This week in Brussels, during a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov discussed with his Western counterparts the seemingly intractable problem of Moscow’s opposition to US-NATO plans for ballistic missile defense (BMD) in Europe.  Serdyukov stated there was no progress:... MORE

On June 4, two masked men from North Ossetia calling themselves “members of the anti-Wahhabi resistance” were shown on the Russian NTV channel. In the interview, which was cited by Regnum news agency but not available on the TV channel’s website, the masked men said... MORE

In an interview with the defense ministry publication Krasnaya Zvezda, Major-General Aleksandr Zhuravlev the Commander of the 2nd Combined Arms Army (CAA: headquarters in Samara) outlined the challenges his forces will face during Tsentr 2011. This operational-strategic exercise will be the main test for the... MORE

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is transitioning from a coordinated joint operations doctrine to ostensibly a more advanced form of joint operations capability: integrated joint operations (yithua lianhe zuozhan). Part one of this series explored PLA experimentation with joint task forces at the campaign and... MORE

The major change in leadership at the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress in 2012 will be Vice-President Xi Jinping replacing President Hu Jintao as the Party secretary-general, and eventually as chairman of the all powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) [1]. This transition period will... MORE

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS) on May 12th announced a series of new measures that would enable the government to better track the migrant population, including stepping up efforts to collect personal information, synthesize, and share information across the ministry and its provincial... MORE

Russia’s Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights held a conference on June 1 – 2 in Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala, devoted to the situation in the republic. Participants painted a bleak picture of the state of human rights in Dagestan, and... MORE

On May 10, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held a meeting in Gorki (https://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/2193) to discuss the development of the country’s military-industrial complex (OPK). On May 13, Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov – the chairman of the Military-industrial Commission (VPK) affiliated with the government – appeared... MORE

China is increasing its maritime surveillance missions and strengthening its capabilities to monitor vessels in areas that it considers Chinese waters. According to the 2010 China Marine Law Enforcement Bulletin recently published by the State Oceanic Administration (SOA), in 2010, the China Marine Surveillance (CMS)... MORE

On June 1 in Brussels, the North Atlantic Council approved a prolongation of the NATO-flagged campaign in Libya for another 90 days –that is, until the end of September (www.nato.int, June 1). The Alliance had originally set a 90-day term, counting from March 31 when... MORE