Laura Rozen writes about how the United States funneled $100 million to the accounts of the Kyrgyz ruling family. Interesting stuff.

Kit Gallant: But, in terms of overall size and effectiveness, and most importantly in terms of a realistic and honest appreciation of the uses and capabilities of a modern military, the Russian Federation got the post-Cold War geopolitical scene right and we got it decidedly wrong. There is no need, except an arguable economic one, for an army the size of ours. So our first Russian lesson for American power is that, when it comes to the post-Cold War role of militaries, limited and attainable goals (e.g. not "Nation building") are optimal.

It would be wise for American policy makers and the new administration to take to heart this Russian lesson. For it would be beyond any doubt greater for American power itself to gain from the knowledge of another world power's success than that it continue to march myopically and unilaterally forward, into an uncertain and multi-polar future

Rakesh Krishnan Simha: After the diplomatic disaster in Delhi, it is apparent the foreign secretary has not listened to that advice. One reason could be that while the Cold War has turned to thaw, Miliband remains frozen in a time warp.

His efforts to isolate Moscow have been thwarted by Russia's resurgence on the geopolitical scene led by the master strategist, Vladimir Putin. And India's slow but sure progress to great power status is leaving less and less room for Britain in the Commonwealth, which seems likely to go the way of the International Cricket Council that was once Britain’s private club, but is now controlled by India.

Perhaps Miliband was trying to get back at the Indians for the drubbing they gave another British foreign secretary. In 1997, when Robin Cook offered to mediate in the Kashmir crisis, the then Indian Prime Minister I.K. Gujaral told his guest he was the envoy of a "third-rate power" which shouldn't be "poking its nose in" India's affairs

T. Boone Pickens says that the United States must become energy independent to stop the transfer of wealth that is allowing energy oil exporting nations to allocate increased funds for transportation and create miles of new roads (he cites infrastructure programs in Russia and Qatar). He seems particularly disgusted that nations abroad will soon "zoom down glistening, brand-new highways"

Chalmers Johnson: Imperialism, meaning militarily stronger nations dominating and exploiting weaker ones, has been a prominent feature of the international system for several centuries, but it may be coming to an end. Overwhelming majorities in numerous countries now condemn it—with the possible exception of some observers who believe it promotes "stability" and some United States politicians who still vigorously debate the pros and cons of America's continuing military hegemony over much of the globe.

Imperialism's current decline began in 1991 with the disintegration of the former Soviet Union and the collapse of its empire. The United States now seems to be the last of a dying species—the sole remaining multinational empire. (There are only a few vestiges of the old Dutch, English, and French empires, mostly in the form of island colonies and other enclaves in and around the Caribbean.) As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made clear, the United States is increasingly stressed by the demands of maintaining its empire through its own military resources. Change is in the air...

"The characteristic form of US power outside its territory is not colonial, or indirect rule within a colonial framework of direct control, but a system of satellite or compliant states," observes Eric Hobsbawm, the British historian of modern empires. In this sense America behaves more like the Soviet empire in Europe after World War II than the British or French empires of the 19th century...

Like all empires of the past, the American version is destined to come to an end, either voluntarily or of necessity. When that will occur is impossible to foretell, but the pressures of America's massive indebtedness, the growing contradiction between the needs of its civilian economy and its military-industrial complex, and its dependence on a volunteer army and innumerable private contractors strongly indicate an empire built on fragile foundations. Over the next few years, resistance to America's military overtures is likely to grow, meaning the agenda of national politics will be increasingly dominated by issues of empire liquidation—peacefully or otherwise

Bruce K. Gagnon: Today China imports the vast majority of its oil and natural gas via ships through the Taiwan Straits. The US has been doubling its naval presence in that region in an attempt to have the ability to choke off China's importation of these resources which are vital to its economy. Thus China wants to build land-route pipelines from the resource rich Caspian Sea region eastward into China. Again Kyrgyzstan sits right in the middle of the whole show

[CW: Really ?]

