Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s visit of to the occupied Azerbaijani territories, on March 25, 2017, and his recent statements pertaining to Armenian military drills there demonstrate Yerevan’s unwillingness to settle the conflict via peaceful negotiations. During the final phase of military exercises in the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh... MORE

Midday on Monday, April 3, a homemade bomb filled with metal shrapnel exploded in a train car of the St. Petersburg metro as it was moving between stations. It was not rush hour, but the train was crowded: 14 people died and over 50 were... MORE

Since the Russian seizure of Crimea, many Western analysts have come to habitually scrutinize the annual speeches of Army General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff. This focus was initially prompted by his 2013 address to the Academy of Military Sciences and his... MORE

On March 7, the United States began installation of a Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system in on a golf course outside Seoul, South Korea. Washington and Seoul did so over strong economic and diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which argued that THAAD posed a threat... MORE

Violence along China’s border with Myanmar is threatening yet again to spill across into Yunnan Province. According to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, more than 20,000 refugees have fled into Yunnan after renewed fighting between the Kachin Independence Army and Myanmar’s Armed Forces (Tatmadaw).... MORE

China’s new theater command structure represents a major advancement in building a streamlined joint command structure. One key remaining bottleneck is intelligence sharing. Accurate and timely intelligence is always a key component of any successful military operation, and especially so for the advanced joint operations... MORE

In November 2016, Hong Kong authorities seized nine Singaporean Terrex infantry carrier vehicles en route home after training exercises in Taiwan (Today News, November 29, 2016; Phoenix News, November 30, 2016). The carriers were taking the same route shipping containers have taken for decades as... MORE

Among recent changes in the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) leadership, the appointment of Vice Admiral Yuan Yubai to Commander of the Southern Theater Command is particularly noteworthy (PLA Daily, January 23). Yuan is the first and only non-Army officer ever to command a Military Region... MORE

The first quarter of 2017 was marked by a renewed escalation of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. The increased military confrontation began in the vicinity of Donetsk, at the end of January, when saboteur-reconnaissance groups of Russia-backed militants made an attempt to seize the... MORE

President Petro Poroshenko has banned cargo traffic between the areas held by Moscow-backed militants in the Donbas area and slapped sanctions on the Ukrainian subsidiaries of Russian state-owned banks. This appears logical, given the continuing Russian occupation of Crimea and assistance to the rebels. However,... MORE