Fears of a New Cold War in Venezuela and ColombiA

 

While the West celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall,  Hugo Chavez is stirring up a new Cold War in South America. Over the weekend, the socialist leader of Venezuela warned his citizens to prepare for war with neighboring Colombia, a close U.S. ally. This move escalates tensions that began this summer when Colombia accused Chavez of funding FARC, Colombia's left wing guerrillas. Now, there are fears that the conflict could lead to a full scale arms race in the Southern Hemisphere.

Conservative pundits say this is the latest sign that Chavez is a dangerous "bully" who could potentially destabilize the region if President Obama doesn't get tougher on Venezuela. But others say there's good reason to believe Chavez's latest threats can't be taken seriously.

• Colombia Should Be Very, Very Worried  At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey says Chavez wants to replace Colombia's president with a socialist, anti-American regime and turn Venezuela into a "world power intent on humbling the US in our hemisphere." And Morrissey says that thanks to Obama's weak response to the crises in Iran and Honduras, Chavez thinks he has found the perfect American president to bully.  "The strange response to the Honduran crisis apparently has Chavez believing that Obama is particularly malleable, although it could also be that Chavez has taken the lesson from Obama’s handling of Iran."

• America Should Defend Its Closest Ally  At The Weekly Standard, John Noonan says it's probably a bad idea to send American military power to the region, since a move could play to Chavez's anti-imperialist blustering. But Noonan does wants to see President Obama provide non-military assistance to Colombia. "President Obama will likely avoid involvement--not necessarily an unwise move considering Chavez wants to play up the U.S. as an imperial aggressor meme--but providing some token assistance in the form of a non-combat support role (like AWACs) might be enough to put Chavez in his place," he writes. "And it would further signal other U.S. allies that the White House still takes our defense alliances seriously."

• A Dictator In President's Clothing  At The Wall Street Journal, Mary O'Grady says Chavez's most recent aggression is simply more proof that he is a dictator posing as a legitimate president in order to more easily take over democratic institutions. According to O'Grady, this was a lesson learned out of the playbook of the Chilean left. "Fidel Castro learned a lot from Chilean President Salvador Allende's failed power grab in 1973. And he used the lessons of that bitter defeat to coach Venezuela's Hugo Chávez to dictatorship under the guise of democracy more than 25 years later."
  

• Racing to Stop an Arms Race  At Foreign Policy, Jordana Timerman says arms spending is on the rise across the region. "The Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago, and the Cold War itself ended soon after, but if you're feeling nostalgic, tune into the Cold War of the Andes: somewhat more farcical and definitely less likely to end in nuclear annihilation, but riveting nonetheless." Timerman says the U.S. should help build alliances in the region that would prevent such an arms race. "With Venezuelan troops lining up on the Colombian border, Peruvian officials' urging fellow South American countries to reduce military spending arms purchasing, in addition to creating a regional security force, is making a lot more sense."

Chavez Can't Be Taken Seriously  Steven Taylor of the PoliBlog calls the president's bluff. "The bottom line is that a) there is nothing for Chávez to gain from a war with Colombia and, b) Venezuela would likely lose such a confrontation. As such, it is difficult to take the saber-rattling seriously."

The new Cold War: the War on Terror

An Afghan mobile vender pushes his cart through war damaged buildings in Kabul, Afghanistan, last week. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP)

Some policies die hard. In "America's Cold War: the Politics of Insecurity," published by Harvard University Press in October, authors Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall argue that American policy formed during the Cold War was dominated by alarmism, political grandstanding and militarism. We asked Craig, a professor of international politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales, to weigh in on how this U.S. political tradition informs American policy today. Logevall is a professor of history at Cornell University.