I started reading today History of the Expedition to Russia: Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812, by Count Philip de Segur and I did not know that a gigantic coalition was formed by Napoleon to invade Russia, which included, according to Wiki:

- 300,000 French
- 98,000 Poles
- 90,000 Germans
- 34,000 Austrians
- 32,000 Italians
- 25,000 Neapolitans
- 9,000 Swiss
- 4,800 Spanish
- 3,500 Croats
- 2,000 Portuguese

This amplifies the comparison to Barbarossa. Romanians, Hungarians, Italians, Finns, Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Spanish (volunteers), and other nationalities made-up the forces that invaded and fought against Russia in 1941-5.

"The largest country in the world" is tempting to one and all, that's for sure. The lust to invade it and carve it up might never end. History repeats itself grandly.

Russia's icy past revisited, by Andrew Roberts (Daily Mail, 26-Jan-09)

The Russians do their war memorials bigger and better than anyone else in the world — by far.

They are majestic, powerful edifices full of Nazi snakes and swastikas being trampled underfoot by the horses ridden by heroes of the Soviet Union.

With 27 million killed in what they call 'The Great Patriotic War', they have much to commemorate.

Yet they do it with such pride, reverence and sheer splendour that to visit their battle sites is more thrilling and immediate than anywhere else I have ever been.

And as a member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides, I am completely addicted to them.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II — prompting a huge upsurge in battlefield touring, with tens of thousands of people visiting the Normandy beaches, Pegasus bridge, Arnhem and the V2 launching sites along the French coast.

These are all great tours, but for the more adventurous and committed battlefield enthusiast, the ultimate World War II tour experience is to be found where the outcome of that conflict was really decided.

Four out of every five Germans killed in combat between 1939 and 1945 died on the Eastern Front, and the biggest battles out there dwarfed anything seen in the West.

Four million people fought in the Kursk campaign, for example, which is considered by military historians to be the biggest battle in the history of mankind.

The Kursk battlefield is the same size as England and I was sceptical that these Russian battles of unimaginable size could really be captured in just an eight-day tour.

Instead — and thanks largely to the charming, super-efficient and highly knowledgeable Oleg Alexandrov, who runs the long-established Three Whales Travel Company — my wife Susan and I had a truly fascinating and hugely enjoyable week...

After a one-hour flight to Volgograd, we visited some of the sites of the battle of Stalingrad, that Manichean six-month struggle in 1942-43 that led to the deaths of more than one million people, and which — in atrocious winter conditions — broke the will of the German Sixth Army.

It might not sound glamorous to visit places called The Tractor Factory, The Grain Elevator, Crossing 62, Pavlov's House and The Mill, but it was in the moonscaped rubble of these places that the Nazis' dream of world domination was finally destroyed.

They are intensely moving places where extraordinary acts of heroism and self-sacrifice took place, and the Russians understandably treat them as almost spiritual.

Russian memorials to World War II are the finest in the world, and Volgograd is dominated by a magnificent 250fthigh statue of Rodina Mat ('Mother Russia', pictured), erected on the summit of the Mamayev Kurgan, a hill that is also the resting place of 35,000 people who died fighting for its control.

The sword she wields weighs 14 tons alone. It is an utterly breathtaking sight and the whole battlefield is instantly comprehensible from the top of it, rather as climbing the Lion Mound puts everything into perspective at Waterloo.

We also visited the underground HQ of Field Marshal Paulus, where he was captured at the end of January 1943 and forced to surrender a quarter of a million men — to Hitler's fury.

The Stalingrad Museum contains the Sword of Stalingrad given to the city by King George VI, and a panorama of the battle 16m high and 120m long...

Our trip was not all World War II-themed, of course; there was also time to visit the Kremlin, St Basil's Cathedral, the Tretyakov Gallery and the bohemian Arbat quarter, but the military sites we visited did make us think again about the war — leaving us with a powerful sense of the supreme role of the USSR in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Jose Miguel Alonso Trabanco: The end of the Cold War was a huge window of opportunity for the US to forge a 'Pax Americana' now that the Soviet Union had collapsed. A vacuum power provided a chance to prolong this 'unipolar moment' long enough to become a 'unipolar era'. This is the geopolitical context in which the Project for a New American Century was born, echoing Henry Luce's appeal to become the world's only and unchallenged superpower.

