Special Reports

Special Reports provide in-depth analysis on a particular topic or issue and provide policy recommendations.

Turning Point or Dead End? Challenging the Kremlin’s Narrative of Stability in Wartime

  Key Takeaways The Russian government expects 2024 to be a turning point in the country’s war against Ukraine. For this expectation to become reality, the Kremlin is using means of reflexive control: It projects an image of a...

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China, Russia, and Power Transition in Central Asia

    “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Thucydides, 5th Century BCE   Since the days of Thucydides, scholars have written about—and policymakers have wrestled with—the dangers...

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Russia and China in Central Asia: Potential for Direct Competition

       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,...

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Kyrgyzstan: Central Asia’s Island of Democracy Sinks Into Authoritarianism

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,...

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Russia and China in Central Asia

  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...

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China’s Local Policymakers’ Strategic Adaptation to Political Centralization

  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...

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Russian Women in the Face of War Against Ukraine

  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...

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The Realignment of the Middle East

    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,...

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Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine

  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...

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A “Frozen Conflict” Boils Over: Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023 and Future Implications

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...

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