GUEST BLOGGER: Campbell Craig
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the United States embarked upon a stunning campaign of military spending and war. Vast new bureaucracies were created almost overnight, not least the Department of Homeland Security, employer now of some 200,000 people.
Ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to the deaths of thousands of American and allied soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans (mostly civilians), and have cost American taxpayers a trillion dollars and counting.
And all of this took place in a remarkable political climate, almost one-party in its nature, as Democrats in Washington competed with one another to acquiesce to the Bush administration's demands and thereby demonstrate their toughness on terrorism.
Many critics of this disaster, and many of those who still defend it, suggest that the "Global War on Terror" represented a new form of foreign policy, one shaped decisively by the absence of great-power rivals to the United States and the murky, sub-national nature of the terrorist enemy.
However, while it is undeniably true that the Bush administration broke new ground in the fields of profligacy and incompetence, much of what went on between 2001 and 2008 actually partook of long-standing political traditions formed over the past sixty years.
The United States had entered the Cold War out of the entirely reasonable fear that the Soviet Union, though devastated by its war against Nazi Germany, might eventually expand into key industrial regions in Western Europe and East Asia unless contained by American force. In initiating its containment strategy, however, U.S. architects of the Cold War opened the door to an array of interest groups, industries, and cynical politicians with a vested interest in maximizing the confrontation with the USSR, and eventually with communists everywhere -- perpetuating the politics of insecurity.
Because the United States had long been protected from would-be predators by the two oceans -- a condition the historian C. Vann Woodward termed "free security" -- American politicians were used to being able to play politics with foreign policy, and this tendency did not disappear after 1945.
Though the USSR was effectively contained by 1950, with Western Europe and Japan firmly on Washington's side, and though the Soviets were deterred from attacking the U.S. directly by the spectre of assured nuclear destruction, numerous institutions, together with politicians who saw Cold War alarmism as a sure ticket to electoral victory, had no interest in accepting these realities.
For decades, American policymakers contrived reasons to build new weapons systems, warn of clear and present dangers, and wage war upon nations that posed no threat to American survival. Indeed, the notion that the United States had done all it could to be safe in a dangerous world became itself the greatest threat to the alarmists who prevailed over official Washington. In George F. Kennan's apt phrase, these leaders had become addicted to the Cold War.
In terms of domestic, if not international, politics, the Global War on Terror represents a continuation of America's Cold War more than a break with it. And, as always, the expansion of U.S. militarism can only be stemmed by democratic resistance.
President Eisenhower's demand, in his farewell address of 1961, that an "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" must stand guard against the "disastrous rise" of a military-industrial complex, remains as true now as it was then.

Russia sees moon plot in Nasa plan

 

The moon could supply our future energy needs

Mankind's second race for the moon took on a distinctly Cold War feel yesterday when the Russian space agency accused its old rival Nasa of rejecting a proposal for joint lunar exploration.
The claim comes amid suspicion in Moscow that the United States is seeking to deny Russia access to an isotope in abundance under the moon's surface that many believe could replace fossil fuels and even end the threat of global warming.

 

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A new era of international co-operation in space supposedly dawned after the United States, Russia and other powers declared their intention to send humans to the moon for the first time since 1972.
But while Nasa has lobbied for support from Britain and the European Space Agency, Russia claims its offers have been rebuffed.
Yesterday Anatoly Perminov, the head of Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, said: "We are ready to co-operate but for some reason the United States has announced that it will carry out the programme itself. Strange as it is, the United States is short of experts to implement the programme."
Nasa announced in December that it was planning to build an international base camp on one of the Moon's poles, permanently staffing it by 2024. Russia's space rocket manufacturer Energia revealed an even more ambitious programme last August, saying it would build a permanent Moon base by 2015.
While the Americans have either been coy or dismissive on the subject, Russia openly says the main purpose of its lunar programme is the industrial extraction of helium-3.
Dismissed by critics as a 21st-century equivalent of the medieval alchemist's fruitless quest to turn lead into gold, some scientists say helium-3 could be the answer to the world's energy woes.
A non-radioactive isotope of helium, helium-3 is a proven and potent fuel for nuclear fusion - so potent that just six metric tons would supply Britain with enough energy for a year.
As helium-3 is non-polluting and is so effective in such tiny quantities, many countries are taking it very seriously. Germany, India and China, which will launch a lunar probe to research extraction techniques in September, are all studying ways to mine the isotope.
"Whoever conquers the moon first will be the first to benefit," said Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China's lunar programme.
Energia says it will start "industrial scale delivery" of helium-3, transported by cargo space ships via the International Space Station, no later than 2020. Gazprom, the state-owned energy giant directly controlled by the Kremlin, is said to be strongly supportive of the project.
The United States has appeared much more cautious, not least because scientists are yet to discover the secrets of large scale nuclear fusion. Commercial fusion reactors look unlikely to come on line before the second half of this century.
But many officials in Moscow's space programme believe Washington's lunar agenda is driven by a desire to monopolise helium-3 mining. They allege that President Bush has moved helium-3 experts into key positions on Nasa's advisory council.
The plot, says Erik Galimov, an academic with the Russian Academy of Sciences, would "enable the US to establish its control of the energy market 20 years from now and put the rest of the world on its knees as hydrocarbons run out."

