Cold War heats up with a vengence

Cid_Yama

allenwrench wrote:

Will there be an answer to NATO from such a 'Russian Federation' or are these little countries too independent minded to look to Russia for protection?

SCO the New Warsaw Pact, Counterpoint to NATO

Is the SCO, which consists of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, on the verge of being transformed into a new Warsaw Pact, a Eurasian counterbalance to the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO)?

Pavel Felgenhauer, a Russian defense analyst, who observed: "As Moscow's relations with the West deteriorate, the Kremlin is doing its best to seek allies and is building up the SCO to counterbalance NATO.

Meanwhile, the Russian newspaper Kommersant, in an article tellingly titled "Maneuvers to go around the United States", sees the exercises and the summit that will follow in Bishkek as part of a renewed Russian effort to push back against the US "on all fronts", from opposing plans to deploy missile-defense components in central-eastern Europe to "expelling" the US from Central Asia altogether.

RFE/RL: Representatives from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have repeatedly said the organization's military cooperation is not aimed at any third country or party, yet the military exercises seem to be growing in size. Wouldn't this trend naturally be a cause of concern for the U.S. or NATO?

Stephen Blank: Certainly it would be. But although the SCO's representatives always say that it's not aimed at a third country or party, if you look at their communiques going back to 2001 -- and even before that to the Sino-Russian communiques and the formation of the six-party border agreements -- their communiques have always been full of coded anti-American foreign policy statements. So for Russia and China, it's aimed at American interests. And the size of these exercises is growing, and many experts do not believe that they are confined only to so-called antiterrorist activities, or even just to Central Asia. The August 2005 Sino-Russian exercises, which were conducted under the auspices of the SCO, were so large and [they] so thoroughly combined arms and major-theater conventional warfare in their approach, that people believed these were aimed as much at Taiwan and Korea as they were at any potential Central Asian contingency.

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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

Cid_Yama

Russia's Return Bites the Neocons' Grand Energy Scheme in the Ass

At the time this gambit was first set up, in the early 1990s, there was some notion (or wish, really) among the so-called western powers that the Caspian would provide an end-run around OPEC and the Arabs, as well as the Persians, and deliver all the oil that the US and Europe would ever need -- a foolish wish and a dumb gambit, as things have turned out.

For one thing, the latterly explorations of this very old oil region -- first opened to drilling in the 19th century -- proved somewhat disappointing. US officials had been touting it as like unto "another Saudi Arabia" but the oil actually produced from the new drilling areas of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and the other Stans turned out to be preponderantly heavy-and-sour crudes, in smaller quantities than previously dreamed-of, and harder to transport across the extremely challenging terrain to even get to the pipeline head in Baku.

It's one thing that US foreign policy wonks imagined that Russia would remain in a coma forever, but the idea that we could encircle Russia strategically with defensible bases in landlocked mountainous countries halfway around the world…? You have to ask what were they smoking over at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSC?

So, this asinine policy has now come to grief. Not only does Russia stand to gain control over the Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline, but we now have every indication that they will bring the states on its southern flank back into an active sphere of influence, and there is really not a damn thing that the US can pretend to do about it.

This must be an equally sobering moment for Europe, and an additional reason for the recent plunge in the relative value of the Euro, for Europe is now at the mercy of Russia in terms of staying warm in the winter, running their kitchen stoves, and keeping the lights on. Russia also exerts substantial financial leverage over the US in all the dollars and securitized US debt paper it holds. In effect, Russia can shake the US banking system at will now by threatening to dump its dollar holdings.

The American banking system may not need a shove from Russia to fall on its face. It's effectively dead now, just lurching around zombie-like from one loan "window" to the next pretending to "borrow" capital -- while handing over shreds of its moldy clothing as "collateral" to the Federal Reserve. The entire US, beyond the banks, is becoming a land of the walking dead. Business is dying, home-ownership has become a death dance, whole regions are turning into wastelands of "for sale" signs, empty parking lots, vacant buildings, and dashed hopes. And all this beats a path directly to a failure of collective national imagination. We really don't know what's going on.

The fantasy that we can sustain our influence nine thousand miles away, when we can't even get our act together in Ohio is just a dark joke. One might state categorically that it would be a salubrious thing for America to knock off all its vaunted "dreaming" and just wake the frak up.

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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

allenwrench · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 23, 2008 Posts: 893

Thanks again Cid_Yama for an outstanding thread.

toast · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 27, 2006 Posts: 103

Russia considers nuclear missiles for Syria, Mediterranean, Baltic
DEBKAfile Special Report

August 17, 2008, 9:18 PM (GMT+02:00)

Russia's nuclear-capable Iskandar missile
DEBKAfile's military sources report Moscow's planned retaliation for America's missile interceptors in Poland and US-Israeli military aid to Georgia may come in the form of installing Iskandar surface missiles in Syria and its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.

