COLD WAR ECHO: Russian Military Maneuvers With Venezuela - UPDATES

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                                Cold war echo: Russian military maneuvers with Venezuela






By Jose Orozco and
Sara Miller Llana
Fri Sep 12, 2008

Caracas, Venezuela;
and Mexico City -

The last time a Russian Navy ship plied the azure waters of the Caribbean for major joint maneuvers with an anti-US country was during the cold war.
 
But in a move out of Cuban leader Fidel Castro's historical playbook, Venezuela's Hugo Ch??vez announced this week that his nation will host four Russian warships and 1,000 troops in November for joint military exercises.

That was followed Wednesday by the arrival in Venezuela of two Russian long-range bombers.

Although Latin American leaders so far have shrugged off the moves as another act of bravado in Mr. Ch??vez's push against what he calls "Yankee hegemony," some diplomats and US officials see the potential for real trouble.

The US typically ignores the leftist leader's angry tirades, and is playing down the news.

Still, an extensive military relationship between Venezuela and Russia could heighten tensions and signal the start of a new regional cold war.

"This is a risky step that could provoke the US," says retired Navy Vice Admiral and former Vice Minister of Defense Rafael Huizi Clavier. "Any incident, any error, could bring problems." This week, Russia announced that it will send a naval squadron, including the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great, as well as long-range patrol planes for the upcoming joint exercises with Venezuela.

On Wednesday, two Russian strategic bombers landed in Venezuela for training. Russian officials say they will leave in four days.

Commenting on the deployment, Mr. Ch??vez dismissed comparisons to the cold war, but said he had hopes of flying one of the Russian planes.

Addressing Mr. Castro, the Cuban leader is a close friend and mentor, Ch??vez said: "I'm going to fly a Tu-160. Fidel, I'm going to fly low past you there."

The announcements, and the arrival of Russian bombers, come as Venezuela has stepped up military purchases from Russia, including fighter jets, helicopters, and Kalashnikov rifles.

And it's not just Russia that Venezuela has become close to.

Venezuela has developed political and commercial alliances with China, Cuba, and Iran, three key US competitor. China is helping Ch??vez put a communications satellite in orbit this year.

"The objective is clear: to tell the world 'we are sovereign,' " says Hector Herrera, a retired lieutenant colonel of the National Guard and founder of the Bolivarian Civic Military Front, a pro-Ch??vez organization that works on security and defense issues. "Venezuela is a free and sovereign nation and can have friends and enemies."

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US-Russian ties grow tense



The joint military exercises come at a time of tension between the US and Moscow, after the two went head-to-head over the brief war between Georgia – an ex-Soviet republic – and Russia last month.

The US has pushed for Georgia to enter NATO, and US plans for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe are seen as a threat by Russia.

Russia has denied the latest moves with Venezuela are a tit-for-tat response to the recent deployment of US warships to the Black Sea.

Mervin Rodriguez, head of the International Studies department at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, says that the move to align so explicitly with Russia at this time could be perceived as "taking sides."

Historically, he says, Venezuela has taken on a pacifist and neutral position in world affairs, maintaining official neutrality for most of World War II.

Politically, the announcement pays off for both Russia and Venezuela. "This is probably a mutual thing," says Robert Work, the vice president for strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. "Russia was upset that US and NATO were moving into what they consider their near abroad [with Georgia]. And anything Ch??vez can do to vex the Americans is a good thing from his perspective."

Ch??vez also sends a message to the US that he has outside support if the US attempts an invasion, a notion the socialist leader has claimed since the US tacitly supported a 2002 coup that briefly ousted him from power.

Claims of US intimidation in the region grew recently with the US Navy reactivation of its Fourth Fleet, more than 50 years after it was disbanded, to conduct missions in the Caribbean.

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Pushing for a multi-polar world



The Russian Navy visit likely is meant as a response to the US reactivating the Navy fleet, says Steve Ellner, the Venezuela-based author of "Rethinking Venezuelan Politics."

