... Konstantin Sivkov
On the eve of Victory Day, we met with Commodore (Ret.)
Konstantin Sivkov
, Doctor of Military Science and Vice-President of the Academy for Geopolitical Problems, to get his opinion about changes in military strategy since World War II.
From 1945 until the present day, military strategy has been transforming step by step alongside changes made to weapon systems, beginning with the emergence of nuclear weapons, which have established a threshold for conflict escalation between ...
... in long-term Ukrainian political affairs. Those responsible for leading the Maidan revolution were equally blind or presumptuous: while they are quick to lay blame on Russia now, it is obvious going back two months that they were completely caught unaware and off-guard that anyone on the outside would have words or actions for their behavior other than simple congratulatory phone calls. Obviously, this has proven to be a rather large mistake.
A second aspect to play out from the Maidan revolution ...
... as a new framework to study modern security challenges, it has been very busy trying to show how the implications of human security can be intrusive and even invasive of state sovereignty. Indicative of its confidence in projecting its own power outward across the global community, ‘non-traditional security’ includes not just people and populations but actual state security as well. Thus, China definitively inserts the rights and obligations of the state, and the chief imperative of ...
The debate over the applicability or non-applicability of international law to cyber war and the need for a cyber-specific international treaty might be irrelevant. Both camps, pro and con, argue about the need for cyber war to have the Law of Armed Conflict or some new international legal project properly cover the cyber domain. Both ...
... of authoritarian regime change where radical Islam already exists. While the West has been comfortable viewing the Arab Spring as a groundswell of grassroots democratic ideals and sought to actively encourage and support its development, Russia has warily seen it as a potential ‘Great Islamist Revolution.’ Keeping in mind the new regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and Libya are not exactly blossoming with democratic institutions and stability and the Russian skepticism about Arab Spring ...
... If China does seek to meet its water demand through the use of transboundary waterways, the country will have to deal with discontented neighbors that rely on these waterways for their own livelihoods. This may very well spark the beginnings of water wars in the region and is a prime example of where intelligence communities at the regional level will begin to reorient their local priorities.
NILE RIVER BASIN (NRB)
Over the last quarter century, many civil conflicts were fought within and among ...
... given the way the United States has developed weaponized drone technology, made legal discussions about norms and ethics opaque and aribtrary, and employed drone attacks in some cases outside the standard conventional rules of engagement and laws of war, the belief that no country – as it develops increasingly sophisticated and fully weaponized drone tech for itself – would ever have a desire or consideration to use it against America or American interests/targets is founded upon, quite ...
... isn’t about how horrible it was for Russia to ‘annex’ Crimea (with Crimean consent) and do it basically without any violence. What is most horrible to these rather dull thinkers still stuck in and/or pining for the return of a Cold War environment full of purpose and dire circumstances is that they won’t get the chance to beat Russia back or deliver a diplomatic defeat of the same intensity that they feel they just received themselves. Thus, this situation CANNOT be just about ...
... Ukrainians being incited to kill Crimeans – as it does whining from the political losers. But that doesn’t make it any less relevant that Tymoshenko felt empowered to speak that way and formulate her thoughts in such barbaric and base terms. Beware the sheep with fangs, Ukraine. In the end the blood it spills might just be your own and for no good reason other than to satisfy its own power lust.
... Crimea would be counter-productive and potentially dangerous.
Why the United States should be disappointed: Russia outplayed it. Not only did the US not anticipate the initial Russian maneuvers into Crimea, subsequent ‘threats’ and ‘warnings’ from American authorities have not so much fallen on deaf ears as amused ones: when a Presidential aide to Vladimir Putin reacts to sanctions by saying the only thing relevant to him about America is the deceased iconic rapper Tupac Shakur,...