South Sudan relapsed into war on December 15, 2013, primarily due to the power struggle between South Sudan President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar. China once again found one of its sizable foreign investments—particularly in the oil sector—embroiled in local political turbulence.... MORE

In July, Western media reported that China’s Middle East envoy, Ambassador Wu Sike, estimated that as many as 100 Chinese citizens are believed to be members of the Islamic State organization (previously known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq (Xinhua, July 29). [1] While... MORE

Russia is using the ceasefire as an opportunity to cement and expand its military presence, directly as well as through the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR). Following the September 5 and September 19–20 armistice agreements, Russian regular and proxy forces have re-captured considerable... MORE

The ceasefire agreements, signed on September 5 and 19–20, have, in no sense, halted Russia’s multi-dimensional war against Ukraine. This includes a still-“hot” military conflict and a “cold” propaganda war. Nor could these agreements stop Russia from prosecuting the conflict in the absence of effective... MORE

Next month (November 2014), it will be 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, which ended the Cold War. But a new cold war is apparently swiftly taking shape between the East and the West. Notably, the Ukrainian crisis continues to unfold into... MORE

On September 30, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the fall 2014 Russian military draft. The government is expected to draft 154,100 men, the same number as in the spring 2014 draft campaign. The Russian laws on the draft will be extended to newly-annexed... MORE

In late September, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the defense industry, promised that the ongoing military modernization will contain a “nuclear surprise” for the country’s potential adversaries. It seems that in large measure this “surprise” relates to a major readjustment to the... MORE

Reiterating statements he made this past summer, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka instructed his government, on September 23, to create a highly mobile and advanced military equipped with modern, domestically-produced arms and vehicles. The seriousness with which Belarus’s head of state considers this task was unambiguous;... MORE

Practically every month, Moscow boastfully announces it has killed a leader of one of the territorial branches of the Islamic underground armed resistance. However, the statistics regularly provided by Russian authorities concerning the insurgency raise doubts about the authenticity of these claims. Indeed, the number... MORE

Someone looking at a map of the Caucasus would be surprised to see that only three transportation links cut across the Main Caucasus Ridge connecting the North and South Caucasus. This was not always the case. Prior to the Russian conquest of the North Caucasus... MORE