"Chavez has, from the beginning, very clearly pushed this idea of a multipolar world in response to US domination," says Mr. Ellner. "So this move is not inconsistent and not surprising."

But taking Russia's side doesn't necessarily serve Venezuela's interests, some analysts say. It runs contrary to the South American country's past neutrality. "That language of multipolarity contradicts our foreign policy," says Mr. Rodriguez. "It's a fallacy. Now we are simply becoming followers of one side. Just as we criticize the Fourth Fleet."

On his weekly Sunday TV show, Chavez attempted to play down the geopolitical angle, focusing on supporting the work of a "strategic ally."

That position was reiterated by his administration. "The objective is to unify the ties of friendship and cooperation between both navies," said Salbatore Cammarata Bastidas, the head of naval intelligence for Venezuela, according to a statement on the Information Ministry website.

But the geopolitical message is clear, says Larry Birns, the director of the left-leaning Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. "The new patterns of military relationships [in Latin America] are a function of the drift away of Latin America from the US," says Mr. Birns.

That no one seemed riled in the region is even more proof, says Mr. Birns.

"After all these years," he says, "it is not pariah nations that have become isolated; it's Washington."

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                                   Venezuela insults United States, expels ambassador






By Frank Jack Daniel
Fri Sep 12, 2008
 
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has thrust the OPEC nation into its worst diplomatic crisis for years by expelling the U.S. ambassador in a growing feud between Washington and Latin America's leftist leaders.
 
Chavez, who calls ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor, also on Thursday repeated a threat he has made often to cut off Venezuela's oil supply to the United States.

"Go to hell, s--- Yankees, we are a dignified people, go to hell a hundred times," Chavez shouted at a political rally to thousands of roaring supporters dressed in red.

Chavez is the most radical of a growing number of leftist governments in Latin America that to a greater or lesser degree oppose Washington's traditional dominance in Latin America.

Venezuela has some of the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East and despite Chavez's clashes with the Bush administration, is a major supplier to the United States, which is its biggest customer.

Chavez said Thursday's move was made in support of his close ally President Evo Morales of Bolivia, where violent anti-government protests have killed eight people.

"The Yankee ambassador in Caracas has got 72 hours to get out of Venezuela, in solidarity with Bolivia," Chavez said.

Morales, a leftist Aymara Indian, this week expelled the U.S. ambassador in the poor Andean nation after accusing him of instigating the protests.

Chavez said Washington was behind an alleged plot by retired military officers to kill him and said it had plans to bomb him from planes marked as Venezuelan.

"If there was an aggression against Venezuela there would be no oil for the people or for the government of the United States," the former paratrooper said.

The United States has rejected the allegations by Chavez and Morales. It retaliated against Bolivia on Thursday by ordering its ambassador to Washington to leave. Chavez told his own ambassador to the United States to come home before he was thrown out.

The U.S. State Department said it had not been officially notified of the expulsion.

Chavez was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup that was initially welcomed by Washington. Even after the coup Chavez did not go so far as to expel the U.S. ambassador.

In a busy week even for the outspoken socialist, Chavez allowed two Russian long-range bombers to land in Venezuela and played audio tapes live on television that appeared to show military officers conspiring against him.

He also cut U.S. flights to Venezuela and warned he would support "armed movements" to back Morales in the event of a coup against him.

Chavez frequently calls the United States an aggressive empire and has aligned himself with Russia. Moscow is also sending warships for naval exercises later this year in its first such move since the Cold War.



(Editing by Eric Walsh)

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                                            Behind Chavez's Potty-Mouthed Rant







By TIM PADGETT AND
VIRGINIA LOPEZ/CARACAS
Fri Sep 12, 2008

www.time.com
 
Who needs diplomacy and all its excruciating politeness? Not even the traditional "Yankee Go Home" was enough to convey the pique of President Hugo ChÁvez on Thursday, as he announced that he had given U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy 72 hours to leave Venezuela. "**** head Yankees, f--- off!" ChÁvez thundered at a campaign rally in Carabobo state Thursday, announcing that he had also asked Venezuela's Ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez, to return home until a new government is elected in the U.S. that would "respect the peoples and governments of Latin America."
 
