Russia and Iran have become allies in the Syrian crisis, together providing military and financial assistance and advanced armaments that are essential to keep the regime of Bashar al-Assad in power. This increasingly close alliance has been giving more clout to those in Moscow who... MORE

As the hullabaloo died down after staging a military exercise in the Russian Far East on July 13–20, senior officials soon acknowledged underlying systemic weaknesses within the Armed Forces. Commentators noted the massive scale of the so-called “snap inspection,” which included 160,000 personnel, involving five... MORE

The militaries of Turkey and Azerbaijan carried out joint exercises between July 12 and 28, in the latter country’s capital of Baku and its autonomous exclave of Nakhchivan (Hurriyet Daily News, July 15). In the midst of the exercises (July 16–17), Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet... MORE

On July 17, the Kabardino-Balkarian interior minister summed up the results of the first six months of the year during a press conference in the republican capital, Nalchik. The minister was forced to admit that the government had failed to achieve decisive results in the... MORE

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a long history of promoting its own group of moral heroes. Sino-Japanese War martyrs and hardworking small-town cadres have all been used by the government to push social values since the founding of the People's Republic. With an ongoing... MORE

Chinese analysts have been assessing whether recent developments, especially the presidential and U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) meetings, have affected U.S.-China relations in major ways. Their general sense is that relations have improved significantly since the nadir of 2010. This assessment, however, downplays the... MORE

As fresh violence erupted across Xinjiang in June, the outlines of a new ethnic policy—one rooted in Xi Jinping’s “mass line” approach— slowly may be coming into focus (Xinhua, July 3). One aspect of this shift may be the appointment of a new Chairman of... MORE

The regular appearance in the Chinese media of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) figures calling for aggressive foreign policy causes controversy and confusion among foreign observers. The most sensational remarks usually are made by academics at PLA institutions. Foreign media routinely pick up sensational quotes from... MORE

On July 12, during a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Army-General Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s commander-in-chief ordered a “surprise inspection” of combat forces in the country’s Far East. In the early hours of July 13, according to the defense ministry website, a “snap... MORE

Ukraine is preparing to take part in air defense exercises with Russia and Belarus and a multilateral air force exercise in Kazakhstan, all to be held by November 2013 (https://zakon4.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/200/2013). Minsk and Astana are key Russian allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and... MORE