"Quand la Chine s'éveillera, le monde tremblera"
Napoleon Bonaparte
 
The awakening of this old sleeping giant, or more accurately its re-awakening, has led much ink to be spilled and many keys to be worn-down. For many, this phenomenon was of great interest naturally due to China’s huge size and its equally…

Drugs as global problemUsing of illegal and abusing substances belongs to the charter of global challenges of international security and peace keeping efforts. Drug threat is a part of background of asymmetric conflicts and threats linked with terrorism, organized crime and financial system therefore it cannot be ignored or forgotten which was proved…

RIAC Program Director Ivan Timofeev delivered a report at a workshop on Russia's role in the Euro-Atlantic security held by the City Council of Turku, Finland, and sponsored by the Alexander Institute of the University of Helsinki and the Atlantic Council of Finland.  The main points of Dr. Timofeev's presentation are as follows.   The issue…

In this blog entry you can find a compilation of some sources pertaining to conflict analysis and the measurement of peace that could be used for quantitative research. Some data in these sources overlaps but all these sources are free and easily accessible.
 
 

Data on Armed Conflict. The University of Uppsala in Sweden provides one…

The trend of outsourcing government functions to private contractors contributed to the creation and impressive growth of private military and security companies. Operating in hot spots across the world and providing a broad list of services to corporate and state clients alike, these firms are not simply compensating the occasional shortage in state…

The ultimate goal of science is and ought to be, to offer the method of improving control over the external world, to pave the way from the present state of affairs to the most preferred one. The field of international relations must not be an exception, as time, effort, and money invested in the research are useful as long as its intellectual product…

Euro-Russian relations have strained over the recent years in energy matters as certain vested interests shifted perceptions into the realm of what I would express as logical fallacies – technically making sense to a degree, but only when numerous caveats are applied. In this post issues like energy weaponry (enormous logical fallacy in my…

 As India braces up for the upcoming general elections, speculation with regard to the likely outcome of the elections and the likely Prime Minister is expectedly increasing by the day. Irrespective of the verdict of 2014, one thing is clear that Indian politics has always revolved around dynasties and individuals. Apart from dynastic politics…

Russia is willing to consider giving political asylum to the American intelligence agencies whistleblower Edward Snowden. But why do we do that?
 
So, Edward Snowden, former CIA and NSA contractor, is a man who has made public highly classified NSA surveillance data and currently in search of political asylum. First of all, the leak has become…

The rivalry between the US and China for primacy in the Asia-Pacific, and then possibly on a global scale, is becoming the main story of world politics in the first decades of the twenty-first century.
 
But how, in the first place, did China grow so strong as to be able to challenge the world’s only (as yet) super-power? The answer is…

Russia, Southeast Asia and ASEAN
Asia Pacific was in focus for Russia when it chaired APEC in 2012.  However, it did not necessarily turn Russia’s attention to the region, including Southeast Asia.  Domestic factors within Russia play an important role in determining Russian foreign policy; its policies towards Southeast Asia and in…

The collision of a Chinese ‘fishing’ boat into vessels of the Japanese Coast Guard in September 2010 near the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands triggered the rise of tension between China and Japan. After the arrest of the captain and crew of the boat, there was an uproar of violent protests all over China, demanding the return of their heroes as…