Immediately following the May release of its new maritime-focused National Defense White Paper, China is practicing “new type naval combat force” operations in the South China Sea (Xinhua, May 26; China Military Online, July 28). Several joint air-sea exercises involve “tens” of aircraft, hundreds of... MORE

Russia’s Armed Forces, feeling the strain of unofficial involvement in Ukraine and maintaining higher readiness throughout the crisis, have recently experienced a number of high-profile air force crashes and setbacks for military modernization. The annual VDV Day saw an opportunity to extol the 85th anniversary... MORE

Western governments regularly disagree with the Kremlin over the meaning of democracy and free elections. Nevertheless, Western diplomacy currently supports Moscow’s goal for local elections to be staged in the Russian-controlled territory of Ukraine’s east. If validated as apparently intended by the Organization for Security... MORE

Russia’s policy toward the Islamic State (IS) group in the Middle East is controversial. On the one hand, involvement in IS activities officially became a crime in Russia in February 2015 (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, February 27). On the other hand, Russia does not seem to have... MORE

The Russian nyet in the United Nations Security Council, which blocked the resolution on setting up an international tribunal on the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine, was entirely predictable (see EDM, July 30). President Vladimir Putin had described the proposed legal... MORE

Note: The views presented in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of the Navy or Department of Defense. Ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which is set to take place in Paris... MORE

Dagestan has not seen potentially destabilizing arrests of top officials since the arrest of the mayor of Makhachkala on June 1, 2013 (RIA Novosti, June 1, 2013). That is why the news about a police search of the home of one of the most influential... MORE

Despite the best efforts of both Moscow and Tokyo to sustain the momentum toward a full normalization of their relations and a genuine rapprochement (see EDM, February 24, 2014; June 10, 2014), once again Russia has tried to intimidate Japan. In June 2015, Russian Defense... MORE

To read Part One, please click here. At this point, Moscow seems content to watch Western diplomats urging Kyiv to legitimize the Donetsk-Luhansk authorities through local elections, and (as a consequence of this) enshrining an official status for that territory in Ukraine’s constitution (see EDM,... MORE

Ukraine is scheduled to hold local elections throughout the country (except the Russian-occupied territories) on October 25—the first such elections since the advent of a Western-oriented Ukrainian government. Under Ukrainian laws, passed in March (and corresponding with international law), elections of Ukraine may not be... MORE