Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping called for tighter Party and state control of the financial sector in the quinquennial Central Financial Work Conference that ended in Beijing on October 31 (Xinhua, October 31). All seven Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) members as well... MORE

Russia is going to great lengths to maintain its war effort in Ukraine without having to resort to another wave of mass mobilization (see EDM, October 10, 31). Military-adjacent structures, such as the Registered Cossacks, are becoming increasingly important as a source of recruits for... MORE

The population of Kazakhstan will exceed 20 million people for the first time, and more than 70 percent of its residents will be ethnic Kazakhs sometime in November (Kazakhstan Today, November 1). Coinciding with this welcome boom are developments that threaten the stability of the... MORE

After taking a break for several months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has returned to employing nuclear threats. During his speech at the Valdai Club on October 5, Putin promised not to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine nor launch preventive strikes. He made clear, however, that Russia... MORE

Investigations into alleged misconduct and criminality by companies are to be expected, and welcomed, in any country. However, the problems facing foreign companies in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) depart from normal legal checks and balances. The lack of separation between the judiciary and... MORE

On October 6, Russia voiced its intentions to cancel ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which Moscow signed in 1996 and officially ratified in 2000. Russian President Vladimir Putin delegated responsibility for this move to the Russian State Duma, and the legislative body and... MORE

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Western analysts argue that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) use of the term “command of the air” belies outdated views of control of the air.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

Introduction In April, the FBI charged two Chinese-Americans, both U.S. citizens, with conspiring to act as agents of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by establishing an “overseas police station” on behalf of the Fujian Public Security Bureau in New York. The... MORE

Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military philosopher, was rarely studied in Soviet military academies, but the Ukrainian high command—seeking to “win first and start fighting after”—appears to be taking a page out of his treatise, The Art of War. Naturally, the intentions for a spring... MORE

Introduction Earlier this week, some residents of Seoul, South Korea, received an emergency alert to prepare for a potential evacuation following military reports that North Korea had fired a projectile southward (Yonhap, May 31). The alerts, which stemmed from an errant North Korean satellite launch... MORE