ChÁvez said he was taking the action in solidarity with Bolivia's President Evo Morales, who had expelled his own country's U.S. ambassador a day earlier. But he also accused the U.S. of being part of a plot to assassinate him, allegedly involving retired Venezuelan generals and opposition politicians.


Earlier on Thursday, ChÁvez had welcomed two long-range Russian bombers to Venezuela for training exercises, which will be followed in November by joint naval maneuvers with Russian warships in Venezuelan waters. Clearly, ChÁvez is rattling a saber at Washington, but the more urgent question is whether U.S.-Venezuelan relations are at a breaking point. ChÁvez had been railing at Duddy in the media because of the ambassador's recent remarks suggesting that drug traffickers were finding it easier to use Venezuela as a transshipment point. But high level sources inside Miraflores, the Caracas presidential palace, say Duddy is being expelled not for that controversy, but because the Venezuela government insists it has proof - which the sources say could be release on Friday - of Bush Administration involvement in an alleged coup plot.


Four retired generals, whose phone conversations have allegedly been captured on tape, were arrested Thursday for allegedly directing the conspiracy, and the Miraflores sources said more arrests inside the armed forces are expected.


The Miraflores sources added that Duddy was also being expelled "as a gesture of solidarity with Bolivia," whose leftist President, ChÁvez ally Evo Morales, expelled the U.S. ambassador there on Wednesday, accusing him of inciting anti-government violence. In a televised tirade on Thursday, ChÁvez said the U.S. is "trying to do [in Venezuela] what they were doing in Bolivia." Bush Administration officials only response late Thursday night was that they were "investigating" ChÁvez's comments.


ChÁvez rarely misses an opportunity to sound the Yanqui alarm when doing so has domestic political benefit. Critics, who are questioning whether the alleged coup plot was actually real, were quick to suggest that this latest anti-gringo outburst would conveniently deflect attention away from allegedly incriminating evidence against ChÁvez and his government emerging in an international corruption trial that began this month in Miami. The case involves a suitcase filled with $800,000 in cash that was seized at the Buenos Aires airport in the summer of 2007, allegedly being delivered on behalf of ChÁvez as a presidential campaign contribution to Cristian Fernandez de Kirchner, now Argentina's President. ChÁvez vehemently denies involvement in the money's shipment or in the alleged attempts by Venezuelan agents to cover it up and intimidate the U.S.-Venezuelan businessman caught transporting the suitcase.


Others suggest that ChÁvez may be trying to whip up his base in advance of local and state elections in November. He and his party desperately need a strong showing in order to reverse the unusual downward political slide he's experienced since losing a national referendum last year, in which he sought to expand his socialist project and eliminate presidential term limits.


ChÁvez's loud confrontations with Washington haven't been playing so well at home this year. Still, he has plenty of leverage: Venezuela is the U.S.'s fourth largest foreign supplier of oil, and ChÁvez has long threatened to cut off the flow if he found evidence Washington was moving to oust him - as he insists it did during a failed coup attempt in 2002. Regarding Duddy's expulsion, one Miraflores source points to the upcoming U.S presidential election and says, "We're taking these actions in large part because U.S.-Venezuela relations can't support the election of another adversarial government in Washington in November." But most analysts agree that ChÁvez needs the U.S. market just as much as the U.S. needs his oil - a codependency that will deter either side from allowing the latest diplomatic drama, or Venezuela's joint military exercises with Russia, to sever bilateral relations. View this article on Time.com





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Behind the King's Rebuke to Chavez

Russia's Venezuela Foray: Tit for Tat?

Challenging Chavez in the Streets

Will Chavez's Oil Still Flow?

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                                         Russia's Venezuela Foray: Tit for Tat?






