KIEV, Ukraine-When Good Democracies Go Bad!

Remember the Orange Revolution? That pesky little band of freedom fighters with the orange scarves a few years back? Well, seems the old saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely” still rings true, especially in fragile democracies like the Ukraine.

Yulia Tymoshenko who is the prime minister but looks more like the St. Pauli Girl is at odds with Viktor Yushchenko who is the President. Mr. Yushchenko if you remember is the gentleman who was poisoned enough to scare him severely, just not kill him.

Problem seems to be that these two have been at each other’s throats since day one, but it has gotten so bad as of late because like most countries, the Ukraine has run out of money and needs a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Now, the IMF wants nothing more than these two to play nice but Mr. Yushchenko is trying to get rid of Ms. Tymoshenko by forcing early elections in December.

What’s this all mean, not much really except Russia is lying in the tall grass waiting for this little pissing match to escalate. Having the government collapse in the Ukraine is exactly what Moscow would need to invade and pull the former Soviet Union’s breadbasket back in control of Mother Russia. And since Putin is playing monopoly with the former satellite states anyway, he might as well try and add this feather to his cap. This could very well be the international crisis that Joe Biden predicted a week before Election Day. In any event, watch out Kiev, keep it up and you could be humming the theme to the Russian national anthem in no time!

Russia Flexes Military Muscle

The headlines read; Russia Agrees to Halt War. That’s French for Russia agrees to stop kicking Georgia’s ass up and down Eastern Europe. From a pure business play, the aggression by the former Soviet Union doesn’t make sense and can’t sustain itself if they want to be considered a legitimate government on the business world stage. In other words, you can’t play the buy sell game one day, then be marauding invaders the next…the two just don’t go together.

Ah but it seems like old times….

I will say there is something familiar in the latest headlines. In fact, there is certain comfort in seeing Russia flex its muscles, it reminds us of a time when we Knew who our enemy was. That they, like you, had boarders and citizens, and that they too understood what the mutually assured destruction doctrine meant and would prefer not be blown to smithereens either.

Today, there are no boarders, no boundaries, no conventions or dictum that describes how to act when a countryless agitator threatens your way of life. So you make it up as you go along because there is no war plan for a guy that steps out of the subway in Manhattan and leaves a dissolving vial of Anthrax on the corner of 55th and Lex.

Russian Grain Exports - Animal Farm Lives

Looks like our friends across the pond…no not those friends, our comrades in Moscow are at it again. Russia is going to nationalize grain exports. This announcement is the latest in a series of moves that appear to be a rush to Russia’s former self. Moscow has been very busy as of late completing a number of industrial re-nationalizations, most notably in the oil sector.

Time to make the bread!

The plan is for the Russian Agency for the Regulation of Food Markets to become a government trader that controls up to 50 percent of the country’s exports which totaled $3.5 billion last year. If no one is watching, let me help you here. Russia is making sure they are a force to be reckoned with in the early part of this century, and they need to be taken seriously. There is no doubt they are pissed that the US is planning on building a missile defense shield in parts of eastern Europe and they are flexing their economic, political, and military muscle as a response.

These are all smart moves. There is no economic downturn in Russia today, no housing crisis or interest rate issues, everything is cash and the country is packed with it while the market explodes. Politically, these moves provide Moscow the resources needed to fatten itself up for a long winter. On the military front, Moscow announced this week a complete overhaul of the navy, complete with six brand new air craft carrier groups. For you boys and girls not keeping score, they have one right now…and the carrier itself is followed by four tug boats in case it breaks down. So this is a significant military move to strengthen itself.

Point is, with Russia’s latest move to take over grain exports, someone needs to be keeping an eye out on what the long range plan is in the former Soviet Union because it looks like these guys are getting their game faces on. Europe, time to man up!