They touted that the Cold War was over. The U.S. State Department sold the world a bill of goods by boasting of the cessation of danger when the Soviets are still the same in spite of the name change: Bent on world dominance. It's the aim of all Communists to transform the world into a Socialist paradise.

Last month, Georgia was invaded and bombed by Russsia when South Ossetia, and Abkasia (two former Soviet territories) attempted to secede from Georgia, and it's forces tried to impede this act .
Meanwhile, Russia is currently participating in War Games in the Western Hemisphere (Venenzuela).
Recently Russian dignitaries hinted that theyn could possibly re-deploy missiles in Cuba. Riots in Bolivia....... Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Argentina, and Brazil's administrations are leaning toward the left. And they said the Cold War was over.
Wow, what a rude awakening! Will this be an end to the proxy wars? An end to invading and bombing little brown countries? Grenada, Panama? While Russia roars, and they still play canasta, poker, bridge, and backgammon in space with the U.S. on the international space station.

what cold war are you describing, Arsenio? did we not hear many a time and oft that Ronald Reagan won the cold war? just ask Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity; they will confirm that historical fact.

This just may be a dick-measuring contest... Russia is capitalist state, and i don't think anyone in russia wants to go back to the old soviet way, economically at least. China has proven to russia that they don't need to be a democracy in order to be a successful capitalist state. One of the main essence of the west east struggle was that of ideology. Both east and west are capitalist now and so the conflict of ideology is missing... It's quite interesting whats happening and only time will tell how this issue evolves.

So don't put bullets in your pistol just yet!!!

great post, Carlos. now it still remains just a matter of geopolitical hegemony. the dick measuring contest of which you speak.

Russian Navy Deploys Ships to Venezuela


September 24, 2008 10:49 pm by pna

By Ilya Kramnik

MOSCOW, Sept. 24 — A Russian Navy squadron set off for Venezuela Monday in a deployment of Russian military power to the Western Hemisphere unprecedented since the Cold War.


During the Cold War, Latin America became an ideological battleground between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Kremlin has recently moved to intensify contacts with Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American nations amid strained relations with Washington after last month's conflict between Russia and Georgia.

The squadron comprising the Russian Northern Fleet's Pyotr Veliky (Peter the Great) battle cruiser and the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) ship Admiral Chabanenko will participate in exercises off the Venezuelan coast.

In the past, the world's major powers would demonstrate their naval capabilities in various regions, hinting ominously that they could disrupt enemy lines of communication in case of conflict.

Gunboats and other small warships, rather than capital warships, were an effective instrument for accomplishing such objectives.

However, the Pyotr Veliky and the Admiral Chabanenko are the Russian Navy's newest capital ships. Moscow's decision to send them to Venezuela implies that both warships can show their flags and defend them.

Military analysts often stress that the Russian Navy is vastly outnumbered by the U.S. Navy and those of NATO countries, and that Russian warships would be unable to score any impressive results.

Although the U.S. Navy is a powerful fighting force, it cannot be strong everywhere. The arrival of two capital Russian warships in the Caribbean Sea, traditionally a U.S. sphere of influence, will be a nasty surprise to Washington, compelling it to devote more attention to regional defenses.

The Pyotr Veliky displaces 25,000 metric tons and carries 20 P-700 Granit (SS-N-19 Shipwreck) supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles that can destroy ships of any class. The Russian battle cruiser is also heavily armed for ASW and air-defense missions; such weaponry also enhances its combat survivability.

The Admiral Chabanenko, which carries eight P-270 Moskit (SS-N-22 Sunburn) anti-ship missiles and surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, is intended to locate and destroy enemy submarines.

Both warships can support each other and have the capability to inflict major losses on any adversary before they are outgunned.

The Russian squadron's objectives, rather than its capabilities, are a high-priority issue. The Kremlin has recently used the Navy during the peace enforcement operation in Georgia and now wants to display its naval might at America's doorstep.

Nevertheless, the Russian Navy's state will not improve as a result of Moscow's modified policies. Hopefully, the government will soon start restoring and rearming the Navy because any show of strength will otherwise prove ineffective. (PNA/RIA Novosti)

DCT/rsm

Source: http://news.balita.ph/2008/09/24/russian-navy-deploys-ships-to-venezuela/

Russia rising

This past weekend’s latest economic crisis, in which powerful investment banks and some of the wealthiest stock brokerages faced bankruptcy or dissolution by buy-out, has again made clear the rapidly declining power of the U.S. economy – though it remains, for the moment, the largest (and one of the most unequal) in the world. But declining economic power does not mean collapse of the empire. It means, in this case, a dangerous turn towards even greater unilateral militarism – since Washington’s military power remains strategically unchallengeable, even while its economic base declines, and its military remains incapable of defeating the actual challengers Washington has chosen to fight.