By VIRGINIA LOPEZ
/ CARACAS
Thu Sep 11, 2008
 www.time.com

With Halloween just six weeks away, President Hugo Chavez and his Russian counterparts are summoning up some Cold War ghosts designed to alarm the White House. On Thursday, two Russian Tu-160 long-range bombers flew in to Venezuela, where they'll spend some days conducting training flights before returning home. But the first foray by Russian strategic bombers into the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War is simply the curtain-raiser for joint naval maneuvers that will bring Russian warships into Venezuelan waters in November. The war games were announced by Chavez last weekend during his regular "Alo Presidente" broadcast. Russia will send its missile cruiser Peter the Great and the anti-submarine vessel Admiral Shabanenko, as well as two other vessels sometime in November, and they are to be joined by a unit of Russian long-range anti-submarine patrol aircraft that will be temporarily stationed in one of Venezuela's air bases. Coming on the heels of Russia's military action against U.S. ally Georgia, Washington will see the November exercise as an act of geopolitical theater by Moscow, sending a warning that if the U.S. sees fit to make military alliances in Russia's backyard, then Russia is able to do likewise.
 
Both Chavez and the Russians, however, insist that the exercises were planned long before the Georgia debacle, and are a natural outgrowth of expanding Venezuelan-Russian military cooperation. On his most recent visit to Russia, in July, Chavez purchased more than a dozen anti-aircraft systems and three "Varshavianka" class submarines, bringing his total expenditure on Russian arms in the last four years to $4.5 billion. Purchases include 53 Russian helicopters and 24 Sukhoi fighter planes, and there's even talk of installing a Kalashnikov rifle factory here sometime next year.


During that visit, Chavez hailed Russia as an ally, but denied that Moscow would be allowed to build military bases in Venezuela - Article 13 of Venezuela's constitution forbids any foreign military bases on national territory. But retired Vice Admiral Mario Ivan Carratu sees the November exercise as a first step toward allowing Russian bases in Venezuela.


Just as Georgia is strategically located along a crucial energy route along Russia's southern periphery, Venezuela's location in the Caribbean make it a key gateway to the oil economy of the Gulf of Mexico. Carratu believes that for Moscow, the planned naval exercise is a tit-for-tat over U.S. efforts to recruit former Soviet territories for NATO, but that Venezuela makes itself vulnerable by substituting for the role played by Cuba ahead of the 1962 missile crisis.


But Chavez supporters see the alliance with Russia as simply a prudent hedge against a possible U.S.-led invasion. Venezuela is forced to purchase arms from Russia, argues one Chavista who preferred to remain anonymous, because the U.S. has banned weapons sales to the country, and has pressured its allies to do likewise.


Russian media quoted military spokesman Capt. Ígor Digalo as saying the role of the Russian vessels would be confined to search-and-rescue and communications exercises. Foreign Ministry spokesman AndrÉi Nesterenko stressed in a briefing that the maneuvers had been planned before Russia entered into any conflict with Georgia. In Washington, however, the move is likely to be seen as a provocation.


"Traditionally Venezuela has engaged in joint military operations with numerous countries," says military expert Carlos Hernandez. "It is a common practice that allows our military to learn form others. What does seem provocative is to call Russia an ally in a moment in which the tensions between this country and the U.S. are escalating."


Despite government denials, however, Chavez' defiant response to criticism over the planned naval exercises seems to underscore the idea that they are intended as a message to Washington: Speaking on his weekly TV program, the Venezuelan leader said of concerns about the planned maneuvers, "Go ahead Yankees, whine!" View this article on Time.com





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Cheney's Real Mission in Georgia

Gates Dials Down Russia Rhetoric

The Georgia Crisis: A Blow to NATO

War Drums in Latin America

Why Russia Is Flexing Its Muscles

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                   Russia's army is weak, its economy battered, but leaders still issuing threats






By Tom Lasseter,
McClatchy Newspapers
Thu Sep 11, 2008
 
MOSCOW — Russia's military is riddled with weakness. Its equipment is outdated. Its technology is decades behind the West. And its capacity for battlefield communications and intelligence gathering is terrible.
 
