Saturday, May 24, 2008

New Russian Government Quickly Moving To Build Anti-U.S. And Western Alliances

(Photo courtesy of China's Xinhua News Service, used under fair use terms for illustration purposes)
Foreign policy is certainly one of the weakest areas of the Bush Administration leadership, and the new Russian government of President Dmitry Medvedev has been taking full advantage of this weakness to agressively court antiAmerican, antiWestern and nonaligned states into a number of new treaties and partnerships within just the last few days, while the Bush Administration has completely failed to attempt to warm relations with the new Russian government and head off this new movement against U.S. influence. And while the economies of Russia and China are booming, the lack of economic leadership from the Bush Administration has also lowered the ability of the U.S. to use more leverage on foreign policy with other nations as the U.S. is being increasingly isolated from many world state foreign policy arrangements.

In only the last few days, the new Russian government has aggressively courted China in a number of critical areas including signing a joint statement on a number of key issues including international matters. On Friday, both Russia and China issued a joint statement obviosly aimed at the Bush Administration opposing any military against Iran. And Russia and China also pladged to work closely together to have a united voice when dealing with the G8 and to have more cooperation with nonaligned states. And Russia and China forged their own new alliance to combat world terrorism, work towards more balanced economic globalization and to promote more cultural cooperation. In recent days, the Bush Administration has managed to find the time to nominate an old time Republican Party insider, John Beyrle,54, who is the current Ambassador to Bulgaria as the new Ambassador to Russia once Congress approves his nomination. So far Beyrle hasn't offered any new vision for new relations with the new Russian government of President Medvedev, despite rapidly changing conditions.

Russia has also created a new antiWestern alliance in recent days called BRIC, which includes Brazil, India and China, although the full extent of this new alliance is not really yet known at this time, it may well evolve into a counter power to the U.S. backed NATO organization since the issue of opposition to Kosovo independence is a central issue tying these four nations together in this new arrangement. And while Russia and China have both pledged to work beyond the old "Cold War" mentality, the new Russian government is again starting military flights of strategic nuclear bombers near Alaska to challenge American territorial integrity. Using the huge oil economy of Russia to bolster an arms buildup, Moscow staged one of the largest military parades in recent days as seen since the old Soviet Union Cold War days.

With a rapidly declining economy here at home in the U.S., the Bush Adminstration has certainly proven itself to increasingly become a weaker and weaker world player in international foreign policy arrangements, while rival states of the U.S., especially Russia and China are proving great international strengths in economics, and other critical areas. The Chinese government has even been able to better insulate it's growing economy from oil market generated inflation by keeping a lid on oil price inflation down to just 9% since 2007. At the same the helplessly disengaged Bush Administration has allowed a gallon of gas to increase in price by at least 72cents since just between just January and May, creating a tidal wave of inflation in all areas of the economy including groceries depressing the American consumer economy and only allowing a growing state of economic recession.

With a weak economy, the Bush Administration is quickly finding itself an irrelevent international player when many other nations consider international treaties and joint arrangements. Even Saudi Arabia was hardly impresed by the recent MidEast visit of Bush when he begged them to significantly increase oil production and only offered smaller token increases because their economy is booming with the higher oil prices while the American economy is sliding downward. If anything, the Bush Administration's mismanagement of the American economy and misdirected foreign policy built on the disasterous war in Iraq have only dramaticly reduced the world power and influence of the United States from a superpower status down to just some also-ran status, where the participation of the the United States in treaty or other international arrangements is no longer considered essential by many states.

Bush-McCain have lowered American prestige and sheer strength down to a mere level of some flag waving and dirt-dumb macho jingoisms, while the real world areas of strength such as a strong American economy slip away as nations outside of the U.S. such as Russia experiernce booming economic strength based on their oil based economy and record oil prices, and thus become dominant players in foreign relations with other states. The U.S. has less and less to offer other world states. Russia has plenty of oil. That makes all the difference.

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