As the U.S. flounders, Russia is rising. Its newly sky-high oil wealth, driven by the exorbitant price of crude, has fueled a level of political, economic and at least partly military assertiveness quite new for post-Soviet Russia. Moscow is reclaiming its role in the world – as Ronald Steel described it in the New York Times, “A Superpower is Reborn.” In Georgia, the U.S.-supported Georgian president appeared to believe he could act as the Israel of the Caucuses, and that the U.S. would back his every move, however provocative. So far, he appears to have been wrong. Instead, the crisis showed both the capacity and the willingness of Moscow to stand up to U.S. efforts (backed only tepidly by most of Europe) to encircle Russia with new NATO members, block Russian oil and gas sales, and challenge the growing Russia-Iran oil alliance. New U.S. pressures on Latin American countries – especially Bolivia and Venezuela – trying to challenge U.S. models of economic development are pushing those countries towards closer ties with Iran, and potentially Russia, further setting the stage for global bi-polarity. Whether the Georgia crisis itself segues into a renewed long-term cold war-style conflict between Russia and the U.S. is unclear, but certainly possible. For example, diplomatic sources at the UN indicate that what happens between the U.S. and Russia in the next three months will likely determine how Russia voted on extending the UN mandate for the occupation of Iraq, if that should come to the Security Council. If that vote were held today, they say, there is no question Russia would cast its veto.

This is an issue on which there is a potentially wide gap between the two candidates’ positions. While Obama has taken a generally pro-Georgian, anti-Russian position, he has called for negotiations, and specifically for a major role for the UN rather than unilateral U.S. decision-making. McCain, on the other hand, relies on his top foreign policy adviser Randy Schoeneman, a long-time neo-con and former lobbyist (to the tune of $800,000) for the Georgian president. Schoeneman, one of the drafters of the Project for a New American Century paper in the 1990s, remains one of the leading voices for uncritical and unlimited support – including military support and backing of NATO membership for Georgia. McCain’s harsh anti-Russian rhetoric seems to mean an end to his earlier calls for new negotiations with Russia on nuclear disarmament issues.

In the meantime, the Bush administration is escalating its own end-of-term arm-the-world campaign. The Pentagon this year will give or sell $32 billion in U.S. weapons and other military goods this year – up from the already staggering $12 billion of 2005. And the weapons now are not only basic conventional arms and equipment, but rather some of the most sophisticated new parts of the Pentagon’s arsenal –things like remotely-piloted drone aircraft, high-tech missiles, warships, and more. A top Air Force official said the weapons surge is “not about being gun-runners. This is about building a more secure world.”


Source: http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=18680

[B]Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1 [/B]


3rd Infantry’s 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army


By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer

Posted : Monday Sep 8, 2008 6:15:06 EDT
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.

“Right now, the response force requirement will be an enduring mission. How the [Defense Department] chooses to source that and whether or not they continue to assign them to NorthCom, that could change in the future,” said Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom future operations. “Now, the plan is to assign a force every year.”

The command is at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., but the soldiers with 1st BCT, who returned in April after 15 months in Iraq, will operate out of their home post at Fort Stewart, Ga., where they’ll be able to go to school, spend time with their families and train for their new homeland mission as well as the counterinsurgency mission in the war zones.

Stop-loss will not be in effect, so soldiers will be able to leave the Army or move to new assignments during the mission, and the operational tempo will be variable.

Don’t look for any extra time off, though. The at-home mission does not take the place of scheduled combat-zone deployments and will take place during the so-called dwell time a unit gets to reset and regenerate after a deployment.

The 1st of the 3rd is still scheduled to deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan in early 2010, which means the soldiers will have been home a minimum of 20 months by the time they ship out.

In the meantime, they’ll learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it.

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

Training for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the “jaws of life” to extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for a CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on how to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or area.

The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.”

The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.

“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.

“I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds ... it put me on my knees in seconds.”

The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced “sea-smurf”).

“I can’t think of a more noble mission than this,” said Cloutier, who took command in July. “We’ve been all over the world during this time of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home ... and depending on where an event occurred, you’re going home to take care of your home town, your loved ones.”

While soldiers’ combat training is applicable, he said, some nuances don’t apply.

“If we go in, we’re going in to help American citizens on American soil, to save lives, provide critical life support, help clear debris, restore normalcy and support whatever local agencies need us to do, so it’s kind of a different role,” said Cloutier, who, as the division operations officer on the last rotation, learned of the homeland mission a few months ago while they were still in Iraq.

Some brigade elements will be on call around the clock, during which time they’ll do their regular marksmanship, gunnery and other deployment training. That’s because the unit will continue to train and reset for the next deployment, even as it serves in its CCMRF mission.

Should personnel be needed at an earthquake in California, for example, all or part of the brigade could be scrambled there, depending on the extent of the need and the specialties involved.

Other branches included
The active Army’s new dwell-time mission is part of a NorthCom and DOD response package.

Active-duty soldiers will be part of a force that includes elements from other military branches and dedicated National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Teams.

A final mission rehearsal exercise is scheduled for mid-September at Fort Stewart and will be run by Joint Task Force Civil Support, a unit based out of Fort Monroe, Va., that will coordinate and evaluate the interservice event.

In addition to 1st BCT, other Army units will take part in the two-week training exercise, including elements of the 1st Medical Brigade out of Fort Hood, Texas, and the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade from Fort Bragg, N.C.

There also will be Air Force engineer and medical units, the Marine Corps Chemical, Biological Initial Reaction Force, a Navy weather team and members of the Defense Logistics Agency and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

One of the things Vogler said they’ll be looking at is communications capabilities between the services.

“It is a concern, and we’re trying to check that and one of the ways we do that is by having these sorts of exercises. Leading up to this, we are going to rehearse and set up some of the communications systems to make sure we have interoperability,” he said.

“I don’t know what America’s overall plan is — I just know that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that are standing by to come and help if they’re called,” Cloutier said. “It makes me feel good as an American to know that my country has dedicated a force to come in and help the people at home.”


Source: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/