Introduction Almost five years after the establishment of the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) in December 2015 (China Brief, December 21, 2016; China Brief, May 29, 2019), many questions remain regarding the scope and strength of the force. However, publicly-available recruitment information and admission data... MORE

Introduction Throughout June and July, much of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has experienced heavy rainfall from the annual late spring – early summer East Asian rainy season, a phenomenon sometimes called the “plum rain” (梅雨, meiyu). This year, the rainfall has brought severe... MORE

Moscow has maneuvered Ukraine’s Presidential Office into quasi-recognizing Russia’s military proxies in “certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions” (Russian and Ukrainian acronym: ORDLO) for the first time. The vehicle for this breakthrough is the agreement on “Measures to Strengthen the Ceasefire Regime,” negotiated... MORE

Russia’s naval development is heavily tied to the continued introduction of high-precision strike capabilities offered by the maritime variants of the Kalibr or Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile systems. These are mentioned ever more frequently in reports on the plans to modernize the Military-Maritime Fleet (Voyenno-Morskoy... MORE

On July 9, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) arrested a group of radical pro-Russia separatists promoting the creation of the so-called “Zaporizhian People’s Republic” (ZPR). In 2014, these individuals allegedly tried to seize power in southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia Oblast but had to flee to... MORE

The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the world into a recession and damaged global supply chains. Russia’s defense industry has not been immune to these disruptive processes, and it came under government-mandated lockdowns between March and June 2020. The shutdowns have already created delays in weapons... MORE

Many in Baku, Yerevan, Moscow and the West have expressed surprise at the Russian government’s efforts to remain neutral in the face of new fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But in fact, Russian military commentator Aleksandr Staver says, Moscow has always had good reasons to... MORE

On July 10, Armenia’s Security Council approved a new National Security Strategy. It is considerably longer than the previous version of this document, adopted in 2007 (Armenia’s first strategy planning document since the country regained its independence in 1991), and the updated strategy appears more... MORE

The “tradition” of staging an annual naval parade in St. Petersburg was established by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017, and every year the show has become more extravagant. Last Sunday (July 26), Russia’s Navy Day, 46 combat ships led by the newly built frigate... MORE

On July 17, Russia began massive “snap combat readiness” exercises of troops from the Western and Southern military districts, the Airborne Forces (Vozdushno-Desantnye Voyska—VDV) and marines of the North and Pacific fleets. According to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the maneuvers (which concluded on July 22)... MORE