Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Russian defense reform initiated in October of 2008 was its aim to transform the Russian officer corps. Many reform critics and analysts focused upon the planned downsizing of the corps to 150,000 serving officers. However, downsizing alone does... MORE

Ingush settlers who come to Russia’s Sverdlovsk region, located in the Ural mountains, in search of work have found little employment and government support. “From the very beginning, this widely advertised [Ingush resettlement] program was doomed to failure,” the former representative of Ingushetia in Sverdlovsk... MORE

Turkey’s reserved position on the US-led missile shield ahead of NATO’s Lisbon Summit on November 19-20 continues to remain a major issue affecting Turkish-US relations. Since the US values this project as part of its overall policy on the Iranian nuclear program and its agenda... MORE

Unidentified attackers shot up the home of a policeman in the village of Sergokala in Dagestan’s Sergokalinsky district late yesterday (November 11). The gunmen fired automatic weapons but no one was hurt in the incident, which capped a particularly violent day in Dagestan, with eleven... MORE

Widely-cited reports of the inaccuracy and disproportionality of civilian to militant deaths in the CIA’s ongoing Predator drone campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan are grossly misleading. The most detailed database compiled to date, assembled by the authors of this article, indicates (among... MORE

Kyrgyzstan’s political leaders were surprised by the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) decision to renew its contract with the London-based and Gibraltar-registered Mina Corp Inc., the contractor that has been responsible in recent years for supplying jet fuel to the US Transit Center in Manas.... MORE

Actions taken recently by the local leadership in Dagestan have become increasingly reminiscent of the policy carried out by Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Russian leader of Chechnya. Shortly after an all-Chechen congress was held in the Chechen capital of Grozny from October 13-14, the Dagestani authorities... MORE

On November 2, Dagestan’s President, Magomedsalam Magomedov, signed a decree to set up a commission for the social rehabilitation of former militants. The commission is designed to help militants who wish to return to peaceful life re-integrate into society. Only three of the commission’s 14... MORE

Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, has expressed “moderate” optimism about a near-term resolution of the Karabakh conflict after hosting yet another meeting of his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts. The talks held in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan on October 27 underscored Moscow’s key role in... MORE

Komsomolskaya Pravda has highlighted a paradoxical and endemic problem facing military reform: large-scale corruption in the officer corps represent black holes into which billions of rubles disappear. Despite the reform, officers continue to rip off state funds. The corruption is rampant and figures offered in... MORE