The Bug Pit
So Kyrgyzstan President Roza Otunbayeva's visit to Washington is over, and while publicly the agenda was dominated by her acceptance of the "International Women of Courage" award and talk of democracy, we can assume that behind the scenes the discussions were heavy on the issue of the Manas air base that the U.S. operates in Kyrgyzstan.
Training and education is not the sexiest aspect of the military; it's much more fun to read (and write) about operations and weapons purchases. But as scholar Sébastien Peyrouse correctly points out, training is often overlooked and often more important than we think.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan military balance is getting a lot of scrutiny these days, and Jane's Intelligence Review has just published a good reported analysis (subscription required) by Emil Sanamyan that has a lot of interesting points. Among them:
A few weeks ago Russia announced that it was deploying new missiles to South Ossetia, eliciting an angry response from Georgia. And at the time, the unnamed Russian official who was leaking the news didn't try to avoid making it sound like a provocation; he said the missiles were "capable to effectively repel any aggression from Tbilisi."
Russia has been strengthening its Caspian Flotilla, adding anti-ship missile units on the southern part of its border, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports. It's another sign that the Caspian arms race is continuing:
Kyrgyzstan's president Roza Otunbayeva visited Brussels this week and met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. And Otunbayeva said she was asking for help from NATO in dealing with terror threats coming from Afghanistan. From her press conference with Rasmussen:
Azerbaijan has signed a deal to buy 24 Mi-35M helicopters from Russia, giving Baku a huge boost in its attack helicopter fleet. News.az reports:
Russian company Rostvertol signed a deal in September-October 2010 to sell 24 Mi-35M attack helicopters to Azerbaijan, Rostvertol General Director Boris Slyusar said yesterday.
The Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate has produced a report (pdf) on water conflicts in South and Central Asia, recommending that the U.S. do more to help prevent them.
Russian officials say that they're going ahead with plans to sell anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria, an action that could have a trickle-down effect of lifting the de facto arms embargo Israel now maintains against Georgia. Israel imposed the ban after Russia reportedly asked them to.