Introduction Some Western analysts argue that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) use of the term “command of the air” belies outdated views of control of the air. The term is over a century old, and its original concept has been complicated by technological and... MORE

On July 15, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met for the sixth time in Brussels via the mediation of European Council President Charles Michel to discuss the normalization of their bilateral relationship. The meeting took place, as Michel pointed out... MORE

On June 20, after meeting with Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced Germany’s recent endorsement of Kazakhstan’s efforts to create alternative trade routes and transport corridors to Europe while bypassing Russia. Steinmeier declared that such measures would further prevent the Kremlin’s... MORE

The growing importance of Iran for the Russian Federation and the shift in relative power between the two countries has been highlighted by a remarkable set of exchanges between Tehran and Moscow over the past week. On July 12, Moscow signed on to a declaration... MORE

*Read Part One. *Read Part Two. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has conclusively won the Baltic Sea; however, it risks losing the Black Sea in terms of naval posturing and discretionary air access. NATO’s summit, on July 11 and 12 in Vilnius, marked the... MORE

On July 18, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that “attempts to continue the grain deal without the participation of the Russian Federation must take into account the risks associated with the fact that the grain export route passes near the combat area” (Un.org, July 22,... MORE

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit on July 11 and 12 was held just 30 kilometers from the Belarusian border. Valer Karbalevich of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty noted that, in the summit’s final communiqué, Belarus was mentioned seven times (Svaboda, July 13). If, however, one... MORE

Some outside observers compare today’s Russia with the Soviet Union. But there is a fundamental contradiction between these entities: If the Soviet Union, with its communist ideology, fought against private property, then post-Soviet Russia, paradoxically, has turned out to be a “private state.” This state... MORE

Soaring costs and unexpected technological difficulties have led the Russian Navy to cancel serial production of its Project 20386 class of new “stealth” corvettes after completion of the series prototype, the Derzkii (Дерзкий,  “Daring”), under construction at St. Petersburg’s Severnaia Verf facility, part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation... MORE

When the United States Congress passed a resolution in 1959 requiring the president to issue a proclamation on Captive Nations Week every July, this measure was viewed both by its authors and those opposed to it as directed against the repression of nations by communist... MORE