To fulfill such strategic agenda, American policymakers had to take care of some matters first. Even though the Soviet Union had been split into fifteen Republics, Russia was/is a major cause for concern. During the 90's Russia was economically devastated and its political leadership was too corrupt or too incompetent to heal the country's ailing health. Nonetheless, that did not necessarily mean that someday Moscow could not regain its place as a world-class major power.

Russia inherited a stockpile of nuclear weapons capable of obliterating the United States; it has a competitive military-industrial complex that designs and manufactures state-of-the art products (long-range strategic bombers, fighter aircraft, satellites, tanks, submarines, ICBMs); its huge territory contains large sums of key natural resources (oil, gas, precious metals, iron ore, bauxite, diamonds, fresh water, coal, timber); it possesses the third largest foreign currency reserves; its manpower must not be underestimated because Russia has more college graduates than any other European country. Last but certainly not least, Russian national morale and resilience have always been formidable because both its State and its people have successfully managed to recover from tremendous catastrophes such as the Mongol, Napoleonic and Nazi invasions, which inflicted a great deal of pain on Russia.

Therefore, the West was not willing to share any power with Russia even though Russia's ruling elite, at the time, thought it was possible to build a Northern community from Los Angeles to Vladivostok. The West had different plans; the idea was to gradually disintegrate Russia as a functioning Nation-State once and for all so that it would never reemerge as a strategic challenger. Russia, as suggested by Zbigniew Brzezinski, would be Balkanized into several States (following the Yugoslavian model) to gain access to its abundant natural resources (particularly in the Caspian, the Urals and Siberia), its economy had to be permanently crippled and the country's remaining its pieces could serve as cannon fodder to be used in a potential war against China should the need arise

Here's a good series of articles by Martin Sieff for UPI:

19-Jan-09: Why are U.S., Russia still top global powers in 21st century?

1-Dec-08: U.S., Russia still unrivaled in global power projection

26-Nov-08: Helsinki talks show U.S., Russia still lead world

News out today that Russia will impose "special" economic sanctions on countries, organizations, or individuals that export military and dual purpose products to Georgia. Among other things, this could mean that Investors Business Daily and The Weekly Standard will vanish from the international newsstands in Moscow (both have called for arming Georgia) and that the URLs jamestown.org and gfsis.org are banned from the Russian Internet. Also, expect Russia to amend this act to allow the Russian Space Agency to purchase shuttle rides to the International Space Station from its American counterpart.

In all seriousness, it will be interesting to see which option Russia will choose to take, because some countries are still arming Georgia and will continue to do so because they will miscalculate Russia's will and intent. What exactly will Russia do?

update - I reread the report and in addition to imposing economic sanctions, Russia will also "restrict military cooperation" with countries supplying arms to Georgia. As we all know, the American and European defense industries are dependent on Russia in certain niche areas

Virus ‘sends RAF e-mails to Russia’, by Michael Smith (The Sunday Times, 18-Jan-09)

The Ministry of Defence is investigating a major breach in security amid claims that all e-mail traffic from a number of RAF stations has been sent to a Russian internet server.

The e-mails were allegedly diverted to the Russian sender by a worm virus that entered the MoD systems 12 days ago bringing down computers and blocking e-mail communications across the military.

The allegations have been relayed to Mark Pritchard, a Conservative MP, by an official who is concerned that the MoD is failing to take cybersecurity seriously.

Pritchard said the official “told me he could not say whether there was any evidence of active Russian involvement but that e-mail traffic from some RAF stations was sent to a Russian internet server”.

An RAF source said the virus “originated from the former eastern bloc” and said forces security experts were surprised at its sophistication.

The virus affected at least 24 RAF bases and caused damage to the computer systems of 75% of Royal Navy ships, including the aircraft carrier Ark Royal.

The RAF stations affected included those from which fighter aircraft have been scrambled to counter Russian bombers testing British air defences.

The MoD said it was investigating the virus but had no knowledge of any e-mails being sent to a Russian server. It refused to say whether the investigation was looking at Russia as a possible source of the virus, and denied that any secure systems were affected.

