While the wider Middle East remains convulsed by conflict and instability, China’s influence and interests in the region continue to expand in a familiar pattern. As the world’s largest consumer of energy overall and the world’s second biggest importer of crude oil, China’s Middle East... MORE

This is the first in a two-part series on Chinese energy security and renewable energy. In December 2016, China unveiled one of its most ambitious renewable energy (可再生能源) initiatives thus far with plans to invest over $360 billion as part of the Chinese National Energy... MORE

A new leader has just taken the helm of the world’s largest navy. Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong (沈金龙) reportedly replaced Admiral Wu Shengli (吴胜利) as PLAN Commander on January 17, 2017 (Global Times Online, January 20). On the morning of January 20, Shen offered Lunar... MORE

The Russian budget for 2017–2019, which the State Duma (lower chamber of parliament) adopted last December, predicts that federal budget revenues will continue to decline in the next three years and will drop to 15 percent of GDP by 2019. This would be the lowest... MORE

A special session of top officials in charge of personnel matters within the Russian Armed Forces took place in Moscow, on February 2. As is traditional for such conclaves, the attendant generals reported to each other about their respective successes over the past year. These... MORE

It has been one month since a group of demobilized Ukrainian soldiers and veterans of the volunteer battalions took it upon themselves (starting on January 25) to enforce a trade embargo with the occupied territories of Donbas (region of eastern Ukraine encompassing the Donetsk and... MORE

The Crimean peninsula is a valuable asset, especially for its military attributes. When Russia illegally annexed Crimea in February–March 2014, it notably gained full de facto control over Sevastopol (where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based and had until then been leasing its facilities)... MORE

Russia’s S-400 Triumf (NATO classification: SA-21 Growler) air-defense weapons system appears to be generating ever greater interest among a number of potential customers around the world, including China, India, Turkey and Vietnam. For the time being, this fact is widely acclaimed in Russia. But how... MORE

Since the beginning of February 2017, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has begun to implement the decision taken at the Alliance’s summit in Warsaw last July to deploy a rotational battalion-sized combat unit to each of the Baltic States and Poland. The bolstering of... MORE

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu used the shortened workweek before Red Army Day (February 23—officially rechristened “Defender of the Fatherland Day,” following the collapse of the Soviet Union) to promote Russia’s military successes. Dressed in an army general’s uniform decorated with military ribbons, Shoigu addressed an... MORE