By Ong Tee Keat, Chairman, Center for New Inclusive Asia, Kuala Lumpur

On March 11th , 2020, Robert Redfield, the director of US Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), dropped a proverbial bombshell when he testified to the US Congress admitting that numerous Corona virus deaths might have been miscategorized as flu. This belated admission of misdiagnosis has further lent credence to the earlier speculation that many pulmonary fibrosis cases which resulted in deaths due to patients' inability to breathe might in fact have been caused by the Corona virus. These cases, where symptoms might have been masked by attributions to e-cigarette or vaping, happened well before the virus outbreak in Wuhan, China. READ MORE.

By Eugene Kogan, Tbilisi-based defence and security expert

The trilateral military cooperation, begun in November 2017, has all the necessary components to become decisive for the three countries in the eastern Mediterranean in the long-term. In addition, the US is fully behind the three countries, sending a clear signal to Ankara not to provoke conflict in the region.
Turkey, which is still a member of NATO, is not in a position to prevent Israel from cooperating with NATO, although such cooperation is a thorn in the side of Turkey. Although Cypriot military exercises with Israel upset Turkey, it cannot prevent the two countries from cooperating. That is why we see a new military architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean, which will shape the security relations of the three countries in the coming years. READ MORE

By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies

The world economy has been in troubled waters since late 2018. The US – China trade war rattled the markets and triggered the significant changes in global supply chains. Many industrial giants were actively discussing the dislocation of production facilities from China to South East Asia nations such as Vietnam and Cambodia seeking to decrease the negative impact of the trade war.[…] However, the novel Coronavirus (COVID – 19) outbreak, which started in Chinese Wuhan city, has launched its seemingly unstoppable march around the globe since late January 2020. READ MORE

By Jack Sharples, Research Fellow of the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies and EGF Associate Researcher on the External Dimensions of Russian Gas


Dear Colleagues,

It is with great pride that we send you this 100th edition of the Gazprom Monitor.

The Gazprom Monitor was the brainchild of Dr Marat Terterov, Founder of the European Geopolitical Forum and the Brussels Energy Club. The first issue of the Gazprom Monitor was published in December 2010. […] Since that first edition, almost nine years ago, we have seen the launch of Nord Stream, the replacement of South Stream and Nabucco by the Turkish Stream and TANAP-TAP pipelines, a dramatic increase in the use of hub-indexation in place of oil-indexation in Gazprom’s long-term export contracts, the conduct and settlement of the EU antimonopoly investigation into Gazprom, the launch of Gazprom’s own Electronic Sales Platform, the completion of Gazprom’s acquisition of the Belarusian gas pipeline system, the long-running sagas of the Gazprom-Naftogaz and Gazprom-Lithuania arbitration cases, the cessation of direct Ukrainian gas imports from Russia, the sale of Gazprom’s shares in pipelines in the Baltic states, the launch of new LNG import terminals in the Netherlands, Lithuania, Poland, and France, opening the door to competing LNG from around the world including, most recently, from the United States, and the volume of Gazprom’s annual gas exports to Europe growing to record levels in 2017 and 2018.READ MORE

By Fuad Shahbazov, Baku-based independent regional security and defence analyst

On October 3, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev paid an official visit to Russia to attend the 16^th annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, in Sochi (President.az, October 3). Aliyev’s speech at the high-level event touched on multiple topics, including Azerbaijan’s partnership with Russia, the unresolved issue of Karabakh, and regional security in the South Caucasus region, to name a few. Notably, during his remarks, Aliyev declared, “Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijan—exclamation point!” which sparked heated discussions in both Azerbaijani and Armenian mass media and online (Turan Agency, October 4). READ MORE

By professor Sadi Sadiyev Saleh, War College of the Armed Forces, Republic of Azerbaijan

The emergence of a bipolar world and the formation of two military blocks (NATO and the Warsaw Pact) after the Second World War ushered in an intense rivalry between different countries. Finding an effective grand strategy to survive between two hostile powers inevitably requires a balanced policy. In this context, the underdeveloped countries felt the need to join efforts for the common defence of their interests, to strengthen their independence and sovereignty and to express a strong commitment for peace by declaring themselves as “non-aligned” from either of the two nascent military blocks. READ MORE

By Fuad Shahbazov, Baku-based independent regional security and defence analyst

President Donald Trump’s announcement at the end of 2018 that he would withdraw U.S. troops from Syria came as a surprise to all parties involved, sparking particular concerns among America’s Syrian Kurdish allies. The move followed President Trump’s declaration of victory over ISIS after a four-year military campaign fighting alongside Syrian Kurdish forces. This sudden and unexpected decision has been widely criticized not only by allies but also inside the White House, with many analysts arguing that the U.S. withdrawal will expose the Syrian Kurds to an attack by Turkey READ MORE

By EGF Editorial Staff

Since the end of October 2018, a new operative communication line (crisis hotline) has been established between Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries that have been at war over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh (NK), a region recognized as Azerbaijani by the International Community, but inhabited by a majority Armenian population. According to official sources from both sides, the level of military tension on the Line of Contact (LoC) between the conflicting parties has significantly decreased (from about 90 reports of ceasefire breaches/day, to about 20 reports/day). The opening of this new communication channel had been agreed several weeks before by the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, and the Prime-Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, during an informal meeting held in the margins of the CIS summit in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) on 27-28 September 2018. READ MORE