Russia's back at it again folks.
Putin continues to strengthen a his forces along the Ukrainian border while simultaneously cutting off imports of American and European food while also flexing and even increasing Russia's global military presence.
Military news:{Russia re-opens cold war era intelligence base}
Russia has reached an agreement with Cuba to re-open a cold-war era intelligence base located in Cuba, some 150 miles off the U.S. coast.
The base is, or rather listening and intelligence gathering complex, is used specifically to spy on U.S. communications. That alone is not alarming by any means, we do the same to them albeit at further distances. What is alarming is simply the fact they are doing it all. They had originally closed the base due to operating costs and after running some-sort of cost-benefit analysis they probably figured their time and resources could be put to better use elsewhere. The U.S. was not a threatening them and if anything, we were on fairly peaceful relations with them back in 2001 when the base had originally closed.
Additionally, this comes a year after the Snowden scandal. You remember him right? The third party intelligence analyst that made the mistake of betraying his country. Hence why this is a bigger deal than it would seem. Not even the U.S. government is entirely sure what information he has given the Russians. We can be assured by the actions Russia is taking, that the information Snowden leaked to the Russian government has encouraged them to act more boldly against the U.S. than they have since the days of the Soviet Union.
I don't believe this is a simple coincidence. I am fully convinced that Snowden handed them fairly sophisticated information regarding our defensive and intelligence capabilities as well as information regarding our less-known exploits around the globe. Oh, and one more: I believe Snowden had information pertaining to our relationships with several key nations around the globe. Information that is the result of both diplomatic-relations and for a lack of a better word, spying.
There are two more reasons that help reaffirm my belief that Russia has more knowledge of the inner-working of our intelligence gathering capabilities and defense than they ever have:
Russian incursions of US airspace
Russia, Iran oil deal, Russia seeking to bypass the dollar
On the issue of Russian incursions of US airspace:
The Russians are flying more aircraft more closely and more frequently around and sometimes even in U.S. airspace than ever before.
They have always enjoyed flying close to our borders or close to our aircraft, so in one respect it's nothing new. However, what is new is just how close they are flying our borders, to our military aircraft and ships operating in international waters, and how often they are doing. Most of the aircraft they're flying are extremely out-dated and don't pose much of a threat if any at all. Save for one: the TU-95 Russian Bear H bomber. This is an extremely out-dated monolith of a plane. It's not even a jet! It has four massive turbo-props!
Hearing that news, you might think "no big deal then, sounds like a cold-war relic." Well true, it is a cold-war relic and wouldn't normally be much of a threat if it was simply a bomber. But the TU-95 is no ordinary bomber, it's cargo isn't a simple 500lbs JDAM. It's actually a nuclear war-head. Whether or not they're carrying nuclear war-heads when they fly along U.S. borders and sometimes within U.S. borders is not known and frankly it's inconsequential because they're nuclear capable and were designed specifically to carry nuclear war-heads over a target and drop them. This makes it a serious threat and a geopolitical nightmare. It's basically the Russian way of giving us the finger. It's incredibly dangerous and hostile to us as Americans. Furthermore, it shows an incredibly naive and reckless Russian government.
On the issue of the Russia-Iran oil deal:
This is nothing new really. Russia has always supported any U.S. hater out there.
What is new, is how far-reaching their deals are becoming and how accommodating they've become to potential allies. For instance, they completely erased the debt owed to them by Cuba. They have consistently gone around U.S. and EU sanctions to create alliances and deals with several nations including Turkey, Iraq, Syria, North Korea, and Iran, knowing that these countries are unstable and even dangerous to the U.S. and EU.
Russia has fostered diplomatic relations with those previously mentioned countries as well as economic ties through brokered gas and oil deals, military munitions contracts, and most recently, they have begun a huge push to eliminate the dollar as a global currency that every other currency is pegged to.
Which leads to....
Russia seeking to bypass the dollar:
By partnering up with China, India, Turkey, and even south American countries like Brazil, is an incredibly smart economic move to make against the U.S. They're leading the push to de-dollar the world more than ever which will hurt the U.S. economy as we'll see a drop in the demand of our currency and an uptick in the demand for other nations currencies. In a way, this was inevitable. But the degree to which they're pushing is get rid of the dollar is stronger than it's ever been and is clearly aimed at hurting the U.S. economy.
All these actions put-together point to a Putin fear-mongering within the Russian government to help create an unstable world where confidence in U.S. power is weakened to such a state that we become the bad-guys.
My personal opinion of Putin is that he is a military-minded man, not a man capable of understanding economics or any sophisticated science. He is governed by his own cold-war era mindset and is becoming increasingly dangerous and unpredictable. This doesn't make him retarded or stupid by any means! No, he know's what he is doing and is going about it mostly through sophisticated means.
Arguably the more pressing concern here is what the U.S. and EU will do. So far, they have both failed miserably at deterring Russian aggression and showing any guts whatsoever. We have both become passive, patient, and almost too hopeful for world peace to acknowledge and take action against those who threaten it.
The U.S. is by no means a peace-seeking country. We have solidified our place in history as a war-mongering nation and today is no different than it was thirty years ago. However, what has changed is our fortitude and degree of ignorance of world affairs. Our foreign policy is worse now than it quite possibly has ever been in the history of our proud nation. Thanks to the Snowden revelations, two unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a poor campaign against terrorism that stretches across the entire globe, and a failure to secure our allies both militarily and economically.
Putin can clearly see our weaknesses and is doing everything he can to capitulate. Brokering deals with our former allies, forging relationships with anti-U.S. governments, and pushing forward a new world that doesn't depend so much on U.S. economic activity.
Before, we had Bush jr. Though not a "good" president by any definition of the word, he did have the balls to stand up to Russian aggression. He essentially kept Russia "in-check" by always playing offense. Obama has taken more of a defensive stance with Russia and combined with his many other mistakes has helped to create a more emboldened Russia.
Before we had Clinton, Bush sr. Reagan, etc. All these former presidents who were far from perfect had one thing in common: the same policy of dealing with Russia/Soviet Union aggression. They understood how to deal with the Russians and how to keep them from endangering the world. Reagan helped to create a path by which many of the later presidents could and did follow up until the current administration.
If we want to put-Russia in check again we have got to improve our foreign-relations, solidify stronger alliances, clamp-down on "super" or "hyper-capitalism", adjust our campaign against terrorism in such a way that civilian deaths are significantly decreased, and push-forward a policy of non-violent muscle-flexing.
