Chavez and Medvedev orchestrate a summit and an arrival of warships. The clear message is that this friendship is solid and growing.
Yes, the economies of both Russia and Venezuela are in the commode. So is every other country’s. Here’s what these two particular nation-states have chosen to do with their resources.
Russia threatens Poland with nuclear attack.
What I want to know is, is this stuff some kind of big surprise to our intellegence, security and diplomacy functions?
I’ve been trying get a handle on the mind of Vladimir Putin. It’s not a Marxist-ideology motivation that drives him, certainly. He probably feels unencumbered in the pursuit of his ambitions not to have that leviathin bureaucracy circumscribing his maneuvers. It doesn’t lok to me like it’s really a KGB / police state mindset, either. I think he basically thinks like a gangster.
What of his acceptance by W, who so famously looked into his eyes and took the measure of his soul, or the G-7 leaders generally, who let him into their fold? Well, they were anxious to foster - or at least be seen as fostering, a new, flexible, post-Soviet Russia, in which a dynamic economy and ample resources would yield lots of trade and openness. For his part, Putin liked the legitimization, much as when Mafia dons brag about friendships with mayors, senators, or civic leaders.
Non of this had any intrinsic significance, it turns out. It was all strategy, putting everything in place for the moment to maximize his empire. Apparently he sees that moment as having arrived.
It’s sending a big portion of its Black Sea Fleet, including a missile cruiser, to the waters off the Georgian coast. A Defense Ministry official says, “It’s not a blockade, you understand. That would be an act of war.”
And it intends to sell a state-of-the-art anti-aircraft system to Iran. Israel says, “You do, and we’ll neutralize the SOB.”
Russia and Georgia have gone to war over the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
I actually spent a week in this area some years back, in Sochi, A Russian Black Sea resort a few miles from the Georgian border. Tea plantations on the terraced Caucasus hillsides. Little stands on the beaches that sell fresh-picked cherries, of all things. Nice people, as I recall. I don’t know enough about the ethnic balance ins South Ossetia to draw a conclusion as to whether it is more of a Georgian or Russian place, but it appears that Russia rolled its tanks and sent its fighter jets into an internal Georgian matter. Since that’s the case, the UN Security Council will surely have to weigh in on the matter.
Then things get tricky. The EU and the civilized world generally is trying to display a unified front in the push to get new sanctions in place against Iran, and fast, and Russia has already trotted out the old “Why don’t we give them some more time” routine.
This whole area is also, let us not forget, where a whole lot of the world’s oil originates and makes its way into shipping lanes and ports.
I’ll bet there are some very interesting behind-the-scenes conversations going on among the visiting dignitaries in Beijing along about now.
