In early July, James Appathurai, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, held a series of top-level meetings in Georgia. The Georgian authorities greeted their guest from Brussels warmly and with much fanfare. President Salome Zurabishvili awarded Appathurai with... MORE

Amidst continuing tensions with Russia, the Baltic States—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—attached tremendous importance to achieving success at this year’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, held in Brussels, Belgium, on June 14. Significantly for the Baltics, United States President Joseph Biden scheduled a meeting with... MORE

Introduction The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has identified artificial intelligence (AI) as an economic and security developmental priority. The State Council’s National AI Development Plan, released in July of 2017, calls AI “the new focus of world competition” and the 14th Five Year Plan,... MORE

Like the Russian Federation, Ukraine has created registered Cossack communities to integrate them into the state and society. That move has put these groups at odds with independent Cossack groups, some of which are opposed to such integration on principle and, in certain cases, are... MORE

During his annual televised national call-in show, on June 30, 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin mostly talked about the COVID-19 pandemic, as the novel coronavirus is once again sweeping through Moscow and the provinces. Implicitly (but deliberately) embodying the image of the “good tsar” versus... MORE

In April, Russia’s Ministry of Defense ordered units to move from their permanent bases to positions close to the border with Ukraine, provoking widespread concern about the rising tensions between Moscow and Kyiv (see EDM, April 8). Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu later announced that these... MORE

Although Russia’s Caspian Flotilla remains the dominant naval force on the Caspian, it is not the only one that matters anymore. All four other littoral states—Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan—have been building up their own naval presences, particularly since various intra-regional disputes over access to... MORE

A shooting skirmish or a deadly collision between Russian and Western warships or aircraft in the Black Sea would almost certainly cause a serious crisis, evolving into a military confrontation, a regional armed conflict and, perhaps eventually, a global war. Such a doomsday scenario appeared... MORE

On June 15, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan paid an official visit to Karabakh to meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, thus becoming the first foreign leader to visit the region following last year’s 44-day war. The meeting agenda included a trip to the... MORE

Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are becoming popular strategic assets and affordable military modernization solutions on the international arms market. Following Azerbaijan’s dramatic achievements in the Second Karabakh War (September 27–November 9, 2020), whose forces employed advanced Turkish military technologies, including combat drones, Ankara has... MORE