The Minister of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan Yavar Jamalov held a press conference, on December 17, to discuss the outcomes of 2017 for the country’s defense industry sector. The minister pointed out that this past year, two additional military-production factories were built in Azerbaijan. Thus,... MORE

In the four years that have passed since Russia annexed Crimea, the number of Russian submarines active in the Black Sea has grown from one to seven. These submarines pose a grave threat to the security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) eastern flank.... MORE

The biggest success for all three Baltic countries—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—last year was the arrival of the multinational battalion groups to the region, thus implementing the decisions reached at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) 2016 summit in Warsaw (see EDM, February 23, 2017). Furthermore,... MORE

Vladimir Putin talks boldly about expanding the Russian military and especially the Russian fleet, but any expansion of the latter is, at best, many years away. Not only does it simply take a long time to build and launch new ships, but the largest planned... MORE

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced, on January 4, 2018, that the Russian Armed Forces stationed at the Khmeimim airbase, in Syria, were attacked by “a group of militants.” The armed assault, which occurred on December 31, 2017, claimed the lives of... MORE

The year 2017 could be considered a tranquil one for Armenia’s domestic and international political life. It passed without a repeat of anything as violent or dramatic as, for instance, the “four-day war”—the outbreak of clashes along the line of contact in Karabakh, between April... MORE

Since late December 2017, Russia’s military facilities in Syria have been subjected to a series of attacks attributed to militants or terrorists. Although some damage was inflicted to Aerospace Forces (Vozdushno Kosmicheskikh Sil—VKS) platforms at the Khmeimim airbase near Latakia, on December 31, a more... MORE

Premature announcements of political triumphs often result in negative blowback, but Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of victory in the Syrian war was debunked particularly swiftly (see EDM, January 11, 2018). Putin’s definition of victory included three key points: asserting the legitimacy of Bashar al-Assad’s... MORE

China is moving up plans for the completion of its military reforms and modernization. Shortly after the close of the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping announced that the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) would essentially... MORE

The PLA Rocket Force is continuing to upgrade its missile forces and shift its emphasis from a posture of immobile and vulnerable positions hidden deep in mountains to a highly mobile and more survivable mode. A new CCTV documentary also reveals that China’s multiple independently... MORE