Shootouts between insurgents and police and other violent incidents have been reported across the North Caucasus this week, a week which also marked the second anniversary of the proclamation of the Caucasus Emirate, the notional Islamic state declared by the radical Islamist wing of the... MORE

Until 2005, Chinese public perceptions of India were generally benign, even bordering on benign neglect. Yet, a radical change in Chinese public attitudes toward India has noticeably taken place since then and it can be attributed in part to an increasing number of Chinese strategic... MORE

Moldova's new government of the Alliance for European Integration (AEI) has inherited a deeply frozen negotiation process on the Transnistria conflict. Russia, a direct participant in the conflict, with troops in place, continues successfully to evade responsibility by portraying it as an internal Moldovan conflict... MORE

Last week the official Russian defense ministry publication Krasnaya Zvezda carried a three-part article devoted to the American officer corps and its professional experience. The article placed the American officer corps within a civil society, addressed the unique professional isolation of the officer corps, but... MORE

On October 1 the fall military draft began in Russia with the defense ministry publicizing its “serious reorganization of the enlistment offices system,” while admitting that recruitment levels had been adjusted downwards to 271,000. The scale of this change is staggering, which has provoked many... MORE

With the Adygeya jamaat announcing their intent to swear loyalty to Dokka Umarov, the chain of regional underground resistance groups has been completed and now spans the North Caucasus continuously from the shores of the Caspian to the Black Sea. The announcement came after years... MORE

Insurgent violence has continued across the North Caucasus this week. Russian media reported that a gun battle broke out today when policemen at a road patrol checkpoint in the town of Prokhladny in Kabardino-Balkaria stopped a car for a document check, and those inside opened... MORE

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has issued a new report highlighting the deteriorating human rights and security situation in the North Caucasus. The report's author, Swiss parliamentarian Dick Marty, said on September 30, one day after the report was issued: "In April... MORE

For all their tactical success, American drone strikes on terrorist targets in northwest Pakistan have taken a significant toll on U.S. public relations efforts in the region. Despite their popularity amongst counterterrorism officials in the United States, polls show that 82% of Pakistanis find the... MORE

Turkish State Minister Zafer Caglayan paid an official visit to China and met Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao as a special envoy of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on August 31. Caglayan is the first Turkish minister to visit China after July’s Uyghur unrest... MORE