Unrest in Iran is expected to dominate discussions between foreign ministers as they prepare to meet for a G8 summit in Italy.

The future of Afghanistan had been the original focus of the summit in Trieste, but Iran's post-election violence has shifted the attention.

As a neighbour of Afghanistan, Iran had been invited to attend the summit along with other bordering countries.

Afghanistan's counternarcotics minister said Sunday that his country's drug policy is "perfect," a day after the United States changed course and announced it would no longer support efforts to eradicate opium poppy plants. (June 28)

Meanwhile, for Russia the threat of the SCO becoming a Chinese Trojan horse is ever-present. On the sidelines of the summit Chinese President Hu Jintao met with the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The Chinese government has pledged up to $10 billion in loans to the five nations of Central Asia that are struggling through the economic crisis (The Times, June 17). Apart from a $2 billion loan to Kyrgyzstan (which some suggest is a bribe to expel the U.S. base from Manas), Russia has been AWOL to many of the states in the region that are looking for leadership amidst the crisis.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
=35157&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=ca9f54c0cc]LINK

Meanwhile, for Russia the threat of the SCO becoming a Chinese Trojan horse is ever-present. On the sidelines of the summit Chinese President Hu Jintao met with the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The Chinese government has pledged up to $10 billion in loans to the five nations of Central Asia that are struggling through the economic crisis (The Times, June 17). Apart from a $2 billion loan to Kyrgyzstan (which some suggest is a bribe to expel the U.S. base from Manas), Russia has been AWOL to many of the states in the region that are looking for leadership amidst the crisis.

China and the US, despite reports, are synchronized in most aspects of foreign policy. Russia will be the odd man out.

Putin has made some really catastrophic economic decisions that will be coming to light very soon.

Remember after the 1991 collapse they confessed they were bluffing about a lot of things like actual gold reserves, nuclear armament, etc. Remember the same guys are still around, a bit older, up to the same tricks.

Russia looks, acts, talks, walks, like they are on the Winning Team. It's mostly bravado. A certain source of quality intelligence has gotten wind of Russia's actual military capability vs the one they pretend to have. Low profile India could knock them over with a feather.

There's a reason why Russians are so big into information suppression.
It usually means thing to hide. Russia lies about practically everything.

Russia, the host of the BRIC meeting, is nothing more than a random beneficiary of clever Goldman Sachs acronym creation. Unlike the other three countries, its population is modest and declining, while the bankruptcy of its resources policies becomes obvious when they are compared to Brazil's. Expropriation of both foreign and domestic resource producers and use of the resources as a political weapon against neighboring countries are not characteristic of sound long-term resources management, to say the least. It's likely that the primitive and kleptocratic Russian economic system will show its defects increasingly in future years, and while oil prices may remain high, they are unlikely to remain high enough to allow Russia to continue rapid economic growth.

The final solution to the BRICs' currency problem is gold. Russia and China might welcome a move towards a gold exchange system. China has immense foreign currency reserves, which if invested in gold would be protected against inflation. Russia is one of the world's largest gold producers, with output of 163 tonnes in 2007 and reserves totaling 85 years of production. Brazil is also a substantial gold producer; as with other minerals much of its output is controlled by international companies. The odd country out is India, with foreign exchange reserves that are modest in comparison to the size of its economy. Nevertheless, while it would not be in the interests of the United States or the EU to move towards a gold standard, it might very well be in the interests of three of the four BRICs.

A multipolar world will thus be more protectionist and more nationalist than the US-dominated global economy we have grown used to. On the plus side, it might move towards the establishment of a global currency system that provided a true store of value, without the incessant inflation that has bedeviled the dollar's reign. On the minus side, the move towards protectionism will decrease global output below what might otherwise be available, although it seems unlikely that even the BRICs would wish to move to the full protectionism of the 1930s.

Finally, a cautionary note. A multipolar world economy by definition is more liable to conflict than a unipolar one; there is more to fight about and no hegemon to keep the peace. 1914 did not happen by accident.

The US inability to lead may be temporary. The United States has many -attributes that will bring it back into a close relation with other states. These skills include patient cooperation, as shown in the Cold War, and a unique capacity to deploy and use force distant from its own shores. The United States remains the one power that maintains a world-wide network of alliances. Moreover, the US body politic is genetically imprinted with a vision of the United States as the savior of a corrupt and troubled world. Yet the United States is caught up in the consequences of maintaining its vision and its interventions on the cheap, without resorting to either conscription or taxation. The initial US response to the Russian intervention in Georgia—the bluster not matched by effective action—confirmed that US power is operating under severe constraints. Even under a new president, and with the worst of Iraq behind it, the US capacity to embark on a revived global role will be limited.