[CW: Stuck between a rock and a hard place, really]

[CW: It's getting redundant, but a second UPI article about fifth-generation fighters by Heritage Foundation Russia expert Ariel Cohen gets hammered. This is a comment in response to Russia bets on new Sukhoi fighter to match F-35]

skip_the_bias (user comment): Is it just me, or is this article biased in favor of the U.S.? Consider the statement, "U.S.-based simulations and tests suggest that the stealth-enabled fifth-generation F-22 and F-35 can defeat any current aircraft," including the T-50? What are the sources for making this claim, what exactly is the nature of these so-called simulations/tests, and what good are those simulations when the T-50 prototype is still in the process of being built and its true capabilities are unknown? As for the "Raptorsky" moniker, if the T-50 is based on the Su-47 and MiG-1.42/1.44 technology demonstrators, which are clearly NOT copies of the F-22, then the T-50 can hardly be considered a copy of the F-22 Raptor, and the moniker is misplaced (although it sure sounds good for short-sighted pro-Western propaganda.)

[CW: To quote a German general, "We have severely underestimated the Russians... This is the revenge of reality"]

New U.S. Envoy to Russia Echoes Father Who Fought for Soviets, by Ellen Barry (New York Times, 16-Jan-09)

When John Beyrle, the new American ambassador to Russia, appeared on a Russian radio show shortly after Russia’s five-day war with Georgia, the questions he got were predictably in-your-face. Is it true that the United States is sneaking weapons into Georgia disguised as humanitarian aid? Can you prove that planned American missile defense sites are not aimed at Russia?

And then: Is it true that your father was a Soviet soldier?

The answer — which Mr. Beyrle (pronounced BY-er-ly) delivered on the air in flawless Russian — has to be one of the more amazing stories to come out of World War II. Yes, during the last desperate months of the war, a starving 21-year-old from Muskegon, Mich., crossed the eastern front by foot and offered his services to a Soviet tank battalion, using the three words of Russian he had learned as a German prisoner of war — Ya Amerikansky tovarishch, or "I am an American comrade!"

And, yes, he fought the Nazis alongside them, wrapping his boots with burlap and downing shots of vodka to keep from freezing. During lulls in fighting, he answered batteries of questions about capitalism and taught the battalion to sing the Notre Dame fight song. And when the war was over, and Joe Beyrle was a supervisor in a bowling-ball factory, he told the stories to his son — the future ambassador to Moscow.

Click here for rest of article >>

Pipe dreams (Financial Times, 15-Jan-09)

By letting its Russian gas dispute drag on for two weeks , Ukraine has discharged a double-barrelled shotgun into its nether regions. Russia and the European Union have forceful incentives to back pipeline routes skirting round it, reducing transit fees that earn Ukraine $2bn a year. Russia's reputation is further tarnished, too. Even so, three years after the first Ukraine gas shut-off, the EU has made limited progress in diversifying energy sources. Today's talk is more of diversifying gas supply routes - and planned alternative pipelines tend to lead back to Russia.

The most advanced project is Nord Stream , under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. Poland and other bypassed states say it threatens EU unity; Sweden voices environmental concerns. But the European Commission has made it a priority project, warming further to it after Russia's conflict with Georgia, another energy transit state, apparently persuaded Brussels of the merits of direct pipelines. Gazprom's consortium partners include Germany's Eon Ruhrgas and BASF/Wintershall and the Netherlands' Gasunie, with former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, as chairman, lending clout.

The other arm of Gazprom's pipeline pincer movement, South Stream , intended to bring gas across the Black Sea and Balkans, is progressing too. Gazprom has signed up Bulgaria and Serbia, and Italy's Eni. Brussels is wary of South Stream as it competes with the EU- and US-backed Nabucco project, which aims to transport Caspian basin gas through Turkey - bypassing Russia. But concerns persist that Nabucco lacks gas. One possible source, Turkmenistan, has contracted most production to Russia and China; another, Azerbaijan, is being courted by Moscow. Nabucco says it may carry Russian gas - ironic for a venture seen as a way of bypassing Russia. Until it can develop other sources, the EU's best option to avoid future shut-offs may be to deepen its partnership with the Bear. [CW: Say it ain't so Joe]