Geopolitics: With America hit by a financial crisis, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez now sees a weak U.S. and is pushing to accelerate Russia's foothold in the Caribbean. Russia's with him. Will the next U.S. president be ready?

For Chavez, America's meltdown is a golden opportunity to strike at the U.S. by introducing Russian power into the hemisphere. Wasting no time, he barreled over to Russia in a hasty trip last week, saying bilateral cooperation on weapons sales would speed forward. He made no secret of exploiting U.S. difficulties.

"We are facing a new geopolitical dynamic and for that reason we are moving faster," Chavez told a Miami-based press agency.

On his seventh trip to Russia, Chavez's interests converged perfectly with the Kremlin's. This time he hit the jackpot.

Russia is obsessed with ending U.S. influence in its "near abroad" where tiny freedom-loving democracies such as Georgia provoke its imperial ire. That's why the boyars of the Kremlin offered the tropical dictator weapons and technology he's never merited on earlier trips — nuclear technology, advanced military communications systems and air defense missiles. They also offered Chavez $1.1 billion to pay for it, a loan they are unlikely to try to collect on.

There's a much bigger plan here than succoring Chavez. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia now makes relations with Latin America a top foreign policy priority. Moscow's loans and weaponry won't just go to Venezuela, but to Chavez's anti-American allies in the Caribbean, too.

Last week, Russia promised to modernize Nicaragua's military, which wants helicopters and replacements for its aged SAM-7 missiles. Cuba, meanwhile, is getting a new space-based communication station and new aerial espionage capacities, Novosti reported.

This rapid sequence of largesse to the region shows that Putin is serious, and Russian involvement here is likely to grow. Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela occupy three strategic corners of the Caribbean, giving Russia potential for full control over the region.

One-on-one, none of these new Russian weapons are a match for American military hardware, and on the record, the U.S. Navy says it's unconcerned.

But with wars today won on more than firepower, it's worth noting that Russia could have perfect strategic high ground through the Caribbean, and its presence could threaten the region's sea lanes, where the U.S. is vulnerable. A triangle of Russian-occupied vassal states in the Caribbean also splits the U.S. geographically from two democratic allies who matter: Colombia and Panama.

Isolationists may dismiss this, but the Caribbean is the soft underbelly of American industrial and military might. A Russian presence here has no serious aim except to create what Putin called "a multipolar world." That is a direct threat.

America imports 60% of its energy from overseas, and 64% of that must cross the Caribbean to reach Gulf refineries, ports and pipelines. Another portion must cross the Panama Canal. Russian communications operations, submarines and naval ships hanging around with little to do are a problem, even if a shot is never fired.

Any move they make could disrupt shipping, even if through delay. We've seen how hurricanes disrupt U.S. trade and energy supply lines, and a Russian presence could achieve the same thing with no majesty of nature.

A Russian presence in the Caribbean must be watched. That will take up scarce U.S. naval resources, forcing American ships to babysit Russian intruders with no legitimate reason to be there. It will strain everyday naval activities in the region, including drug traffic enforcement in a region where the trade has increased fourfold ever since Chavez cut off Venezuelan cooperation with U.S. drug enforcement in 2005.

All of these are economic consequences for a U.S. now stressed financially by an economic rescue. Chavez is probably overestimating the economic damage here, but Putin, keenly aware that economic warfare brought down the Soviet Union, has every interest in checking the U.S. by disrupting its economy.

Seeing this unfolding picture will pose a real challenge for the next president. Do both candidates understand how the Soviet Union was defeated and what the Kremlin's intentions are? Do both know how to check these ambitions? Amid the financial crisis, this issue isn't being debated, but it ought to be, because it's likely to grow in importance in the years to come.

Labels: Russia, United States