In short, Russia has a mid- to late-20th century military in a 21st century world.

That and more was revealed during Russia's war with U.S.-backed Georgia last month, when its troops routed the small Georgian army but looked woefully short of the fighting power of nations like the United States .

And to top things off, Russia's economy has recently been slammed by the double whammy of a plummeting stock market and falling currency as the effects of the global economic crunch were compounded by worried Western investors withdrawing billions of dollars in the aftermath of the Georgian war.

Instead of pausing, the Kremlin has charged ahead, warning and threatening the United States and its allies at every turn. Brushing aside American predictions that Moscow would isolate itself from the world by invading Georgia , the Kremlin this week announced joint training exercises with Venezuela — where President Hugo Chavez is an avowed foe of U.S. policy abroad.

News on Wednesday that two nuclear-capable Russian bombers, reportedly without nuclear weapons, had landed in Venezuela punctuated both the uncertainty and the gravity of the situation: Was this just a posturing by Moscow leaders, or is the Kremlin signaling it is willing to risk a fight despite its obvious weaknesses?

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has publicly said he has no desire for conflict. Russian generals under his government's command, meanwhile, have said they might target U.S. missile defense shield sites in eastern Europe with ballistic missiles.

"It's a very dangerous time," said James Townsend Jr. , who from 2003 to 2006 was the director of European and NATO policy for the secretary of defense and is now director of the international security program at the Atlantic Council of the United States , a think tank. "It's made dangerous by uncertainty, it's made dangerous by the possibility of miscalculation."

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Russia observers differ on the implications of the standoff.



Vladimir Dvorkin , a retired Russian major general who ran a premier military think tank from 1993 to 2001, said the maneuvers by the United States and Russia after the Georgian war have been political posturing, and the idea that Russia and the West would get into an armed confrontation is "absurd."

Some pro-Western analysts, however, say that Russian leadership is testing how far it can go in reclaiming parts of the former Soviet Union , or at least weakening Western influence in the region, at a time when the United States is perceived as being weak and Europe divided. They also say the Kremlin is in danger of overplaying its hand.

During the fighting in Georgia , Russian officers in the field frequently relied on cell phones or old radios, and they were unable to establish tactical command centers close to the front. The air force and ground forces were badly out of synch, and some soldiers complained to reporters that they hadn't eaten in a few days.

Their American counterparts would have been able to quickly establish satellite uplinks, visual feeds from unmanned aerial drones — which the Russians weren't able to use at all — and real-time communications between all branches of the military.

The Soviet-designed T-72 tanks that rolled into Georgia were prone to breaking down and are considered several rungs below American battle tanks.

"Military equipment is very old, and at the same time it's absolutely clear that Russia has no resources to change it," said Alexander Goltz , a military analyst in Moscow . "For all of the '90s we had no money to produce new military equipment ... the whole chain of subcontractors was destroyed."

But former military officers, and officials connected with the Kremlin, emphasize that Russia is in the same league as America when it comes to nuclear missile stockpiles.

Pavel Zolotarev , a retired Russian major general and deputy director of a government-funded institute that studies the United States and Canada , reminded a reporter of nuclear realities.

"As far as general forces, the American army far surpasses the Russian army in terms of equipment," Zolotarev said. "An army is made up of different kinds of forces. If we compare the nuclear forces of these two sides, then we have parity. We can destroy each other five or six times."

Amid all the heated words, it's important to step back and see Russia for what it really is, said Robert Hunter , the U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Clinton and now a senior adviser at the RAND Corp.

"I don't believe that Russia is a great power again. ... Russia is Saudi Arabia with trees," Hunter said. "In reality, Russia is a second-rate military power and will be for some time."

