Eric Jones

ISIS would be well advised to note history’s lessons as they begin to wade into battle in Afghanistan, a country known as “The Graveyard of Empires.”

There are many signs pointing toward a potentially violent intensification of conflict in the Caucasus.

On March 18, 2015, tensions between Russia and the South Caucasian country of Georgia were ratcheted upward with the signing of an integration treaty between the Georgian breakaway territory of South Ossetia and Russia. As examined in detail through numerous previous articles here at SOFREP and at Foreign Intrigue, South Ossetia represents strategic terrain in […]

On March 21 in Dagestan, Russian police forces effectively sealed off an entire block in the capital city of Makhachkala sometime in the early morning hours and proceeded to carry out an intense mission to root out suspected Islamist militants in an apartment complex. While reports have varied somewhat and timelines differ from one source […]

In February, the head of the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation, Ramzan Kadyrov, announced the creation of a “state-of-the-art Special Forces training center the size of a city” in Gudermes, Chechen Republic. Kadyrov stated that the construction of the training center would not take longer than a year and that the facility would provide […]

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visited the United States for the first time this past week, spending five days in the nation’s capital. Ghani is in the midst of an effort to fundamentally alter the tone of the relationship between the Afghan government, the U.S., and the world. Ghani was received warmly by both U.S. President […]

On March 22, voters in Moldova’s autonomous region of Gagauzia went to the polls to select their next governor (also known as a bashkan). Pro-Russian (and self-avowedly independent) candidate Irina Vlakh captured 51 percent of the final tally, ensuring her victory without a runoff election. The campaign for governor was marked by rhetoric both engaging […]

Lost amid all of the media focus on the Islamic State (IS) has been the focus on the threat al-Qaeda continues to present to the United States and the country’s security interests around the world. As the Afghanistan withdrawal policy was implemented in earnest last year, al-Qaeda largely slipped from the U.S. media radar, the faces […]

On Saturday, Will Rodriguez published a piece here at SOFREP that laid bare an apparent use of American-made weaponry by Iran in Iraq. My article is not a point-by-point engagement of Mr. Rodriguez’s piece. Rather, it is simply a response that highlights some potential alternatives for continuing to remain so rigid in our approach to security policy in […]

While the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to come under fire from European and American officials for their unacknowledged support of the rebels battling the Ukrainian government in Donbass, assassinations and accusations against other opposition leaders have begun to attract significant amounts of media attention inside Russia. On Friday, former Deputy Prime Minister […]

In part one of this article series on Uzbekistan, I explored the changing security dynamic of Central Asia and the impact that the adjustments have had on both United States policy towards Uzbekistan and military modernization in the former Soviet republic. Uzbekistan’s recent policy pivots, to include an agreement on acquiring military weapons systems from […]

An analysis of Uzbekistan and its role in the subtle but important changes in the security dynamic of Central Asia, and why you should care about it.