While U.S. pressure on Pakistan for a full-scale operation against the Haqqani Network and other militant groups in the North Waziristan Agency is growing, the Pakistani military is urging the local Wazir and Dawar tribes of the North Waziristan to initiate a “Wana-like uprising” to... MORE

On August 30, seven policemen, one person from the emergency situations ministry and a civilian died in a double suicide bomb attack in the Chechen capital Grozny that also left 23 people injured (https://kp.ru, August 31). Two perpetrators of the attack were quickly identified as... MORE

President Dmitry Medvedev’s think-tank, the Institute for Contemporary Development (INSOR), has worked out proposals for reorganizing the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to raise its effectiveness and expand its role. The proposed changes would accelerate decision-making procedures in the CSTO; establish a right of... MORE

On September 3, the Russian security services killed four suspected rebels in the town of Baksan, Kabardino-Balkaria. Two servicemen, a woman and a child were injured in the special operation. This instance of killing suspects was unusual because it highlighted the Russian security services’ tactics.... MORE

On August 31, officials in Dagestan unveiled the plan to dispatch an additional 200 troops to fight insurgents in the republic’s Kizlyar district. The reinforcements are part of the 7,000-man military force that was created in Dagestan earlier this year. Dagestan’s territory was divided into... MORE

Preparations are intensifying ahead of the operational-strategic exercise Tsentr 2011 scheduled for late September in southern Russia, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Tsentr 2011 will test the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) rapid reaction forces (Кollektivnye Sil Operativnogo Reagirovaniya –KSOR) and its possible preparedness to respond to... MORE

Presidents Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, and Emomali Rakhmon of Tajikistan held a quadripartite meeting on September 2 in Dushanbe. The presidents gave preliminary consideration to possible security and cooperation arrangements for the region, in anticipation of... MORE

On June 29, 2011, for the first time in a decade, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force (PLAAF) J-11 crossed the center line of the Taiwan Strait in an attempted intercept of a U.S. Air Force (USAF) U-2 reconnaissance aircraft conducting a monitoring mission... MORE

The world caught a rare glimpse of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s five-day visit to China last month. Xi is due to succeed Hu Jintao as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at its 18th Congress in... MORE

In mid-July, Taiwan published the 2011 edition of its defense white paper (“National Defense Report”). This was actually the third such document released in the last 38 months—the Ministry of National Defense (MND) having published a white paper in the final days of the Chen... MORE