It has become increasingly common to proclaim the present standoff between Russia and the West as a “new cold war,” and one possibly worse and potentially more dangerous than the first because of a lack of agreed rules of play or crisis management. But until... MORE

In mid-March, the Armenian Ministry of Defense (MoD) released an 18-page strategic document entitled “2018–2024 Modernization Program for the Armenian Armed Forces.” The document lays out a framework for boosting technological innovation in the defense and security sector, raising the moral resiliency of Armenian troops,... MORE

The Airborne Troops (Vozdushno-Desantnye Voyska—VDV) have been much less affected by the military reforms initiated in 2008 than any of the other services in the Russian Armed Forces. Unlike the Ground Forces, the VDV has pointedly retained its divisional structure, despite plans to move toward... MORE

On March 24, the chief of the Russian General Staff (CGS), Army General Valery Gerasimov, delineated current top brass thinking on future warfare. Gerasimov placed his remarks within the context of Russia’s deteriorating relations with the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).... MORE

Moscow announced last week (March 29) that 60 American diplomats would be expelled, delivering a “mirror” response to every Western country that had sanctioned Russia in solidarity with the United Kingdom (see EDM, March 29). What appeared to be a tit-for-tat response in a diplomatic... MORE

The Moscow-backed authorities of separatist South Ossetia released, on March 23, Georgian citizens David Gerkeuli and Iosif Gundishvili (Imedinews March 23). The two men had been arrested by South Ossetian KGB agents (the special service of this breakaway republic still carries the old Soviet name)... MORE

The strong demonstration of Western solidarity with the United Kingdom in response to the March 4 poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, by a nerve agent known as “Novichok,” secretly developed in the Soviet Union, has apparently caught... MORE

During his recent visit to Yerevan, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council of Russia, Konstantin Kosachev, stated that Russian weapons sales to Azerbaijan are carried out within the framework of agreements that were reached prior to the so-called “four days... MORE

One of the clearest indications of the potential importance of any new innovation is the level to which various power centers fight to control it. As such, it is quite significant that the Federal Security Service (FSB) as well as Russian military intelligence (GRU) have... MORE

Russia conceived of the Arctic as a military bastion long before Vladimir Putin rose to power. Yet, since coming to the Kremlin, Putin has explicitly tried to turn the Russian High North into a showcase of his dreams of developing the next Russian “El Dorado.”... MORE