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

The Republic of Tatarstan, willingly or not, is starting to move down the same path as the North Caucasus region. This trend is exemplified by incidents in the republic’s capital Kazan on July 19, when an attempt was made on the life of the republican... MORE

On July 29, the Russian Navy celebrated with public pomp its founding by Tsar Peter the Great 316 years ago. In an interview with RIA Novosti on July 27 that was connected to the celebrations, the Navy’s chief, Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov, stated Moscow was... MORE

The fighting that began last week in the Autonomous Oblast of Gorno-Badakshan (GBAO) in Tajikistan (see EDM, July 27) has stopped, and it appears that a peace deal between the government and armed fighters has been reached. Amidst public outcry on July 25, the President... MORE

Moscow has marked the 20th anniversary of its “peacekeeping” in Moldova by multiplying obstacles to conflict-resolution (see EDM, July 27). State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigory Karasin, reading out in Tiraspol a message on President Vladimir Putin’s behalf, promulgated a new political... MORE

Russian diplomacy is piling up new pre-conditions upon old ones for conflict-resolution in Transnistria. For the first time since 2003-2004 (when two parallel “federalization” projects collapsed), Russia is openly proposing again to turn Moldova into a federation or confederation. Moscow has reactivated those proposals on... MORE

The Kremlin continues to struggle with balancing the needs of modernizing the conventional Armed Forces, renewing the strategic nuclear deterrent, and also forming and supporting the imprecisely defined high-technology demands of the Aerospace Defense Forces, while depending on a defense industry struggling to escape the... MORE

Continued wrangling between Dushanbe and Moscow over the renewal of basing rights for the 201st Military Base headquartered in Tajikistan’s capital has eclipsed Russia’s wider basing strategy in Central Asia and the extent to which Tajikistan’s security depends upon Moscow’s continued military and security presence... MORE

For over a year, India has been struggling to recuperate from the November 2008 terrorist attacks on the commercial capital Mumbai. In February 2010, the lull was interrupted by a bomb blast masterminded and executed by Ahmed Zarar Siddibaba, a top ranking Indian Mujahideen (IM)... MORE

After Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC - Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) leader Guillermo León Sáenz Vargas (a.k.a Alfonso Cano) was killed in a bombing raid in Cauca Department, southwest Colombia on November 4, 2011, the seven-member FARC secretariat needed only 11 days to... MORE