Putin's portion of humble pie

Important men like Robert Gates don't usually spend much time in bijou backwaters like Tallinn, the picturesque capital of Estonia. But the US defence secretary has two strong reasons for being there today. One was to demonstrate Washington's solidarity with the Baltic states rattled by Russia's summer invasion of Georgia. The other was to urge Nato defence ministers to offer an alliance membership plan to Ukraine.
All the same, Gates was in the wrong place. The people with most influence over what happens next on Georgia and Ukraine were gathering far to the south, in Nice, ahead of tomorrow's EU-Russia summit hosted by France. The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, will be there, as will European leaders. The Americans were not invited.

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Leading historian issues warning of a new cold war

"I believe that Russia's prime minister Vladimir Putin is about to have his Molotov-Ribbentrop moment," said Ferguson, referring to the pre-second world war non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. "He's going to realise that Moscow and Beijing can have a new and meaningful partnership."
Ferguson also warned that the West had to sit up and take notice of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. The SCO was officially founded in 2001 as a counterpart to Nato and the European Union. Aside from China and Russia its members are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Ferguson said that the SCO had sneaked "under the radar" of the West, and its activities should be carefully monitored.

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Old Article(2006):The New American Cold War

Two reactions to this article were particularly noteworthy when it first appeared in The Nation almost exactly one year ago. Judging by activity on the magazine's website and by responses sent to me personally, it was very widely read and discussed both in the United States and in Russia, where it was quickly translated on a Russian-language site. And, unlike most Russian commentators, almost every American specialist who reacted to the article, directly or indirectly, adamantly disputed my thesis that US-Russian relations had deteriorated so badly they should now be understood as a new cold war--or possibly as a continuation of the old one.

Developments during the last year have amply confirmed that thesis. Several examples could be cited, but two should be enough.

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The Eurasian Corridor: Pipeline Geopolitics and the New Cold War

The Security Prosperity Partnership (SPP) is to North America what the Silk Road Strategy (SRS) is to the Caucasus and Central Asia. They are strategic regional constructs of America's business empire. They are the building blocks of the New World Order. The SPP is the result of a similar process of strategic planning, militarization and free market economic integration, largely based on the control of strategic resources including energy and water, as well as the " protection" of energy and transportation corridors (land and maritime routes ) from Alaska and Canada's Arctic to Central America and the Caribbean basin. - Michel Chossudovsky


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Russia's Tit for Tat in Cuba

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba and Russia have stirred memories of their Cold War alliance with recent talk of restoring "traditional" ties in what experts said was a warning to their old adversary, the United States.

Russia, once the island's top economic benefactor and military ally, has hinted at re-establishing a military presence in Cuba in a tit-for-tat for U.S. activities in Eastern Europe, including plans for a missile defense system, they said.

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