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The visit over the weekend of Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez to Moscow, the third in just over a year, has revived
fears of a resurgence of American-Russian confrontation reminiscent
of the Cold War from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s. Chavez, a
long-standing opponent of the United States, who has once referred
to US President Bush as “the devil,” is working to strengthen
military alliance with Russia amidst growing tension between
Washington and Moscow over the recent Russia-Georgia war in South
Ossetia.
Last week, Russia sent two
long-range bombers and a flotilla of its own warships to Venezuela
for military exercises. It was the first Russian naval deployment to
the Caribbean since the Cold War, another gesture that would
certainly anger Washington.
The Kremlin, with its surging
economy brought about by huge oil revenues, has stepped-up contacts
with Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American nations.
Wire reports said intensifying
contacts by Russia with Venezuela appear to be the Kremlin’s
response to the US dispatch of warships to deliver aid to Georgia
during the siege of South Ossetia, whose move for independence from
Georgia is being supported by Moscow.
“It’s a show of the Kremlin
irritation about the US deployment to Georgia. It’s a signal to
the US: you have broken into our zone of influence and we will show
you that we can enter yours,” AP quoted independent military
analyst Alexander Golts as saying.
Moscow has also strongly
criticized the installation by the US in August this year of a
defense missile system in Poland. This act, it said, would upset the
military balance in Europe.
Russia said that this provocative
act is actually aimed at the Russian territory and “would not go
unpunished.”
Chavez, who has openly adopted
the ailing Cuban dictator Fidel Castro as his role model, has said
that Latin American needs Russia’s strong friendship “to help
reduce US influence and keep peace in the region.”
Since 2005, Venezuela, an
oil-exporting country like Russia, has signed weapons contract worth
more than $4.4 billion with Moscow for the supply of Russian built
fighter jets, helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles.
During his latest Russian visit,
Chavez secured the promise of a $1 billion credit from Russia for
the purchase of Russian antiaircraft systems, armored personnel
carriers, aircraft and even submarines.
Chavez was also the special guest
of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a Russian military
exercise involving warplanes and armored vehicles in the Orenburg
region, which the Russian television described as the largest since
the Soviet era.
Both Medvedev and Russian Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin have pledged to provide Chavez with all
his military and energy needs, including nuclear technology.
Russia is already providing Iran,
another arch enemy of the US, with technology and equipment for its
nuclear program which the US fears would eventually be used for
non-peaceful purposes.
Déjà vu
There are no indications as of
now that Russia would have a permanent military presence in
Venezuela but if this happens, then it could resurrect the specter
of another tense military confrontation in Latin America, similar to
the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962.
It was during this period that
the world watched in terror as the US and the Soviet Union moved to
the edge of a nuclear war. As recounted by Seymour Hersh in his
book, “The Dark Side of Camelot,” that period was John F.
Kennedy’s greatest triumph as president.
Hersh writes: “Nikita Khrushchev
had been caught in the act of arming Fidel Castro with Soviet
nuclear missile and, confronted by the steely young American
president, backed down and agreed to take them out.”
According to Hersh, at the height
of the crisis, Kennedy mobilized a vast army of men and materiel
poised to attack Cuba and perhaps trigger a nuclear holocaust. The
invasion plan called for the largest drop of US paratroopers since
the Battle of Normandy in l944.
The Russian medium-range missiles
in Cuba were discovered on October 15, l962; on October 28, or 13
days later, Khrushchev capitulated and ordered the removal of the
missiles.
In his book, “A Thousand
Days,” Arthur Schlesinger writes: “it was this combination of
toughness and restraint, of will, nerve and wisdom, so brilliantly
controlled, so matchlessly calibrated, that dazzled the world . . .
The 13 days gave the world—even the Soviet Union—a sense of
Ame-rican determination and responsibility in the use of power
which, if sustained, might indeed become a turning point in the
history of the relations between east and west.”
Later in discussing Khrushchev
with friends, according to Hersh, Kennedy has his own summary of the
aftermath: “I cut his balls off.”
With this development in
Venezuela, are we going to witness another gut-wrenching
confrontation between the two countries? 
opinion@manilatimes.net
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