Hunter said that to try to understand Russia's recent actions, it helps to keep in mind that it has felt besieged lately. Kremlin leaders have been unhappy about U.S. plans to build a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic , and American backing for the NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia .

Given those tensions, Hunter said, the White House should allow the Kremlin some room to vent, as long as it doesn't go too far, and not provoke it toward bigger displays of military aggression.

"Most of it I would keep my mouth shut about," he said. "If they want to steer off to Venezuela , be my guest."

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                                      U.S. sanctions Chavez aides in growing crisis






By Frank Jack Daniel and
Arshad Mohammed
Sept. 12, 2008
 
CARACAS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States escalated a major diplomatic crisis with Venezuela on Friday, imposing sanctions on aides to President Hugo Chavez in retaliation for his expulsion of the U.S. ambassador.

The crisis and Chavez's threat to cut off oil shipments to the United States sent debt tumbling in the OPEC nation and plunged relations between the superpower and one of its top energy suppliers to their lowest point in years.

Washington was also preparing to eject Venezuela's top diplomat in the United States, a U.S. official said, although Chavez tried to pre-empt that move by telling him to pack his bags and go home on Thursday.

Venezuela has some of the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East and despite Chavez's clashes with the Bush administration, he has maintained oil supplies and never before expelled a U.S. ambassador.

Chavez said Thursday's move was made in support of his leftist South American ally President Evo Morales of Bolivia, where violent anti-government protests have killed eight people. Bolivia and the United States have expelled their respective ambassadors too this week after Morales accused Washington of supporting the opposition.

Venezuelan bond yield spreads over U.S. Treasuries -- widely seen as a gauge of investor risk perception -- soared 41 basis points to 765 basis points on Friday. Rising spreads are associated with more investor risk perception.

Chavez said he would not restore relations with the United States at least until his stated foe U.S. President George W. Bush leaves the White House in January.

"When there is a new government in the United States we will send a new ambassador, a government that respects the people of Latin America," he said late on Thursday.

Lehman Brothers' Gianfranco Bertozzi, who analyzes how political risk in Venezuela can affect the country's debt prices, told investors the market was overreacting to the diplomatic moves because there had been no oil-related measures.

"This expulsion is really only until the next administration, the election for which is 53 days away, and in the meantime oil is still flowing - although markets seems agitated by the risk of escalation," he wrote from New York.

"We doubt that we will see any (escalation) though, but superficial conflict will likely go on in the near term."

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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                               US plays down expulsions of diplomats in Latin America






by Sylvie Lanteaume
Fri Sep 12, 2008
 
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Washington tried Friday to play down its concerns in Latin America by attributing the expulsion of its envoys from Bolivia and Venezuela as a byproduct of domestic problems in those countries.
 
"We regret the actions of both President Hugo Chavez and President Evo Morales to expel our ambassadors in Venezuela and Bolivia," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

"This reflects the weakness and desperation of these leaders as they face internal challenges, and an inability to communicate effectively internationally in order to build international support," he added.

In 48 hours, Bolivia and Venezuela expelled the US ambassadors from their capitals and the United States retaliatated with reciprocal steps against their envoys in Washington.

Morales accused the US ambassador in La Paz, Philip Goldberg, of promoting separatism in Bolivia where the governors of five of the nine provinces reject a new draft constitution which he hopes to put to a referendum.

The State Department replied the following day by ordering the expulsion of Gustavo Guzman, the Bolivian ambassador in Washington.

Hours later Chavez, the self-styled leader of the radical left in Latin America, ordered the expulsion of Patrick Duddy, the US ambassador in Caracas, in what he called an act of "solidarity" with Bolivia.

Chavez also alleged that his government had uncovered a coup plot hatched by active and retired military officers, which he said had tacit US approval.

He again threatened to suspend oil shipments to the United States, its main importer, if his government became the victim of US "aggression."

"The charges leveled against our fine ambassadors by the leaders of Bolivia and Venezuela are false, and the leaders of those countries know it," McCormack said after announcing the expulsion of Venezuela's ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera.

