Introduction: China Renews Its Maritime Sovereignty Claims at the Expense of Vietnam The outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan has not deterred the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from pursuing its long-term strategic vision of asserting its... MORE

Western analysts tend to focus on the Iranian navy almost exclusively in terms of its ability to harass or block oil tankers coming through the Strait of Hormuz, an understandable perspective given the danger that Iran could disorder world oil markets if it was successful... MORE

President Donald Trump announced, on May 21, that the United States would be withdrawing from the 1992 Treaty on Open Skies, which permits reciprocated surveillance overflights of participating members’ military facilities as a confidence-building measure. The treaty depositary countries (Canada and Hungary) were sent official... MORE

May 21 marked the understated birthday celebration of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, already the longest serving in the post since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But the occasion also unexpectedly provided a public forum for a discussion of the current direction of the... MORE

The Crimean Peninsula has long suffered from water shortages, but these are now often exacerbated by the ever-more frequent winters with little-to-no rain or snow. In the last several months, under Russian occupation, those difficulties have become critical: according to Russian officials, the region has... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been seeking to return to Libya since 2003, when United Nations sanctions on the country were dropped after Muammar Qaddafi made amends to the West, denounced terrorism, abandoned plans to produce weapons of mass destruction and allocated $2.7 billon to... MORE

On May 13, Russian special forces launched a search operation across the Assa River, in Ingushetia’s Sunzhensky district, which borders Chechnya. The authorities warned local villagers not to visit the area. The security forces were combing the forest for a group of militants led by... MORE

Moscow’s efforts to develop, test and procure its new Su-57 fifth-generation stealth fighter have long stalled, with numerous setbacks and delays. While progress has been made, ongoing issues appear to beleaguer aspects of this complex development process, especially following the high-profile crash of an Su-57... MORE

A May 3 article in the Russian tabloid Izvestia describes a series of military exercises—or rather, what it claims to have been one extended exercise—in Kaliningrad Oblast that took place during the last ten days in April (Izvestia, May 3). According to the piece, the... MORE

Almost 20 years ago, novelist John Griesemer’s dystopian book, Nobody Thinks of Greenland, captured the dominant attitude of most of his fellow Americans about the world’s largest island abutting the Arctic Sea. But that viewpoint, which truthfully was never completely true, changed dramatically in August... MORE