The claim last week by a Russian submarine
to “own” the Arctic Ocean, and the North Pole,
plus Russia's stated renewal of flying military
missions with airplanes in both a “spying” and
“offensive mode” posture are both worrisome
and deplorable. One nation cannot claim a
whole ocean or region, and the Arctic should
have the same status as the Antarctic – shared
by everyone, owned by no one, agreed upon by
treaty amongst all the nations of the planet.

Russia’s increased belligerency in military areas – new
unlimited production of planes, missiles, tanks and
artillery; withdrawing from the CFE treaty; apparently
planning to build an ABM system; and perhaps in the
process of considering, as has the United States, the
idea of militarizing space – is not a welcome behavior
to most of the planet.

These are formulas for disaster. Russia is not threatened
by anyone as best as can be ascertained. Their paranoia
has once again reached to a level of political insanity.
Muscle alone will not make Russia a player on the world
stage, nor will being a major oil producer, although the
latter could make them rich, and provide the Russian
populace (and not just the elites and the oligarchs) with
a level of economic self-sufficiency not available to the
Russian masses ever *if* all this new wealth isn’t
devoted to just military development and hardware.

Russia has some severe problems. The irradiated areas
where nuclear arms production has occurred, the enormous
pollution and waste problems left to them by the former
Soviet state (and to the 14 breakaway republics) are really
big issues apparently being ignored by a leadership hell
bent on remilitarization. In the past, and one of the many
reasons the Soviet state collapsed, was this overemphasis
on military hardware and large standing armies. If Putin
really wants to go backward, or “return to Soviet glory,”
he risks a confrontation not only with the US, but NATO
and Asia, mostly China. I suspect most of the world will
be quite uneasy about a Russia determined to bully its
neighbors, and resume authoritarianism at home (the
latter being *quite* sad as a developing process).

The 21st century *should* be an era of promise and
cooperation, especially in the areas of environmental
concerns and world trade. Russia, China and the US all
continue with agricultural subsidies, keeping the “third
world” locked out of agricultural trade. Russia and the
US continue to the largest purveyors of arms across the
planet while with crocodile smiles offering cries of woe
about the distance of peace in Kurdistan, Spain, Russia,
the Middle East and the Philippines to name just a few
examples. Both Russia and the US threaten to use, or do
use, force to get what they want. This is a long step away
from cooperation, as are the behaviors of rearming and
spurious land grabs.

The dangers of a second “Cold War” grows closer, and
almost no one is giving a great deal of attention to the
matter, from the very top where it is being either actively
promoted (Putin) or ignored completely (Bush and the
West). The United States’ adventurism in Afghanistan
and Iraq, the promotion of such against Iran (Cheney)
and Pakistan (Obama) seem the height of folly, but then
that could also be said about the Russian claim to “own”
all of the Arctic, and the apparent unleashing of a “new”
round of rearmament with all of its attendant dangers. VMS



Note: Written Mon, 13 Aug 2007 10:14:14