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Russia
China’s Military Reorganization – and America’s Window of Opportunity
In September 2015, as part of the festivities marking the 70th anniversary of victory in World War II, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would cut 300,000 troops. ...
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How, Why, and When Russia Will Deploy Little Green Men – and Why the US Cannot
The focus of applied methods of conflict has altered in the direction of the broad use of political, economic, informational, humanitarian, and other nonmilitary measures – applied in coordination with the protest potential of the population. All this is...
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Russia’s Role in the North Korea Conundrum: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in Vladivostok, Russia in 2002. (Photo ITAR-TASS / Vladimir Rodionov) North Korea’s nuclear test on Jan. 6, 2016 and long-range missile launch on Feb. 7 have...
Read more »Turkey, Russia, and NATO Enter the Danger Zone
On November 24, a Turkish F-16 fighter jet downed a Russian SU-24M ground bomber near the Turkish-Syrian border after it violated Turkish airspace over the southern tip of Turkey’s most southern province of Hatay. The clash resulted in the...
Read more »The Race for Drones
Over the last two decades, the United States has been the world’s pre-eminent user and supplier of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In 2013, the United States was estimated to have approximately 7,500 drones in operation, ranging from relatively small...
Read more »The Revenge of Great Power Politics
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A week makes. A week ago Tom Ricks of the New American Foundation wrote about the non-military nature of today’s news, and then Russia conducts an invasion of the Crimea. This isn’t to be critical of Tom at all (full disclosure:...
Read more »Russia and the U.S. Elections
Russian president Putin clearly prefers President Obama over Mitt Romney in the U.S. presidential election. But no matter who wins, all indications are that U.S.-Russian relations are likely to get worse. The reason has nothing to do with future...
Read more »The Far East Between Russia, China, and America
Overview Moscow’s relations with its eastern territories, especially the nine provinces of the Russian Far East (RFE), have significant security implications for Russia and for the Asia-Pacific community generally. With 36 percent of the national territory and 25,000 km...
Read more »The Crime of Russian Law Enforcement
As the Putin regime faces its first serious political challenge in more than twelve years, two recent developments have cast an ominous light on the criminal nature of the highest levels of Russian law enforcement. The first involves Alexander...
Read more »Russia and Syria
The failure of Presidents Obama and Putin to reach agreement over Syria at the G20 summit meeting in Mexico should not have come as a surprise. The Western world has been appalled by the Assad regime’s atrocities but this...
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