Russian Tobacco Makers Relaunch Iconic Soviet Cigarette Brands

The Russian tobacco market has been showing a curious trend recently. The cheapest and premium class cigarette brands currently enjoy the biggest demand in Russia. Many tobacco companies focus their efforts on the inexpensive segment and resume the production of Soviet brands, BFM.ru business portal said.




“According to our estimates, the reduction of the Russian tobacco market during the first half year made up 3-4 percent,” Kingsley Wheaton, the managing director of British American Tobacco Russia (BAT Russia) said. The sales of cheap cigarettes are growing, but they are growing in the premium segment of the market too, he said.

Another participant of the Russian tobacco market – Philip Morris – also reported a growth in the sales of its low price segment cigarettes (Bond Street). The sales gained 35 percent during the second quarter of the year – Optima cigarettes went 23 percent up. More expensive brands of the company demonstrated negative dynamics in their sales. Marlboro dropped by 19 percent with Parliament losing 4.3 percent.

BAT Russia took account of the changing demand and launched two new brands – Capri slim cigarettes (prices at $0.8 per pack) and The Golden Fleece (Zolotoye Runo), - a legendary Soviet brand which the company relaunched in April (priced up to $0.48 per pack).

The cigarette brands with the Soviet past from another company, Nevo-Tabak, also managed to improve their sales. The sales of such brands as Arktika, Troika and Leningad improved considerably during the recent six months.

“BAT Russia is not a pioneer when it comes to the launch of iconic Soviet cigarettes. This has been happening on the market of alcohol beverages too. One may recollect the fight of the Moscow Distillery Cristall for such well-known Soviet brands as Pshenichnaya and Stolichnaya. Dairy companies design Soviet-style packaging to win customers’ attention to their products. They hope that the Soviet style packaging will make many recollect their past and buy the product that they know, not something new that they never tried before,” Sergey Tishenko, a senior expert with Business System Development Auditing Company says

Context History of START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) and START II

The Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START I) between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) and the United States (U.S.) was signed in Moscow on July 31, 1991 at a summit meeting between Soviet and U.S. presidents, Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush, and entered into force on December 5, 1994. It was the first agreement of this kind between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. The purpose of the Treaty was to ensure parity between the two sides’ strategic nuclear forces at levels 30% down on initially deployed forces.



The Treaty established equal ceilings on warhead and delivery vehicle numbers and ceilings on the throw-weight of ballistic missiles. Under the Treaty, neither side could have more than:

- 1,600 nuclear warhead delivery vehicles /deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), ballistic missiles (BMs), submarines and heavy bombers/;

- 6,000 warheads, with 4,900 deployed on submarine-based ICMBs and BMs, 1,540 deployed on 154 heavy ICBMs in the U.S.S.R. (the U.S. had no heavy ICBMs), and 110 deployed on mobile ICBMs.



The Treaty left out sea-launched cruise missiles with a range of over 600 km. But a pledge was made not to deploy more than 880 SLCMs.



The collapse of the U.S.S.R. made START I outdated. On May 23, 1992, in Lisbon, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the U.S. signed the so-called Lisbon Protocol to START I, which came into effect on December 5, 1994. The Protocol records the inclusion of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine in the START Treaty and at the same time requests that they join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. START I is valid for 15 years (until December 5, 2009). Given the parties’ agreement, its term can be extended for another 5 years when the 15 years are up.



On December 6, 2001, official representatives of Russia and the U.S. reported that their countries had fulfilled their START I obligations.



The Treaty on Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START II) between Russia and the U.S. was signed by the Russian and U.S. presidents on January 3, 1993 in Moscow, but never went into effect.



