Executive Summary China is now undisputedly the leading economic partner for the Central Asia region, with trade and investment continuing to increase despite Beijing’s economic slowdown. Russia is still the dominant political partner for the region,...

Listen to a conversation with the Author  Executive Summary In the early 1990s, Kyrgyzstan was often referred to as an “island of democracy” in Central Asia. The “island’s” shores have receded over the years, but relative to its neighbors,...

  Introduction The two countries that have the greatest influence in Central Asia are Russia and China. Moscow and Beijing have common interests in Central Asia, foremost are security interests connected to sharing long borders with a mainly Muslim...

  Introduction According to its Constitution, China is a unitary state; however, as part of economic reform in the 1980s and early 1990s, the central government delegated administrative authority to the provinces. Administrative delegation authorized local governments’ autonomy in...

  Introduction Consider the following pieces of a puzzle. Russia’s war against Ukraine has revealed stories about the heroic resistance efforts of Ukrainian women: from a grandmother launching a pickle jar against a drone to volunteers with territorial defense...

    Executive Summary In the Middle East, reality can change in the blink of an eye. Misconceptions and misrepresentations that dominate the public discourse have it that the region has been embroiled in war since time immemorial. Still,...

  Key Findings Russia’s Black Sea Fleet’s supremacy on the Black Sea naval theater was contested in the early stage of the conflict. Ukraine’s anti-surface and drone capacities have challenged the Black Sea Fleet’s supremacy at sea, creating a...

Executive Summary This report has two objectives: first, to present an account of the conflict with an emphasis on analytically useful categories and context up to the present, and second, to discuss local, regional, and global consequences of the...

Almost ten years into Russia’s war against Ukraine and almost two years into the 2022 full-scale invasion, most domestic political and economic actors seem to have accepted the emergence of a new normal. Timelines and perceived limits of economic...

  Introduction Russia and the West have found themselves enmeshed in an expansive economic war as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. While the conflict on...