Latest Articles about Military/Security
Beijing Seeks Paradigm Shift in Geopolitics
China’s on-going tussle with the United States over issues including Taiwan, Tibet and trade is in a sense nothing new. For more than two decades, Sino-U.S. relations have periodically gone through rough patches over these and related causes of disagreement. What is new is China’s... MORE
Said Buryatsky Reported to be Among Six Militants Killed in Ingushetia
Russian news agencies reported today (March 5) that Aleksandr Tikhomirov, aka, Sheik Said Buryatsky, the Muslim convert from eastern Siberia’s Buryat republic who became the main ideologist of the North Caucasus insurgency, was among six rebels killed in a special operation in the village of... MORE
Russia’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Eurasian Security
Presidents Barrack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev have pledged to accelerate the negotiation of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The new agreement would replace the treaty that lapsed on December 5, 2009. Progress in the US-Russian negotiations has been significant with the working numbers... MORE
Signs of Growing Islamist Insurgency Create Apprehension in Thailand
Thai and U.S. officials are preparing for another year of unrest emanating from the continuing insurgency in the Muslim Malay-dominated Thai provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala. Officials are also bracing for violence from the possible spread of the insurgency to neighboring provinces and the... MORE
Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Intricate Web of Iranian Military Involvement in Iraq
It is no secret that Iran’s influence runs deep in Iraq. Most Iraqi politicians with close ties to Iran, however, are wary of tarnishing their nationalist credentials by admitting that they prefer to cooperate with Iran rather than the United States, in part because of... MORE
France Fears the Loss of Mistral Sale
President Dmitry Medvedev’s state visit to Paris was dominated by talks on Iran and Russian aspirations to purchase up to four French Mistral-class advanced amphibious helicopter-carrier warships. French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, was upbeat on both issues after his talks with Medvedev, directly connecting Iran and... MORE
Russian Military Quietly Adopts Network-Centric Warfare
Controversy returned to the Russian Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Defense Minister, Army-General Nikolai Makarov, following an interview on February 25, during which he seemed to signal a policy reversal on the issue of further developing contract personnel numbers (Kommersant, Russia Today,... MORE
Bakiyev Promotes Presidential Security Rather Than Tackling Genuine Security Threats
Kyrgyz President, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, is continuing to centralize control over military and security structures to strengthen the protection of his regime. Last year, he disbanded the Security Council and National Guard and appointed his cronies, including his own brother and son, to head key security... MORE
More Attacks Reported in Ingushetia, Dagestan and Chechnya
Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika yesterday (February 25) painted a negative picture of the security situation in the North Caucasus. Speaking at a meeting of prosecutors and officials of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Interior Ministry and State Narcotics Control Committee (FSKN) on the subject of... MORE
French Warship Sale to Russia: Another Symptom of NATO Erosion?
Pierre Lellouche was for many years a staunchly Atlanticist politician in a Gaullist-minded France. Currently serving President Nicolas Sarkozy as his State Secretary for European Affairs, Lellouche follows Sarkozy’s line in defending the French Mistral warship sale to Russia, regardless of its corrosive effects on... MORE