Russian forces have begun their biggest military exercise in the Caucasus since the war with Georgia last year.

More than 8,000 troops are taking part in the manoeuvres near the Georgian border, which Georgia has called "a pure provocation from Russia".

Last month Nato angered Russia by staging exercises in Georgia itself.

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AFP) — Russian gas giant Gazprom clinched a deal Monday to buy natural gas from ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, as Moscow seeks to extend its grip on potential European energy supplies in the resource-rich Caspian Sea.

The agreement was signed by Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller and Azerbaijani national energy company chief Rovnag Abdullayev in the presence of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev.

"I think that we will be able to take this work further, in view of greater opportunities and greater volumes, which will be increased," Medvedev told journalists in Baku.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
Russian exercises anger Georgia

Russian forces have begun their biggest military exercise in the Caucasus since the war with Georgia last year.

More than 8,000 troops are taking part in the manoeuvres near the Georgian border, which Georgia has called "a pure provocation from Russia".

larussophobe.wordpress.com...

Russia between a Rock and a Hardened Silo

Where its military policy is concerned these days, Russia finds itself between a rock and a hardened nuclear missile silo.

On the one hand, Russia would like to rely more on nuclear weapons than conventional armies. The former are much less expensive and much easier to control. Ballistic missiles don’t humiliate you by cutting of each other’s genitals and such, and they don’t have to be fed three times a day. The Russian economy is in abject freefall, and the Kremlin is simply running out of funds to pay the massive overhead of the neo-Red Army. It’s already been forced to cut thousands of officers from the payroll, as if it were engaged in nothing more than corporate downsizing.

But to rely on nuclear weapons means getting involved in a technology race, an innovation race, a creative thinking and productivity race, with the United States of America. Russia would have a huge amount of trouble winning those kinds of races with the United States of Armenia, much less with the most vibrant and progressive industrial society on the planet. It’s a daunting prospect, to say the least. Whereas, although you’re supposed to feed your soldiers, if you don’t really want to you don’t actually have to. The Soviet Union sure didn’t, for instance, and it managed to go on for decades like that. If you don’t improve your nuclear missiles, however, they become obsolete, especially if you can’t overcome inferior technology with sheer numbers.

[...]

what are we to make of Russian “president” Dima Medvedev’s remonstrations to the effect that, if Barack Obama begs nicely enough (that is, gives Russia a Chamberlainian free hand to destroy post-Soviet freedoms), he’d be willing to consider cuts in Russia’s nuclear strike force? Of course, he also wants the U.S. to abandon its quest for superior nuclear technology, so he can have his cake and eat it too.

Medvedev’s comments can have one of several possible meanings.

Maybe he doesn’t mind giving military supremacy to the U.S. in exchange for a free hand in post-Soviet space. Maybe, like Gorbachev before him, he realizes he simply has no choice. Maybe Medvedev hopes Obama will forget all about human rights, Georgia, Ukraine, and every other issue that should matter deeply to the American president if he’s given some nice flowery phrases about Obama’s pet project, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Viewed in this light, Medvedev’s statement that “I hope that with the advent of the new administration, the relationship will take on a new form — more favorable, more trusting,” is ominous.

Another possibility is that he’s simply lying, always a good bet where the Kremlin is concerned. He may simply think he can bewitch Obama, the neophyte, with rhetoric that seems of offer him exactly what he wants, while actually giving him nothing. It may be that the Kremlin thinks can just wait him out, never actually making any cuts, meanwhile reaping the full benefit of being given a free hand to crush domestic dissent, until term limits dispatch Obama’s presidency and Vladimir Putin is back as “president for life.” By that time, Russia may be bankrupt and totally dependent on its nukes.

What’s more likely, though, is that the Kremlin will play Obama for a fool in a much more fundamental way. Reducing nuclear arms even by 50% would still leave Russia with enough ICBMs to destroy the planet, meaning that its ability to terrorize the world would not really be reduced at all. Obama’s proposal is in reality nothing but a “feel good” measure, one that could place the U.S. at a disadvantage if Obama doesn’t support aggressive research to improve the technology and power of the remaining missile strike force, which the Kremlin may be betting he will not do.

There’s one other alternative, that the Kremlin’s response is simply irrational, and based on panic. The Kremlin may be totally shocked by the dramatic implosion of the price of crude oil on world markets, stunned to see its dependence on American demand for oil laid bare for all the world to gape at. The Russian economy has shown no resiliency, no independence whatsoever. And at the same time, the Kremlin may be terrified by the prospect of ballistic missile defense in Eastern Europe, perhaps in a paranoid manner far beyond the bounds of reason. It may simply be agreeing to give the powerful American president whatever he wants in the hope he’ll leave them alone.