Russian Baltic and Middle East warships, submarines and long-range bombers may be armed with nuclear warheads, according to Sunday newspapers in Europe.

In Georgia, Russian troops and tanks advanced to within 30 km of Tbilisi Saturday, Aug. 15. A Russian general said Sunday they had started pulling out after president Dimitry Medvedev signed the ceasefire agreement with Georgia and president George W. Bush called again for an immediate withdrawal.

After routing Georgia over the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Moscow appears to be eying Poland, the Middle East, and possibly Ukraine, as the main arenas for its reprisals.

One plan on the table in Moscow, DEBKAfile's sources report, is the establishment of big Russian military, naval and air bases in Syria and the release of advanced weapons systems withheld until now to Iran (the S-300 air-missile defense system) and Syria (the nuclear-capable 200 km-range Iskandar surface missile).

Shortly before the Georgian conflict flared, Moscow promised Washington not to let Iran and Syria have these sophisticated pieces of hardware.

The Iskander's cruise attributes make its launch and trajectory extremely hard to detect and intercept. If this missile reaches Syria, Israel will have to revamp its anti-missile defense array and Air Force assault plans for the third time in two years, as it constitutes a threat which transcends all its defensive red lines.

Moscow's war planners know this and are therefore considering new sea and air bases in Syria as sites for the Iskander missiles. Russia would thus keep the missiles under its hand and make sure they were not transferred to Iran. At the same time, Syrian crews would be trained in their operation.

DEBKAfile's military sources report Syrian president Bashar Assad will be invited to Moscow soon to finalize these plans in detail.

Military spokesmen in Moscow said Saturday and Sunday that Russian military planners to started redesigning the nation’s strategic plans for a fitting response to America's decision to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland and the war developments in Georgia.

The chairman of the Israeli Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee, Tzahi Hanegbi, spoke out strongly Sunday, Aug. 17, against treasury plans to slash the defense budget. He warned that the military faced grave confrontations in the coming year - possibly on several fronts.

Cid_Yama

Russia may deploy missiles in Syria

Syria raised the prospect yesterday of having Russian missiles on its soil, sparking fears of a new Cold War in the Middle East. President Assad said as he arrived in Moscow to clinch a series of military agreements: “We are ready to co-operate with Russia in any project that can strengthen its security.”

The Syrian leader told Russian newspapers: “I think Russia really has to think of the response it will make when it finds itself closed in a circle.”

Mr Assad said that he would be discussing the deployment of Russian missiles on his territory. The Syrians are also interested in buying Russian weapons.

In return Moscow is expected to propose a revival of its Cold War era naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus, which would give the Russian Navy its first foothold in the Mediterranean for two decades. Damascus and Moscow were close allies during the Cold War but the Kremlin’s influence in the region waned after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yesterday’s rapprochement raised the possibility that Moscow intends to re-create a global anti-Western alliance with former Soviet bloc allies.

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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

Cid_Yama

Abkhazian leader asks Russia to recognise Abkhazia

The president of the self-proclaimed republic of Abkhazia, Sergei Bagapsh, said a negotiated settlement of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict is no longer possible.

“It is absolutely obvious that all initiatives within the framework of the negotiations have completely exhausted themselves,” he said on Wednesday in an appeal to the Russian leadership, asking it to recognise Abkhazia’s independence.

He urged Russia to “recognise the Republic of Abkhazia as a sovereign and independent state” and “establish diplomatic relations between the two countries”.

He believes that in the event of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Abkhazia and Russia the two sides may also sign a treaty of friendship and mutual assistance containing a special clause on the presence of Russian armed forces in Abkhazia for the purpose of maintaining peace and preventing intrusion by third parties.

According to the president, a nationwide rally to be held in Sukhumi on Thursday should “confirm the president’s decision and the parliament’s address to the leadership of Russia, parliaments and world countries to recognise independence of Abkhazia”.

“Today is a historical moment for any resident of Abkhazia,” the republic’s head stressed.

"The only way to secure stability and safety in the Caucasus region is to recognize the established reality, i.e. that such independent states as Abkhazia and South Ossetia emerged and have existed independently for more than 15 years," the diplomat said.

“Since there is a very high risk of Georgian aggression and the appearance of the armed forces of third countries in Georgia cannot be ruled out”, Bagapsh said it would be “important” for the Russian Armed Forces to remain in Abkhazia in order to maintain peace.
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Tbilisi responsible for South Ossetia independence situation development

The Georgian leadership and President Mikhail Saakashvili are responsible for further development of events around recognition of independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Answering the question about how Russia will respond to the request to recognize their independence, Lavrov noted: "We very well understand the Abkhazian and South Ossetian peoples who have been subjected to various degrees of chauvinist pressure on the part of Georgia in the past 15 years.

