slovakia recently signed an agreement on defense cooperation that opens the door to joint defense production, with Slovakia set to produce weaponry funded by Baku. Slovakia’s expansion of its strategic partnership with Azerbaijan takes on a significant geopolitical dimension, potentially reshaping... MORE

Executive Summary: Russia’s hybrid strategy against Ukraine continues to focus heavily on crippling civilian infrastructure to undermine the Ukrainian economy. Moscow is targeting Ukraine’s underground natural gas storage system, with the aim of weakening the European Union since it has increasingly relied on Ukraine’s storage... MORE

Executive Summary: Taiwan’s heavy reliance on energy imports, coupled with high energy demands, poses significant challenges, with semiconductor manufacturing being a major consumer. Environmental concerns such as droughts, exacerbated by climate change, and Taiwan’s fossil fuel-heavy energy mix raise serious alarm bells for the island’s... MORE

Executive Summary: Serbian President Alexander Vučić confirmed a new $300 million defense contract with Azerbaijan on February 6, following years of strategic agreements between the two countries. The new defense contract will give Azerbaijan a foothold in the Balkans, providing Baku with a path to... MORE

Executive Summary: The Biden administration's temporary pause on constructing new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals has prompted Russian optimism about boosting its global LNG exports and exploiting internal divisions in the United States. Some Russian experts foresee opportunities in the potential for decreased US... MORE

Moscow continues to claim that it has more than fully compensated for its lost access to oil and natural gas markets in the West due to sanctions by expanding sales to China, India, and other countries in the East (Politicheskiy Kaleidoskop, January 1). A closer... MORE

On October 29, the Israeli government granted a tender to the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) for gas exploration in Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the Mediterranean Sea (Azvision.az, October 30). The deal came two days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip... MORE

On October 8, the Balticconnector natural gas underwater pipeline running between Finland and Estonia was shut down due to significant damage on the portion of the pipeline within Finland’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). According to preliminary findings from the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, the... MORE

2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship project of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The project was initially thought so significant that it was included as part of China's 13th five-year development plan (NDRC, 2016). However, the decade-long... MORE