Russia Flexes Muscles with Chinese Pals

As the week-end approached, the Russians and their new Chinese friends held joint military exercises along with troops from the other Shanghai Co-operation Organization nations: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Around 6,000 troops took part in the first such exercise ever on Russian soil. This along with a resumption of Russian long range bomber patrols and the removal of the BBC’s Russian service from Moscow’s FM dial is bad news.

These actions are, in part, responses to internal political pressures. The Putin government is coming to its constitutionally mandated end (and one hopes the constitution isn’t amended to prolong things). In recent years, rising oil and commodity prices have made Russia vastly richer and better able to play the part of “really important nation.” It isn’t what the Soviet Union was, but compared to the Yeltsin years, the country is much stronger if much less free. There are elements within the Russian body politic (as there are in any nation) that prefer the trappings of strength to the reality of freedom.

That said, much of the Russian elbowing has been in response to the Bush administration’s rather ignorant and inept approach to global affairs. For example, the US withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty in 2001 and announced that Poland and the Czech Republic were going to get parts of Mr. Bush’s missile defense system. From Moscow, this can only be seen as an anti-Russian move. No other nation in that neighborhood has any quantity of missiles worthy of mention. This explains Russia’s suspension of participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty last month.

And now, President and First Chekist Vladimir Putin said during the joint wargames, “We have decided to restore flights by Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis. In 1992, Russia unilaterally ended flights by its strategic aircraft to distant military patrol areas. Unfortunately, our example was not followed by everyone. Flights by other countries’ strategic aircraft continue and this creates certain problems for ensuring the security of the Russian Federation.” He was too polite to mention the US by name and too proud to note that 15 years ago, the Russian government didn’t have the fuel to keep its planes in the air around the clock.

The People’s Republic of China, as well, isn’t very happy with Washington lately. The Yanks are complaining that the exchange rate is too tough on them, that Chinese products poison American consumers (and some of them do), and that China really needs to stop trading with Iran. Recent hints that the ChiComs would dump their $1 trillion in US Treasuries and cripple the dollar were shots across the bow. A military exercise with the Ivans is even more of the same but louder. One wonders if the Busheviks can hear any of these warnings over the noise coming from Iraq-Nam.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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