"All these years, we've been striving to perform the function of mediator, very patiently and with responsibility, and if somebody questioned the territorial integrity of Georgia, and delivered a most serious blow to it, it is incumbent leader Mikhail Nikolayevich Saakashvili," the foreign minister went on to say.

Georgian president "vowed two years ago that he’d never do it, and that he'd be using peaceful methods of settlement with the peoples whom he regards as part of his state.

"This time, the scale and cynicism of what has been done transgresses all borders, and Saakashvili bears responsibly for how the situation will be developing.

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_________________
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

Cid_Yama

U.S. Nixes Israeli Request For Refueling Aircraft

The United States, determined not to facilitate an attack on Iran, has rejected an Israeli request for advanced refueling aircraft. Israeli officials said the Bush administration refused a request by Defense Minister Ehud Barak to purchase the KC-767 tanker transport aircraft. They said the administration did not want to be seen as helping Israel attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

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Kuwait Conducts Evacuation Exercises

Kuwait, preparing for an Iranian military strike, has reviewed its evacuation program. Officials said three government departments reviewed their evacuation programs in case of war with Iran. The exercises began on Aug. 19 at a Kuwaiti port that receives U.S. military ships and is regarded as a leading target of any Iranian attack.

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_________________
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

Cid_Yama

Olmert: No Israeli restraint if Lebanon turns into Hezbollah state

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Tuesday that his country will not exercise restraint if Lebanon turns into a Hezbollah state.

Touring the Home Front Command headquarters in Ramle, Olmert said that Israel avoided using heavy weaponry in the Second Lebanon War because it fought against "a terror group (Hezbollah) and not a country."

But if Lebanon turns into a Hezbollah state, Israel will remove those limitations, local daily Jerusalem Post quoted Olmert as saying.

On Aug. 12, the Lebanese parliament overwhelmingly approved a national unity cabinet after a five-day debate on a controversial government policy that upholds Hezbollah's right to keep its weapons.

The policy asserts "the right of Lebanon, its people, its army and the resistance (Hezbollah) to liberate its land" occupied by Israel, according to the Jerusalem Post.

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_________________
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

Cid_Yama

Russia to recognize independence of Abkhazia, South Ossetia on August 25th

Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the Russian parliament's upper house, said Russia was ready to heed the appeals of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to recognize them as independent countries. In fact, the two houses of parliament said they have even agreed on a potential date to do so, August 25.
South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity was received by President Dmitry Medvedev at Bocharov Ruchei on Tuesday, while Abkhazia's Sergei Bagapsh visited the Russian president's residence on Wednesday.
Both meetings focused on the future of the two self-proclaimed republics, while their leaders presented Medvedev with letters on their intentions. Bagapsh said formal appeals would be launched soon.
On Wednesday Abkhazia's parliament approved an independence appeal to the Russian government. On Thursday a large gathering will meet on a square in the center of the capital Sukhumi to finally approve the appeal.
Medvedev had earlier assured the two leaders that Russia would support and act as guarantor of any decision taken by the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Zulfia Nigmatullina, who heads a legal department at Russia's Federation Council, said there are no international laws regulating the procedure for recognizing independence. In Russia, a presidential decree will suffice.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080821/116199005.html
_________________
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

Cid_Yama

Shaping Up The Super SCUDs Of Syria

Syria has been testing its ballistic missile inventory lately, with over a dozen missiles fired in the last few months. Israel has made no secret of the fact that, in a future war with Syria, they estimate that there would be as many as 3,300 Israeli casualties (including up to 200 dead). That's if Syria just used its long range missiles armed with conventional warheads (high explosives or cluster bombs). If the Syrians used chemical warheads, Israeli casualties could be as high as 16,000. Over 200,000 Israelis would be left homeless, and it's believed about a 100,000 would seek to leave the country.

Syria has underground storage and launch facilities for its arsenal of over a thousand SCUD missiles. Armed with half ton high explosive and cluster bomb warheads, the missiles have ranges of 500-700 kilometers. Syria also has some 90 older Russian Frog-7 missiles (70 kilometer range, half ton warhead) and 210 more modern Russian SS-21 missiles (120 kilometer range, half ton warhead) operating with mobile launchers. There are also 60 mobile SCUD launchers. The Syrians have a large network of camouflaged launching sites for the mobile launchers. Iran and North Korea have helped Syria build underground SCUD manufacturing and maintenance facilities. The Syrian missiles are meant to hit Israeli airfields, missile launching sites and nuclear weapons sites, as well as population centers. Syria hopes to do enough damage with a missile strike to cripple Israeli combat capability.

It is feared that the recent Syrian tests are partly training exercises to see how ready the missile launcher crews are. Some of the tests may have tested new guidance systems, perhaps using GPS or Russian Glonass to attain high accuracy. Syria has been working more closely with Russian military suppliers lately, and has been a client state of Iran for over two decades.

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Looks like nations in the Middle East are making preperations for a war in the near term.
_________________
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

Nickel