"Dirty, rotten commies!," one of my colleagues has been muttering since yesterday. "The only thing worse than a commie is one with oil!" He refers to this news:
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – Venezuela is studying buying Russian submarines that would transform the South American country into the top naval force in the region, a military adviser to President Hugo Chavez said Thursday.
Gen. Alberto Muller, responding to a Russian newspaper report that Chavez plans to sign a deal for five diesel submarines, said the government is "analyzing the possibilities" but that the money has not yet been set aside.
Oil-rich Venezuela has already purchased some $3 billion worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets and other weapons.
But he misses the silver lining: Now we can crank out those nifty new Seawolf-class attack subs. We’ve got the excuse now! We’ve got Russian boats to track and kill again! Right here in River City! "Top naval force in the region?" In our hemisphere? Shades of the missiles of October…
Just let those peace-dividenders stop us now! They can take their little Virginia-class toys and shove them where … but I must restrain myself. We readers of too many Tom Clancy novels must be magnanimous in our triumph.
I wonder if we can get Bart Mancuso and Jonesy to come out of retirement for this?
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Brad –
While I share your enthusiasm for a new class of US submarines, there’s an interesting financial aspect to the transaction.
The Chavezster is proving to be a credit risk, committing more funds than his declining oil revenues will produce. He’s turned out to be illiterate, economically speaking.
To offset that, Vlad the Putin is cash rich and interested in expanding Russia’s influence. He may well offer Hugo a deal, but at an interest rate that would make Warren Bolton cringe.
This could be a win-win: we get our new class of subs, Russia books a deal that sours in the end.
Actually, in the name of fiscal responsibility, we could probably handle anything Chavez put to sea with the Virginias and the remaining old Los Angeles class boats.
I was just being a little facetious there; I got carried away in amusement at the idea of Chavez becoming a naval power with five old diesel boats.
Of course, anything that could hide and present a threat to, say, Panama Canal shipping could be extremely disruptive. But I suspect it is unlikely that a diesel could hide in the Caribbean from any U.S. attack sub. And it seems unlikely he could deploy one in the Pacific. It’s not like Bolivia can help him out with any ports.
Actually, those Russian diesel subs are more formidable than you might think. They are very quiet and pack quite a punch.
But when it comes to subs, fighter jets and the other high-tech killing machines on their list, the people operating and maintaining them are what makes them work. Hugo can’t buy the expertise or the infrastructure from the Russians to become a real threat.
Hugo is a nut, and this is an ego trip for him. But the bellicose Bush administration has done an excellent job of making nations around the world nervous.
mad props for the “just give me a ping, Vasily” reference… We Clancy readers can only hope that Jonesy and Mancuso can get the Dallas in position in time…
This is a fascinating excerpt from a Reuters article:
Iraq now ranked second among world’s failed states
Mon 18 Jun 2007
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – “Iraq has emerged as the world’s second most unstable country, behind Sudan, more than four years after President Bush ordered the U.S. invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, according to a survey released Monday.”
On the one hand the Decider has stuck with a failed nation-building exercise in a nation that didn’t need it. On the other hand he has steadfastly refused to intervene in an area that could have used the help. The result of our great leader’s misguided foreign policy is two completely dysfunctional nations.
… in the light of recent events, there is no consequence of turning a blind eye to what senator Obama has to say on the events depicted in this campaign. Although no freedom can be justified …
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