War-torn Syria is days away from the start of a negotiated partial ceasefire, which is supposed to temporarily end fighting between rebel groups and government forces supported by Russian supplies and bombing sorties. The ceasefire, agreed to by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his... MORE

Negotiations in the Minsk Contact Group on political issues are so configured as to push Ukraine into recognizing the Moscow-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR), first de facto and then de jure, through local elections and a “special status.” For its part, Ukraine... MORE

On February 22, which was a public holiday in Russia, President Vladimir Putin went on national television with a newsflash to announce that, after a phone call with the United States’ President Barack Obama, a US-Russian agreement was secured to declare a ceasefire in the... MORE

The removal of the sanctions on Belarus by the European Union continues to be one of the most debated topics in the Belarusian media. The most meaningful piece about sanctions, however, has arguably shown up not in Belarus but in the Russian daily Izvestia (Izvestia,... MORE

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu visited Kazakhstan, on February 6, where he and his host government discussed bilateral cooperation on large-scale transit corridor projects (Akorda, February 6). As a “new Silk Road” of transportation infrastructure slowly emerges across Eurasia, Turkey and Kazakhstan are becoming important... MORE

Twenty-five years ago, Moscow’s massive nuclear weapons stockpile could not prevent the Soviet Union from falling apart, because of a conjunction of domestic problems and opposition from abroad, the influential Izborsky Club says. Today, Russia has recovered from the disasters of the 1990s; but the... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Russia’s new representative in the Minsk Contact Group “on the implementation of the peace plan in the East of Ukraine,” Boris Gryzlov, has been closely associated with President Vladimir Putin for nearly 20 years, since Putin was still... MORE

At the beginning of February, members of Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) took their seats in the national parliament (People’s Daily, February 2). Though the transition was peaceful, Myanmar’s neighbors are anticipating political instability and ethnic unrest to escalate in the coming months, and... MORE

Note: This article is part of a series examining changes to China’s Military organizational structure and personnel. Part 1 examines what is known and unknown. Part 2 contains speculation as to changes that may occur in the future.  Parts 1&2 are available as a single document... MORE

This February marks the 69th anniversary of the 228 Incident in Taiwan, an outpouring of public rage that laid the foundations for Taiwan’s opposition parties and eventual democratic transition. Since the Chinese Nationalist party Kuomintang (KMT) relocated from Mainland China to Taiwan in 1949, Taiwan... MORE