The personnel structure and recruitment of armed forces represent major elements of civil-military relations and civilian control. Particularly crucial is the moment of shift from one type of recruitment to another and the factors that facilitate or impede it. The focus of this paper is the case of the Russian Federation during the Medvedev presidency, when renewed efforts were made to cut back conscription in favor of a professional contract-based force. Despite crucial incidents, such as the 2008 Russian-Georgian War that spelled out once more the prevailing inertia of the Russian conscript-based army, military elites have been opposed to a change of the status quo. By analyzing exemplary ideational discourses based on the discursive institutional approach, factors will be elaborated that explain what continues to impede the shift to contract-based recruitment in Russia. In the light of the latest hostilities between Russia and NATO, the prospect of this shift has receded even further into the distance.

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conceptualizations of SSR, within the domestic contexts in Southeast Asian countries, as a tool to alter the power balance in the state, rather than to improve the governance of the security sector, amongst civilian and military elites.What the three cases furthermore illustrate is that actors in the region generally chose to support or curtail SSR on the basis of their (perceived) particular interests and their institutional background. Therefore, SSRrelated reforms in all three cases have quickly become enmeshed in national power politics. Moreover, their scope as well as their success has, albeit to different degrees, relied on interpersonal loyalties and patronage networks between the respective political leadership and the armed forces. As a result, civilian control over the military remains insufficiently institutionalized in all three cases. widened its political leverage and autonomy. The continued politicization of the armed forces was aggravated by repeated attempts of successive governments to coopt certain factions within the military to ensure regime survival. While formerly under civilian control, several civilian control mechanisms such as military promotion are frequently instrumentalized by civilian elites to foster personal patronage networks with high ranking generals. With regard to Thailand, little, if anything, is left of SSR after the coups in 2006 and 2014. For the time being, the military controls virtually all areas of public policymaking, operates independently of any form of control by civilian, democratically elected institutions, and is likely to do so for some time. The dearth of SSR, however, did not come about through the two coups alone, but is contingent on longstanding

Prior to the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, the Transdniestrian conflict was stable, with no serious risk of violent escalation. Since the invasion of Ukraine, however, the situation has become more volatile, both in Moldova itself and in relations between Chisi nau and Tiraspol. While it has always been important to work on maintaining confidence in this highly volatile situation, we argue that opportunities for intensified confidence building have arisen, including the exploration of new formats in the context of Moldova's EU accession process. Crucially, the OSCE's experience in confidence building remains relevant in this re gard, and the Organization has retained its importance as a facilitator of the settlement process.

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