After a two-month Saudi military offensive along the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border, the Houthist rebels of northern Yemen appear ready to abandon their brief occupation of small areas of Saudi Arabia’s Jizan province. In an audiotape message, the leader of Yemen’s Zaydi Shiite rebels, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi,... MORE

Part TwoWhile French officials improvise ad-hoc excuses on this matter, the French ambassador to the United States has exceptionally attempted a more comprehensive defense of the proposed Mistral deal with Russia. Responding to a letter of inquiry from six U.S. Senators, Ambassador Pierre Vimont made... MORE

On January 18, Nikolai Bordyuzha, the Secretary-General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) announced that member states are planning several joint military exercises in 2010. He noted that the new CSTO Collective Operational Reaction Force (CORF) will hold an exercise at the Cherbarkul training... MORE

The approval process for boosting Russian naval power is moving forward in the French government. Paris and Moscow are negotiating the sale of one French-built Mistral-class warship to Russia, to be followed by construction of three or four such ships in Russia under French license... MORE

Part TwoThe long-term military implications of the Russian-Georgian war are addressed by Viacheslav Tseluiko. He warns that the popular conclusions regarding the weakness of the Georgian army during the conflict should not be taken as decisive evidence of the inability of Georgian forces to counter... MORE

In 2008, Russia “unfroze” the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia through outright war and occupation of these Georgian territories. In the latter part of 2009, the United States and Russia each accelerated negotiations on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, each pressing for some kind of quick... MORE

On January 21, public protest action took place in the southern Dagestani city of Derbent. The estimated 2,000 protestors demanded the resignation of the current mayor of the city, Feliks Kaziahmedov, and a new mayoral election.The mayoral election that took place in Derbent in October... MORE

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