The geo-political stocks of the Caribbean just got bullish with the war games currently being played-out in the Caribbean. In a flashback to the cold war days where we had the Soviet Union and the United States of America in respective corners of the ring, in 2008 the Soviet Union has been replaced by Russia, always the strongest member of the former Soviet Union. After a period of hibernation by Russia in the post-soviet Union dismantlement the world is beginning to witness a more assertive Russia on the world stage.

Barbados Free Press blog highlighted the presence of two Russian Tu-160 Blackjacks which landed in Venezuela yesterday (10 September 2008). The surprising action by the Russians have some observers already thinking about the ramifications – thanks to BU family member Adrian H for supplying the source material. The show of aggression right in the US backyard could not have come at a worse time. Its economy is in shambles, 7-10 trillion dollars in debt, who is counting, the effectiveness of it military strategies are being compromised by the current deployment of significant assets in Iraq and Afghanistan, recent forages into Pakistan and the need to be battle alert caused by Iran and North Korea aggression in the development of nuclear weapons programs all combine to create pressure on the USA.

In recent weeks the Putin led Russia has signaled his readiness to resume the role it relinquished in the pre-Reagan and Gorbachev years. The doubting Thomases should recall the alert response and precision of the counter attack which was carried out in Georgia recently to protect Ossitia. With a lame duck President in the White House and an American public tired of being at war, Russia maybe eyeing the opportunity to gain ground as a power player on the world stage once again.

The arrival of the Tu-160’s in Venezuela and the recent announcement that Russia will deploy its Northern Fleet to the Caribbean Sea to conduct joint exercises with the Venezuelan Navy has started to raise eyebrows even higher. If the US foreign policy headache has not reach migraine proportion by now there is the news that Russia and Cuba have been collaborating on the future deployment of Russian military assets on Cuban soil.

With all the above there is an the interesting side story unfolding.

The popular novelist Tom Clancy has written a best seller entitled Red Storm Rising – read a summary of the book and an interesting parallel drawn by an observer (Again we want to thank another BU family member for supplying the source material) We don’t want to bore the BU family with all this discussion about world affairs. Many readers maybe already wondering why is a tiny Barbados blog writing about such things. What is obvious to many who have read Red Storm Rising is the unerring similarity to the real life events unfolding in the USA domestic and international affairs.

How will all this affect us in Barbados and the Caribbean? The positive spin maybe that USA is willing to PAY the region some attention given the rise in our geo-political stocks. The negative maybe that tensions could increase and the label of the Caribbean being a peace zone could go BOOM!