By Haroutiun Khachatrian (11/11/2009 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The Armenian government’s draft budget for next year is reduced by over five percent compared to that of 2009. It envisages cuts in most important public expenditures (including military ones), but leaves social payments and salaries intact. A twelve percent cut in the military budget is unlikely to disrupt the military balance in the region, although Azerbaijan, Armenia’s only military adversary, will keep its military expenditures high.

By Peter J. Winglee (10/28/2009 issue of the CACI Analyst)

With the recent efforts to make President Nazarbayev president for life, it is useful to compare the Central Asian approach to governance to that in the single party states, China and Vietnam. Despite criticism about their deficiencies in democracy and human rights, these two countries have made great progress in developing their economies, opening up their societies, and finding a political system that both works now and can also evolve. Since democracy is slow to take root in Central Asia, analysis of other political systems that local elites accept may produce better outcomes than are now prevailing.

By Richard Weitz (10/28/2009 issue of the CACI Analyst)

For the past few months, Congress has been pressing the Obama administration to provide it with “metrics” to judge the success of U.S. policies for countering the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.