Maintaining - or regaining - America’s influence in our own neighborhood will be a key challenge for the next president.
The perceptions are especially grim these days. Latinoamericanos accuse Uncle Sam of neglecting their needs at the same time they chastise us for unwelcome meddling. And the rise of leftist anti-Yanqui leaders has many Norteamericanos lamenting [...]

read more....

In the movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s little terrier, Toto, pulls aside a curtain to reveal that the awesome “wizard” is really a little man frantically pulling levers to create an illusion of power. Moscow is not quite the “Emerald City,” but Vladimir Putin is certainly acting like the wizard — and seems intent [...]

read more....

Russia’s boast of its right to rely on pre-emptive nuclear strikes to defend itself , rhetoric backed up by a major armed forces display in the northern Atlantic, has immediate political objectives.
The former USSR preferred not to talk about pre-emptive nuclear strikes and in mid-1980s Moscow unilaterally pledged not to use nuclear weapons first, but [...]

read more....

Russia sent fighters and long-range bombers to the Arctic and North Atlantic on Friday to take part in manoeuvres demonstrating revival of some of the military power and reach it lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Read More…
Related Articles:

Russian bombers fly over Arctic region
Russia sends 12 bombers to Atlantic, Arctic
all 19 news articles »

[...]

read more....

The United States promised Kazakhstan on Friday to help it bring its armed forces up to NATO standards in a new military cooperation pact certain to irritate Russia, Kazakhstan’s former Soviet overlord.
Kazakhstan’s ties with Moscow have cooled over the past year as the energy-rich Central Asian state — the biggest economy in the region and [...]

read more....

The cleverly titled Wall Street Journal column, “Gazprom Drills Deeper Into Europe,” explains how the Russian energy giant (Gazprom) is invading Western retail energy markets. While Russian bombers and warships conduct war exercises in the Atlantic, the real 2008 Russian Winter Offensive is along economic lines. Not only has Russia protected itself financially, with bolstered [...]

read more....

“FREE goods are worth what you pay for them” is the cynic’s approach to the world, shared by hard-headed poverty-busters. Charging even a nominal price for things such as mosquito nets and condoms makes people take them more seriously, it is argued. Given away free, the nets may end up being used to catch fish [...]

read more....

While worries about $100-per-barrel oil tend to grab the headlines, the uninterrupted delivery of clean-burning natural gas from politically stable countries into the United States, Europe and Asia should be the focus of Western energy security. Domestic natural-gas production for both North America and Europe is at or near its peak while demand for natural [...]

read more....

Tens of millions of people in 160 cities and counties are without electricity and water. Chenzhou, a city with four million inhabitants, has only five days of rice supplies. Travellers are fighting to get onto the trains. Serious crop damage, and economic worries. Criticism raised against the government, and Hu says he has “lost sleep”.
Read [...]

read more....

Pakistan on Friday successfully test-fired an upgraded version of a medium-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, the military said.
more stories like this
The army’s Strategic Missile Group launched the Ghauri missile, which has a range of 810 miles, from an undisclosed location, it said. The military has been working on modifying the missile [...]

read more....

If the Kremlin’s new military doctrine endorses the General Staff’s nuclear ideas, Russia will have new armed forces, with all the ensuing consequences.
First, these forces will become strictly offensive because of the very nature of a pre-emptive strike. This will require totally different mobilization plans and a new approach to recruiting for the Russian army [...]

read more....

This article was published on June 30, 2006. It serves as a reminder that Syria is an ally of Russia.
As part of the plan, the port of Tartus would be transformed into a naval base for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet when it is away from the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol.
Russia is searching for a new [...]

read more....

Basing all three of the nation’s Seawolf subs here in Bremerton, WA is part of the Defense Department’s “60/40″ realignment of fast-attack submarines, with 60 percent of the fleet slated to operate in the Pacific Ocean and 40 percent in the Atlantic by 2010. The shift underscores the importance to national security of the Pacific [...]

read more....

The industrialised countries’ oil watchdog has admitted that it has been paying insufficient attention to supply bottlenecks as evidence mounts that oil is being discovered more slowly than once expected.
Read More…
Related Articles:
Big Oil has trouble finding new fields
A $10000 bet on peak oil
“Crude Awakening ” by Kevin Drum
Peak Oil Review - December 31st, 2007 | [...]

read more....