"The only meaningful conspiracy in the region is the common commitment of democratic countries to enhance opportunities for their citizens. The only overthrow we seek is that of poverty," the US spokesman said.

He added that Chavez "has also committed a number of serious missteps in the region just recently, if we look at what happened with the FARC in Colombia," or the Spanish acronym of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

He has also happened to invite in the Russian military for "military exercises," he added.

Two TU-160 bombers from Russia landed in Venezuela on Wednesday for training flights, according to Moscow and Caracas.

McCormack showed journalists a photograph of one of the bombers, which was shadowed by a US F-15 fighter plane, as it flew to Venezuela.

"As you can see, we are watching it closely," McCormack said. "And if it can't make it back, we'd be happy to make sure the guys get back when they're intended to go back on the 15th."

He declined to make any link between the deployment of the Russian bombers in a region which Washington has long considered its sphere of influence and the presence of US warships off Georgian waters neighboring Russia.

The sanctions that the US Treasury imposed on two senior Venezuelan intelligence officers and a former interior minister, he said, had nothing to do with these incidents.

The Treasury froze any assets in the United States belonging to the three whom it accused of aiding FARC rebels involved in the drug trade.

[Volitzer]

Not that Chavez and Putin are on my admirations list but considering what the NWO is planning it is wise to have allies.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend etc. etc.

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                                 Russian navy ships head to maneuvers in Venezuela






By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV,
Associated Press Writer
Sept. 22, 2008
 
MOSCOW - A Russian navy squadron set off for Venezuela Monday, an official said, in a deployment of Russian military power to the Western Hemisphere unprecedented since the Cold War.
 
The Kremlin recently has moved to intensify contacts with Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American nations amid increasingly strained relations with Washington after last month's war between Russia and Georgia. During the Cold War, Latin America became an ideological battleground between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo said the nuclear-powered Peter the Great cruiser accompanied by three other ships sailed from the Northern Fleet's base of Severomorsk on Monday. The ships will cover about 15,000 nautical miles to conduct joint maneuvers with the Venezuelan navy, he told The Associated Press.

The deployment follows a weeklong visit to Venezuela by a pair of Russian strategic bombers and comes as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — an unbridled critic of U.S. foreign policy who has close ties with Moscow — plans to visit Moscow this week. It will be Chavez's second trip to Russia in about two months.

The intensifying contacts with Venezuela appear to be a response to the U.S. dispatch of warships to deliver aid to Georgia which angered the Kremlin.

Chavez said in an interview with Russian television broadcast Sunday that Latin America needs a strong friendship with Russia to help reduce U.S. influence and keep peace in the region. In separate comments on his Sunday TV and radio program, he joked that he will be making his international tour to Russia and other countries this week aboard the "super-bombers that Medvedev loaned me," a reference to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. "Gentlemen of the CIA, to be clear, I'm joking," Chavez said with a laugh.

Chavez has repeatedly warned that the U.S. Navy poses a threat to Venezuela.

Russia has signed weapons contracts worth more than $4 billion with Venezuela since 2005 to supply fighter jets, helicopters, and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. Chavez's government is in talks to buy Russian submarines, air defense systems and armored vehicles and more Sukhoi fighter jets.

Russian and Venezuelan leaders also have talked about boosting cooperation in the energy sphere to create what Chavez has called "a new strategic energy alliance."

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who visited Venezuela last week, announced that five of Russia's biggest oil companies are looking to form a consortium to increase Latin American operations and to build a $6.5 billion refinery to process Venezuela's tar-like heavy crude. Such an investment could help Venezuela, the world's ninth-biggest oil producer, wean itself from the U.S. refineries on which it depends to process much of its crude.

Sechin warned the United States that it should not view Latin America as its own backyard. "It would be wrong to talk about one nation having exclusive rights to this zone," he said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

____



Associated Press Writer Ian James in Caracas contributed to this report.