In two battlegrounds 1,500 kilometers apart, veteran Chechen freelance fighters are being rebuked by those with whom they aligned against a common foe. In June, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main rebel group in the Idlib Governorate of Syria, issued a demand that the hundreds... MORE

Introduction The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is pursuing various hypersonic delivery systems to augment its already impressive arsenal of precision strike capabilities. Hypersonic missiles are emerging as a highly valued weapon system for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and other advanced militaries due... MORE

Introduction On May 19, the Israeli Embassy in China protested what it called “blatant anti-Semitism” on a Chinese international news program, after the CGTN broadcaster Zheng Junfeng (郑俊峰) openly wondered whether the U.S. position toward Israel was the result of the influence of “wealthy Jews... MORE

Turkmenistan’s longstanding neutrality has kept it out of Russian regional security arrangements like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which has constrained the level of influence Moscow could have in this notoriously insular Central Asian republic. But now, China... MORE

On July 25, Russia celebrated Navy Day (see EDM, July 26). With plenty of pomp and circumstance, naval parades were held at various Russian Military-Maritime Fleet (Voyenno-Morskoy Flot—VMF) bases, from Petropavlovsk (Kamchatka) and Vladivostok (the main bases of the Pacific Fleet, in the east), to... MORE

A close examination of the Russian government’s public positions on the impending Taliban takeover of Afghanistan provides a revealing picture of Moscow’s approach to conflicts abroad and of its posture in Central Asia more specifically. While reveling in Washington’s failure in Afghanistan (TASS, July 16,... MORE

On July 19, Russia’s Northern Fleet conducted another successful test of the 3M22 Tsirkon hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile. The test launch occurred in the White Sea, striking a stationary ground target at a range of 350 kilometers. Its success marks an additional step toward the... MORE

In a further sign of the rising importance of Cossack neo-imperial structures in Russia’s current political system, apparently President Vladimir Putin recently expressed support for the idea of creating Cossack battalions within the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia). The presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal... MORE

Combat ships lined the Neva River in St. Petersburg and crowded the harbor of the nearby Kronstadt naval base last Sunday (July 25) for the parade marking the 325th anniversary of Russia’s navy, the Military-Maritime Fleet (Voyenno-Morskoy Flot—VMF). It was only the sixth such Navy... MORE

The sudden collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), in December 1991, and fracturing into 15 independent states effectively destroyed its unified, centrally planned, autarkic economy. The massive former Soviet defense sector was particularly hard-hit; during the 1990s, it scrambled to cope with... MORE