After decades of bidding for peace, Japan is now once more preparing for the possibility of war, for the first time truly introducing offensive capabilities to the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) and installing long-range anti-ship missiles on islands near Taiwan. Despite its post-Cold War hopes of diplomatically resolving its territorial conflicts, it now finds itself perched at the edge of an increasingly assertive China and Russia (which still occupies four of Japan's southernmost Kuril Islands) and a nuclear-capable North Korea. As part of its attempts to strengthen its military posture, Japan is also seeking to increase the capabilities of Asian countries against Chinese interference and enhance sea surveillance, most notably the Philippines and Malaysia.

By Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans

The People's Socialist Republic of Albania was a Marxist-Leninist one party state that existed from 1946 until 1991. Throughout much of its existence, the country was led by Enver Hoxha, who ruled Albania by establishing a Stalinist style of governance known as Hoxhaism. Despite far-reaching similarities with North Korea, Albania and its authoritarian ruler arguably constitute a forgotten chapter of the Cold War period. Albania's close ties with the Soviet Union until the Albanian–Soviet split in 1961, then with China until the Sino-Albanian split in 1978 and ultimately its almost complete international isolation from 1978 onwards had a profound effect on the equipment inventory and operational readiness of the Albanian People's Army (UPSh). To this day, the UPSh remains the only European military to have been mostly equipped with Chinese-made weaponry, aircraft, ships and other equipment.

Transnistria owes its existence to a brief war in 1992 between Moldova and Russian-backed separatists who feared that Moldova would become part of Romania after the collapse of the USSR. The war ended when the Russian 14th Army, stationed in what was then the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, intervened on behalf of Transnistria and defeated the forces of the newly independent Republic of Moldova. Despite the fact that armed conflict ceased the same year, the situation in Transnistria remains extremely complicated, with the breakaway state wishing to join the Russian Federation while remaining reliant on Moldova for exporting the limited produce its economy outputs.