On August 5, a group of protesters blocked an international rail line in Dagestan for two hours. The railway links Russia with Azerbaijan and Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala, with Moscow. The protesters were from the village of Komsomolskoye in northern Dagestan’s Kizilyurt district and were protesting... MORE

Since 2008, Russia has been attempting to substantially reform its armed forces, and in 2010, it launched a massive procurement or State Armaments Program (SAP) for 2011-2020. That program calls for spending 23 trillion rubles ($723 billion) by 2020 to attain an armed force that... MORE

On Monday, August 6, the Collective Rapid Reaction Force (in Russian – KSOR) of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) launched this year’s military exercise at the Chebarkul training site of Russia’s Chelyabinsk region, close to the border with Kazakhstan. This five-day exercise codenamed Rubezh-2012... MORE

Since the reform of Russia’s conventional armed forces began in October 2008, Colonel-General Vladimir Shamanov has fought to protect the country’s elite airborne forces (Vozdushno Desantnye Voiska – VDV) from many of the main elements of the transformation process. While the Armed Forces were downsized,... MORE

The US Congress’s consideration of future policy on Central Asia during the July 24 hearing of the Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia of the House Foreign Affairs Committee received widespread coverage in Central Asian and Russian media. However, US policymakers showed no awareness of the... MORE

On August 1, Circassian activists marked the Day of the Repatriated Person in the North Caucasus. This year, the celebrations were strongly influenced by the Syrian crisis, turning into an event of solidarity with the Syrian Circassians. On the same day, several Circassian organizations jointly... MORE

By: Dario Cristiani, Michael W. S. Ryan, Camille Tawil, Jacob Zenn In this Special Report on the Libya Elections we examine the entrance of militant leaders into the political scene as the country recovers from several decades of Gaddafi's rule. This 2012 Quarterly Special Report features five articles and... MORE

After decades of largely unsuccessful effort, China's submarine-based nuclear deterrent finally is taking shape with the Type-094, or Jin-class, nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) and its intended armament, the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). The 2012 Department of Defense report on Chinese military and security developments indicates... MORE

For more than two decades Beijing has pursued a consistent policy in the South China Sea composed of two main elements: gradually strengthening the country’s territorial and jurisdictional claims while at the same time endeavoring to assure Southeast Asian countries of its peaceful intentions. Recent... MORE

A multitude of rumors and speculation exists about the connection between Islamic radicals from Central Asia and the North Caucasus. The following will seek to separate rumor from reality, while analyzing the breadth, scope and policy consequences of these links. There are, first of all,... MORE