Russian Moves in the Americas.(World View)(on Russia's plan to re-establish ties wit Cuba)

Russia's push into the region could force others into an arms race that no one wants or can afford.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's surprising announcement in early August that his country would seek to "re-establish" ties with the Soviet Union's old allies in Havana stirred up excitement in many foreign newsrooms, and raised eyebrows in a few foreign ministries around the world. Coming in the wake of a three-day visit to Cuba by a high-level Russian delegation, led by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, and of reports about the possibility of the Russian military's using the Caribbean island as a fueling station for its Bear bombers, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, the flurry of news evoked memories of the 1962 missile crisis and a new "threat" to the United States from across the Florida Straits.

In fact, there is probably much less here than meets the eye. Putin and Russia in general seem quite upset, and have said so, about the Bush administration's decision to establish a "missile shield" in the Czech Republic (and perhaps Poland) that would theoretically be a protection from all parties, but is seen from Moscow as a threat to Russia. Sending a delegation to Cuba and talking up the possibility of nuclear bombers landing or being stationed on the island appears to be a quite classical countermove, reminding Washington that two can tango, and that one of the outcomes of the Cuban missile crisis, at least according to the Russians, was the removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey--in other words, from close to Soviet territory.

Moreover, there are reasons for believing that the Cubans were neither a party to the threat nor particularly enthralled by it. They were quite displeased in 2001 when Moscow, without notice and in response to U.S. pressure, shut down the Lourdes eavesdropping and surveillance station, for which the Soviet Union and Russia had paid big bucks. Without a clear explanation about what these "new ties" would mean and a guarantee that the Lourdes precedent would not be repeated, it would seem unlikely that Havana would go along. The fact that no Cuban official, except Fidel Castro in his weekly editorial in Granma, and in a very convoluted way, mentioned the entire issue casts doubt as to how much Raol Castro is truly committed to this new proposal.

Raol is probably quite reluctant, because the kind of high-stakes grandstanding that the young Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev indulged in in 1962 is exactly the opposite of what he apparently desires in foreign policy. If anything, Raol would prefer to avoid the limelight or any ...