Newshoggers.com

No Missile Defense Deal For Putin And Bush

By Cernig

Bush and Putin failed to agree a deal on missile defense at their last ever summit. What a surprise.

"This is an area we've got more work to do to convince the Russian side that the system is not aimed at Russia," Bush said after a morning of talks with Putin at the Russian leader's vacation retreat in the resort of Sochi.

..."I want to be understood correctly. Strategically, no change happened in our ... attitude to U.S. plans," Putin told reporters at his joint news briefing with Bush.

"At the same time there are some positive developments. Our concerns were finally heard by the U.S. side. I am cautiously optimistic that we will reach an agreement. ... The devil is in the detail."

What's pretty obvious here is that Bush doesn't understand Russian concerns - or if he does he just doesn't care. Primary among those concerns is that, while this program isn't a serious threat to the massive nuclear arsenal, follow on programs pushed by neoconservative think-tanks who have exerted great infuence on U.S. policymaking throughout Bush's terms have been open in calling for a full on Star Wars program as envisioned by Reagan - including hundreds or thousands of "Brilliant Pebbles" space-based weapons. To do that, the U.S. would have to renege on a treaty banning such weapons, opening a whole new proliferation bag. Worse, if the U.S. looked like it was going to succeed in attaining a "we can nuke them but they can't nuke us" situation, Russia would have little choice other than to consider a pre-emptive "use 'em or lose 'em" situation prior to that success. The alternative would be to give up it's status as a military and nuclear superpower, and that's unlikely to happen.

Interestingly, though, Putin said he had gotten the "US side" to understand Russia's viewpoint - not Bush. I wonder if some non-neocon career diplomats are signalling Russia to just wait until a saner and brighter President is in office.

Rumors of a Massive Tunnel

By Fester

Via the Foreign Policy Passport Blog is an interesting set of rumors that could swirl quite a few conspiracy theorists heads:

Roman Abramovich, the Russian dropout turned oil tycoon, recently invested $160 million in the 19-meter-wide drill, outdoing the previous recordholder by a good four meters.

Not only has Abramovich set the record, but his colossal purchase just happens to coincide with rumors that President Vladimir Putin will propose the construction of a physical link between Russia and the United States: a 64-mile, $66 billion tunnel beneath the Bering  Strait.

Very interesting, and given the weather conditions in the Bering Strait, it would make the Chunnel look like a child's experiment at the sea shore.  I would bet that the tunnel would be a rail tunnel with a potential natural gas and oil pipeline co-located with it instead of a car traffic tunnel.  The control and management angle is much simpler that way, as well as the engineering challenge of ventilation. 

The conspiracy theorists who see the North American Union being formed under all of our noses instead of seeing a bunch of think tanks generating policy proposals and buzz will probably be up in arms about the United States selling itself out to Russia.  This will be especially true in uncertain and dissonant economic times as the rule sets and behavior sets that previously produced decent results are no longer working and the sense of powerlessness leads to conspiracy.