Kazakhstan has recently participated in international military exercises with its NATO partners as well as through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in what at first sight appears to confirm that its multi-vector foreign policy also strongly influences its defense and security policy. Nonetheless, the scope, intensity and seriousness attached to the country’s defense and security relations with Moscow and its involvement in the CSTO goes far above the lip service it pays to cooperation with NATO. This critical distinction in Astana’s defense policy is amply demonstrated by the country hosting the CSTO’s first peacekeeping exercises from October 8 to October 17 (Interfax, October 3; see EDM, September 11). READ MORE

NATO Defence Ministers took stock of progress in improving Allied defence capabilities and endorsed the first stage of planning for the post-2014 training and assistance mission in Afghanistan, in a two-day meeting in Brussels. READ MORE

Our great and powerful editor has requested—nay, demanded!—a series of posts exploring how a U.S.-China war might unfold. That sounds like a request for prophecy. But making predictions is a dicey business, as the equally great and powerful sage Yogi Berra reportedly observed—especially when they’re about the future. The Naval Diplomat is no clairvoyant. Undeterred, we nonetheless commence a five-post cycle exploring some of the big ideas likely to shape each phase of a Far Eastern maelstrom. READ MORE

Lithuania's three opposition parties – the Labor Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Order and Justice Party – agreed to set up a working group in the early hours of Monday for talks on a ruling coalition and agreed to support each other's candidates in the run-off ballot for the Seimas in single-member constituencies. READ MORE