The Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) in Moscow has published a collection of essays devoted to the Russia-Georgia conflict in August 2008 (Mikhail Barabanov, Anton Lavrov, Viacheslav Tseluiko, Tanki augusta: Sbornik statei Moscow: Tsentr Analiza Strategii i tekhnologii, 2009., 144 pp., PDF:... MORE

Violence and unrest continued in parts the North Caucasus over the past week, as the Kremlin picked the governor of Krasnoyarsk to serve as representative in the new North Caucasus Federal District, and a top general accused Georgia of training North Caucasus rebels.Security forces in... MORE

The U.S. government announced on January 6 that it awarded the defense manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, a contract to build the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles for Taiwan. The agreement is part of an arms package that the United States agreed to sell to Taiwan in... MORE

The January 12 Tehran assassination by bomb blast of Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, a professor of physics at the University of Tehran, invites the prospect of new tensions over Iran’s controversial nuclear program (Islamic Republic News Agency [IRNA], January 12).  The assassination comes as Tehran faces the... MORE

In an apparent attempt to overcome deeply embedded suspicion and concern, the Chinese telecommunication giant, Huawei, has pledged to expand its operations in Bangalore, the ‘Silicon valley’ of India. In the next five years, Huawei plans to invest $500 million in its research and development... MORE

China’s growing role as a regional and global leader has brought with it increasingly complex and far-reaching political, economic and security interests, as well as new traditional and non-traditional security challenges for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As a result, in 2004 President and... MORE

It has been reported from Warsaw that a U.S. military base along with a battery of PAC2 and PAC3 Patriot missiles will be deployed next April in MorÄ…g, a town only 100 kilometers away from the Russian border (the Kaliningrad region). It was originally announced... MORE

Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko will face each other in round two of the fifth Ukrainian presidential elections on February 7. In foreign and security policies there are seven key differences between both candidates.1. The Black Sea Fleet based in Sevastopol. Yanukovych’s election program proclaims... MORE

On December 29, Franak Vyachorka, the son of the former leader of the Belarusian Popular Front Vintsuk Vyachorka, was transferred from his military unit in Mazyr to a hospital after having discovered scabies. He also suffers from high blood pressure. However, although the hospital doctor... MORE

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has reportedly opened negotiations to purchase unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) in Israel for use within the FSB border guard service. On January 13, Kommersant claimed that the FSB had entered discussions with the Israeli defense company Aeronautics Defense Systems,... MORE