Section: The National Interest (USA)
Unfrozen Karabakh Conflict Opens the Pandora’s Box of War
Pavel Felgenhauer Karabakh, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, Former Soviet Union, War, Eurasia The Azerbaijani-Armenian confrontation over Azerbaijan’s breakaway territory of Karabakh has been simmering for years. The 1994 ceasefire was broken time and again, soldiers on both sides were killed year after year, and all attempts to find a...
Russia’s Dysfunctional Defense Industry Needs Urgent Reform
Roger McDermott Russia, Defense Industry, Modernization, Russian Armed Forces, Russia The dysfunctional nature of an unreformed defense industry is ignored by the state’s leadership at its peril. Despite Russia’s defense budget sequestration, ranging from 5 to 10 percent depending on the source, the political-military leadership...
Drones: Russia’s Hot New Propaganda Tool
Adam Saxton Society, Russia, Syria, Ukraine Moscow’s state press swoops over Syria’s battlefields for footage. Russia is beginning to up the ante with drones, and not in the way you may think. Shortly after Syrian forces retook Palmyra aided by Russian air power, Russian television stations aired crystal clear, drone captured footage...
America’s Navy Is Spread Too Thin
Nikolas K. Gvosdev Security, Americas A handful of ships can’t project power everywhere at once. Earlier this month, I had the privilege of being on a panel as part of the Naval War College’s Regional Alumni Symposium, discussing the strategic importance of the Black Sea region, along with Michael Kofman of the Center for Naval...
4 Reasons It Would Be Dangerous To Ban Russian Rocket Engines
Loren B. Thompson, Constance Baroudos Security, Yes, we need to get rid of Russian engines, but banning them right away makes no sense. After Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014, everybody in Washington agreed it was time to stop relying on Russian rocket engines for getting U.S. military satellites into orbit. So it’s no surprise that...
Will the Russian Army Really Get 100+ Armata Tanks by 2018?
Dave Majumdar Security, Europe Economics seem to hold the key. Uralvagonzavod is set to deliver the first batch of 100 operational T-14 Armata main battle tanks to the Russian Ground Forces between 2017 and 2018. Russian industry officials had earlier indicated that the new tank was already in production—which came as a surprise to many observers...
Nuclear Deterrence: Still Relevant Against Russia
Constance Baroudos Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, ICBM, National Security, Pentagon, Defense, United States, Russia, China Russia continues to modernize its nuclear triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), bombers, and ballistic-missile submarines in spite of economic troubles at home. According to a new Gallup poll 18 percent of...
NATO Must Strengthen Its Front Line Against Russia
Janusz Onyszkiewicz, Imants Liegis, Elisabeth Braw Security, Europe Poland and Latvia’s former defense ministers have their say. On his visit to Estonia just before the 2014 NATO Summit in Wales, President Barack Obama stressed the importance of collective defense. “The defense of Tallinn and Riga and Vilnius is just as important as the...
How to Join a Ukrainian Militia
Alexander Clapp Society, Eurasia Meet the motley thugs of Right Sector. THE UKRAINIAN army was so pitiful when fighting broke out in the Donbas in April 2014 that President Petro Poroshenko had to outsource the nation’s defense to volunteers. By July, approximately fifteen thousand citizens and foreigners had joined “volunteer battalions.”...
A Return to Cold War with Russia?
Robert Legvold Security, Russia Moscow is no longer a superpower, but it is still a threat. Are the United States and Europe confronting a new cold war with Russia? Was the original cold war overly militarized? What effect will continued low oil prices have on Russia? These are some of the questions that Robert H. Legvold, the Marshall D. Shulman...
