The economic meltdown has consumed everyone’s attention: the sitting president, the incoming president, their teams, the media, and the public. The crisis is epic, the responses are, for the most part, bad, and nobody seems to know what they’re doing. Confidence at all levels is low and sliding. Multi-billion dollar bailout packages are delivered, while multi-billion dollar stimulus packages are debated. Money is everywhere, and it’s nowhere.
Meanwhile, as we’re debating dollars and nonsense, our enemies see an opportunity. We’re distracted, and weakened. And they are moving stealth-like to exploit it.
On orders from Vladimir Putin, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev is taking a swing through Central America, stopping in for chats with the Castro brothers in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Tiddlywinks are not on the agenda. Instead, they are discussing oil partnerships and new strategic alliances for weapons systems. Medvedev’s government announced that Russia will soon begin drilling for oil right off the coast of Cuba, which means right off the coast of Florida. Tina Fey mocked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s proximity to Russia by saying, “And I can see Russia from my house!” Well, pretty soon, Florida Governor Charlie Crist will be able to say the same thing, because there will be Russian oil rigs off the coast of Florida. Barack Obama has indicated he wants to reverse President Bush’s executive order allowing offshore drilling. If he does, the Russians and the Chinese will be drilling a few miles off our shores, but we won’t be able to.
Speaking of the Chinese, their president, Hu Jintao, visited Cuba last week. He wasn’t there for the cigars. Like Medvedev, he wants a new strategic partnership with Cuba, for oil drilling and weapons systems.
Neither Russia nor China have fallen newly in love with Castro or Chavez. They see a hobbled United States, and they want to create a new encirclement of us—while we’re not looking.
The current president is too embroiled in the economic mess to focus on what Moscow and Beijing and Havana and Caracas are cooking. And the incoming president doesn’t have much of a foreign policy clue. But Obama should fire a shot across the bow now, saying once he becomes president, the United States will not stand for a new cold war-type encirclement. And that he will take forceful actions to repel Russia’s and China’s new advances in our hemisphere immediately upon taking office.
Unless Obama nips their new aggressiveness in the bud, soon we ALL might be able to see Russia from our houses.
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