Kuomintang (KMT) Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia led a delegation to China in August, which occurred in the immediate aftermath of the extensive live-fire exercises that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted around Taiwan following U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit (Focus Taiwan, August 28; Republic of... MORE

Introduction As the world embraces green initiatives on an unprecedented scale, so has the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — perhaps surprisingly — embraced the green movement, but has done so primarily to support its own political objectives. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has attempted... MORE

On August 20, two Russians and a Ukrainian were arrested in Albania as they tried to enter a defunct military factory in the city of Gramsci. According to Albanian authorities, the detainees were trying to film the factory, and one of them, Mikhail Zorin, sprayed... MORE

The murder of Darya Dugina—the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, who many view as the instigator for some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s more aggressive and expansionist ideas—in Moscow on August 20 has sparked three sets of questions: Was her father the real target? Who was... MORE

As anticipated well ahead of the curve (see EDM, July 21, 22), Russia has missed the September 11 target date for staging annexation “referendums” in Ukraine’s occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Moscow and the local authorities it installed in both regions waited until early September... MORE

In the USSR’s final years, Soviet propagandists and analysts routinely attacked the works of Western writers as being those of “bourgeois falsifiers,” arguing that their books and articles were fictitious because the ideas presented were at odds with Marxism-Leninism and Moscow’s position on most subjects.... MORE

The long-promised Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south has not yet delivered any breakthrough, but it still signifies a critical turning point for the war: Russia cannot hope to win by sticking to the pattern of trench warfare and artillery duels. Some “patriotic” commentators have suggested... MORE

From the outset of Moscow’s re-invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, nuclear threats and blackmail have been integral to Russia’s overall strategy. President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of the “special military operation” was accompanied by the usual blood-curdling threats, expecting that such loaded language would deter... MORE

In the period between the announcement of Washington’s “reset” policy toward Russia following the Kremlin’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and its re-invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States’ engagement with the South Caucasus was limited. During this time, US policies on the... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Russia resorted to military interventions repeatedly to stop Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014, 2022) from drawing closer to the Euro-Atlantic system. Those interventions aimed, in effect, to coerce Tbilisi and Kyiv... MORE