After the Crimean (a.k.a. Eastern) war of 1853–1856 and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1856 ending that war, the Russian Empire began to turn toward the final conquest of the Caucasian mountaineers.  Russia was finally able to turn an army of 200,000... MORE

The May 23 Moscow conference on “Military and Political Aspects of European Security,” hosted by the Russian Ministry of Defense, saw an interesting admixture of old and new thinking on seminal Eurasian security questions. Little progress can be expected in reducing Russia’s and the North... MORE

The armed resistance movement in the North Caucasus has carried out suicide bombings ever since the start of the second military campaign in Chechnya.  On June 4, 2000, a 22-year-old Chechen woman, Khava Baraeva, detonated an explosive-laden truck near a Russian military target, killing three... MORE

The Barack Obama administration has been doing its best to befriend President Vladimir Putin’s regime, but seems to be failing. Despite intensive attempts by Europe, the United States and Israel to prevent Russian shipments of advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, President Bashar al-Assad announced... MORE

On May 14, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Russia’s 7th military base in Gudauta, in the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia. At the base, Shoigu toured a Russian military sanatorium and parking lot under construction, which is planned to house current and incoming military... MORE

On April 26, the authoritative Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta hosted a roundtable of experts on the situation in Syria. Although almost all the experts, as usual, accused the United States and the West of fueling civil unrest in Syria now and Libya and Yugoslavia in... MORE

That the ethnic and political borders in Central Asia do not correspond is widely recognized; but the region’s nine ethnic exclaves, territories within the borders of one country that are ethnically distinct and politically part of a neighboring state, has attracted little attention in the... MORE

A conference on European security, organized by the Russian defense ministry on May 23–24 in Moscow, served as a platform for the top brass to reiterate well-worn themes and perspectives on a range of issues: from the United States’ ballistic missile defense (BMD) system to... MORE

The armed conflict in the North Caucasus continues to kill and maim (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/224400/). Murders, kidnappings and explosions have become the daily routine in this part of Russia. Only suicide bombings carried out by the armed resistance groups provide a slightly different picture. Neither side of... MORE

On January 27, 2013, China conducted its second mid-course missile defense interceptor test, leading to considerable speculation among Chinese and Western analysts about Beijing’s motives and intentions as well as its plans for further development of mid-course intercept technology and possible deployment of its own... MORE