Are you indicating a trend towards a more distant soviet attitude and a more aggressive arms sales and middle east policy or what exactly/

I think its a little bit of both.
Co operation with the Start Treaty was threatened over the siting of the missile shield on Polish borders.
Russia armed Iran with s300s has done big arms sales with Venezuela,Has renewed its lease on the Black sea base in Crimea and is strengthening its presence in the port of Tarus.
As West have decreased defence spending Putin has increased Russias year on year equating to 800%

What are the 50,000 new shelters being built in and around Moscow for ?

Originally posted by martin3030
I think its a little bit of both.
Co operation with the Start Treaty was threatened over the siting of the missile shield on Polish borders.
Russia armed Iran with s300s has done big arms sales with Venezuela,Has renewed its lease on the Black sea base in Crimea and is strengthening its presence in the port of Tarus.

Were the S-300's eventually delivered to Iran or is that sale still in limbo circa 2008?

As West have decreased defence spending Putin has increased Russias year on year equating to 800%

The increase in US defense spending has more than made up for any decreases in Europe and short of a nuclear war the Europeans will be no pushover especially considering the very very serious anti war sentiment in both the Russian public and the armed forces. As for expanding Russian defense spending it is still from a relatively low base and is still heavily focused on keeping it's nuclear forces serviceable ( by replacing older weapons with newer and so forth), always expanding and upgrading it's SAM/ABM defense and maintaining it's still rather large, if ageing conventional armed forces. It is certainly not doing anything like the F-22 deployment program and something like the JSF program would consume it's entire budget ( even in purchasing power; the do get much more bang for the dollar than the US) for decades! The only budget we need concern ourselves with is the Pentagon one as they both buy new stuff and have shown themselves rather interested in testing it out as well!

What are the 50,000 new shelters being built in and around Moscow for ?

Because the the US and Israel are run by people so desperate to avert public attention from their theft and corruption that they will eventually run out of third world nations to reduce to rubble, or things might become so bad that they need enemies that can fight back, and may then be forced to fight whoever remains? Russia never completely gave up on it's shelter building ( over the last two decades it focused on major ' out in the country' complexes) but if true i suppose they are realising that they will have to start upgrading or expanding the urban shelter complexes as well...

Anyways!

Stellar