The Treaty bans using ballistic missiles with independently targetable warheads.



On September 26, 1997, in New York, the Russian Foreign Minister and the U.S. Secretary of State signed a Protocol to START II, providing for a postponement of the Treaty for 5 years, from December 31, 2001 to December 31, 2007. The delay was due to the fact that the first stage of the Treaty was to be completed within seven years of START I coming into force (it became effective on December 5, 1994), that is to say by December 31, 2001. This meant that should START II be ratified, for example, in 1997-1998, its implementation period would be cut back considerably – by 3 to 4 years.



The Russian side ratified the Treaty together with the Protocol on April 14, 2000 on the condition that the ABM Treaty be preserved. The U.S. ratified the Treaty in January 1996, but the Treaty in the same package with the September 26, 1997 Protocol was never submitted for ratification and therefore was considered non-ratified.



When the U.S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty on June 13, 2002, Russia announced it was stopping observance of its commitments under START II Treaty. On June 14, 2002, the Foreign Ministry of Russia issued a statement saying that following the U.S. abandonment of the ABM Treaty, “the Russian Federation sees no grounds for giving force to START II and no longer considers itself bound by the undertaking, stipulated by international law, to refrain from steps which could strip the Treaty of aim and objective.”



At a May 24, 2002 summit in Moscow, the presidents of Russia and the United States concluded an additional Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) to limit the number of operational nuclear warheads to 1,700-2,200 for each party. These ceilings are to be reached by December 2012, with the sides still retaining the right to decide the make-up and structure of strategic offensive weapons.



In 2005, Russia proposed that a new agreement is concluded with the U.S. to replace the START Treaty.

Russia, US agree nuclear arms cuts in Obama visit

Germany sees 'new spirit' in Russia-US ties
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday welcomed a joint determination by Russian and US leaders to reduce their countries' strategic nuclear weapons and said he saw a "new spirit". "I welcome today's Moscow declaration," Steinmeier said in a statement issued by his ministry. "It is the sign of a new spirit in Russian-US relations: the armament scenarios are part of the past. Today there is a joint will to make progress in the disarmament field." During talks in Moscow presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama earlier Monday announced agreements on Afghanistan and cutting their nuclear arsenals as they sought a new era in battered relations. Their agreement shows that "the two nuclear powers take their disarmament obligations under article 6 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty seriously", said Steinmeier. "This is an important signal for the conference that is to look into the treaty next year," he added. Steinmeier said this new "positive momentum" should be used to reach new disarmament targets. "We need substantial progress in disarmament policies," he said. The declaration signed by the two presidents pledges to reach a new nuclear arms reduction pact to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Obama said it provides for cuts of "up to a third" from current limitations. START is due to expire on December 5 but the declaration gave no target date for a renewal, instructing negotiators to complete the work as quickly as possible. The declaration called for a reduction in the number of nuclear warheads in Russian and US strategic arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years and the number of ballistic missile carriers to between
The Russian and US leaders Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama on Monday announced agreements on Afghanistan and cutting their nuclear arsenals as they sought a new era in battered relations.
The ex-Cold War foes issued a declaration on replacing a key disarmament treaty -- including figures for major cuts in nuclear warheads -- and clinched a breakthrough deal for US military transit for Afghanistan across Russia.

But as Obama made his first visit to Moscow as president, they still remained divided over US plans to install a missile defence shield in eastern Europe and Moscow's policy towards the pro-Western ex-Soviet state Georgia.

"The president and I agreed that the relationship between Russia and the United States (has suffered) from a sense of drift," Obama said at joint news conference in the Kremlin with Medvedev.

"We resolved to reset US-Russian relations. Today after less than six months of collaboration (since coming to office) we have done exactly that," he added.

The declaration signed by the presidents pledges to reach a new nuclear arms reduction pact to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Obama said it provides for cuts of "up to a third" from current limitations.

It "commits both parties to a legally binding treaty that will reduce nuclear weapons," the White House said in a statement.

START is due to expire on December 5 but the declaration gave no target date for a renewal, instructing negotiators to complete the work as quickly as possible.

The declaration called for a reduction in the number of nuclear warheads in Russian and US strategic arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years and the number of ballistic missile carriers to between 500-1,100.

