On June 11, Azerbaijan unveiled its newly-acquired Polonez multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS, with a range of 300 kilometers) and LORA ballistic missile complexes (400 km), purchased from Belarus and Israel, respectively. Both weapons systems are designed to target major military bases and operational facilities located... MORE

China has significantly ramped up pressure on Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen was democratically-elected as the country’s president in January 2016. As Beijing’s external pressure on Taiwan grows, pressure for action is building on the Tsai administration, both from the opposition as well as from within... MORE

In 2015, speaking before the Federation Council (the upper chamber of the Russian parliament), Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin accused the West of “inflaming anti-Russian propaganda” related to Russia’s alleged militarization of the Arctic region (RIA Novosti, November 20, 2015). However, merely two years later,... MORE

As international attention is focused on the Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) led coalition's campaign to capture the strategic Yemeni port city of al-Hudaydah from the Ansar Allah (Partisans of God-Houthi) movement, the coalition continues to wage a war against al-Qaeda in the... MORE

A series of attacks by Muslim youth targeting villages in northern Mozambique has raised fears that a new Islamist militant group is gaining a foothold in East Africa. The group goes by the name Ansar al-Sunna, although locals refer to it as al-Shabaab after Somalia’s... MORE

On June 11, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev showed off the Belarusian-produced Polonez multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) and the Israeli-made LORA tactical ballistic missile system (President.az, June 11). The delivery of these rocket and missile systems from Belarus and Israel have military, political and psychological implications... MORE

Moscow is returning to sub-Saharan Africa in a big way by exploiting ties and themes developed in Soviet times: it is talking about anti-colonialism, providing university training for Africans in Russia, dispatching nominally “private” military companies to provide security, and exploiting the power of its... MORE

An underlying driver in the reform of the Russian Armed Forces, first initiated in the fall of 2009, has proved to be the adoption and adaption of “command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” (C4ISR) capabilities to offer conventional options against a high-technology adversary.... MORE

Ankara’s announcement last week (June 6) that it will begin building a railroad up to the Turkish border with Nakhchivan later this year, combined with news of Baku’s redeployment of military forces along the Armenian border of that non-contiguous portion of Azerbaijan (see EDM, June... MORE

Russian activity in the Sea of Azov has been ramping up considerably in recent weeks. After the official opening of the Kerch Strait Bridge, on May 16 (see EDM, June 1), Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) started carrying out systematic boarding and inspections of vessels... MORE