The cuts go beyond those levels set in the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) which calls for both countries to reduce the number of deployed warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 on either side by 2012.

"The declared reduction is a real agreement and it suits everyone," said Alexei Malashenko, analyst with the Carnegie Centre in Moscow.

"The Americans have decided to accept Russia as it is. Obama does not have the complexes from the Cold War and does not consider Russia to be an enemy of the United States."

Obama also proposed that the United States host a global nuclear security summit next year and suggested to Medvedev that Russia host a subsequent one in order to draft a new, "reinvigorated" non-proliferation treaty.

The Afghanistan agreement means Russia has authorised the use of its airspace for the transit of US troops and arms, a major boost for Obama's bid to step up the fight against the Taliban.

The deal permits up to 4,500 military flights per year, or about 12 per day, which can be loaded with troops, firearms, ammunition, military vehicles and spare parts, a senior US official said.

The official said military flights would not be charged air navigation fees and that they would not stop on Russian territory.

Previously Russia had only allowed the United States to ship non-lethal military supplies across its territory by train.

The two sides also signed an agreement to resume bilateral military cooperation suspended last August over Moscow's war in Georgia, an event which sent ties plummeting to a post Cold War low.

But amid the smiles and expressions of goodwill, the US plan to install missile defence facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland -- which Russia says threatens its security -- remained a major sticking point.

"The discussions on missile defence are proceeding with great difficulty because the approaches are very different," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, according to ITAR-TASS news agency.

Obama expressed hope however that "over time we will have seen that the US and Russian positions can be reconciled" and announced that both sides would step up their joint analysis of missile threats.

He also bluntly repeated the US dissatisfaction with Russia's recognition of two breakaway Russian regions as independent, Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity "must be respected".

"There are areas where we still disagree...we had a frank discussion on Georgia".

Obama was on Tuesday morning due to meet with Russia's powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a man who he described in the run-up to the summit as having "one foot" in the past of the Cold War.

He did not repeat that comment in the news conference, acknowledging that Putin was one of the "influential" figures he was going to meet and noting that Russia's ruling tandem were "working very effectively together".

Obama asks Putin to give up Cold War, looks at a Korean Missile Crisis

This week, on the eve of his first trip to Russia, President Barak Obama criticized the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for having a foot left in the Cold War. During his speech Obama, cited that the new President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, is more adapt to moving forward from this past.


With the discussion of the START I treaty at the head of the summit’s agenda, Obama is not treading lightly in regards to this former enemy. However, with the prospects of a reduction in nuclear arms and at least a discussion on SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative), both sides are looking for heavy concessions.


Obama wants to dramatically cut our nuclear arsenal, while the Russians would like for the U.S. to abandon its SDI program. This may pose a problem on a few different fronts.


As of 06:37 on 4 July, it is reported that North Korea has launched up to 7 missiles off their eastern coast. This will further defy the UN resolution following the May underground test of a nuclear weapon. North Korea is and has been pursuing a myopic foreign policy that is making the world scratch their heads.


While the United States still believes in diplomacy in regards to North Korea, many wonder what a possible ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) launch towards Hawaii, set for the July 4th Holiday, will do for relations surrounding the area.


According to analysts at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a think tank that analyzes nuclear issues, there is a belief that such a launch, coupled with a pursed nuclear agenda, could send the region into to a ripple effect of chaos.


It is thought that Japan, who has not had a standing army since WWII, may feel the need for a military buildup to offer itself a significant defense against North Korea. If this were to occur, China, who is already torn between a natural ally in Korea and desired ally in the United States, believes this could lead to nuclear proliferation within the region, in essence creating another Cold War. If such were to happen, China would most likely react accordingly. With essential ties to the North, if Japan were to rearm and pursue nuclear weapons for defense, China would be in a position to have to choose between a lesser of two evils.


As Obama discusses nuclear arms reductions with Moscow, they are in a wait and see mode. Their nuclear supply is believed to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,000 units, which far outnumbers any other nation, including the U.S.


It is doubted that a missile launch from Korea would even come anywhere close to Hawaii. In any event, the U.S. has deployed countermeasure to intercept any threat.