While this article makes some very good points, much of what is happening was to be expected. See my article published in Australian Financial Review on 23 March, 2000.
Click here: http://www.jeffschubert.com/index.php?id=20
However, the clumsy US and its allies -- and ideas of NATO expansion, Iraq etc -- make some of Russia's actions quite understandable. Indeed, the US & Co are not about promoting "good" in the world as much as boosting their own power at the expense of others -- and the "others" know it!
Jeff Schubert: http://www.jeffschubert.com/

Im sure this great nihilist will find freinds where ever it goes. Im sure too, there is an answer in the Bible, of which i would to consult.

As for the West, well glory be J Sharon, thats a toughy.

Somebody once told me about the Chechen thing, but i have a twisted recollection of it. Thing is, the West did all the right things, from all accounts.

The trilogy of fear from Islam/Atheist/Christianic global competition is not to be sneezed at. Satanic elements influence. But, ways must be sought. I see today a news item about the Dead Sea, and the Jordanian proposal to refill it. Goes perhaps against Drosnin.

I am sure that pipelines for oil matter, and some are key to the puzzle. But the bear is perhaps more hungry after a long winter in the cold. Europhiles seeking freindly markets offer both an option, and a way to curb 'other' markets. A threat on its own. But i dont see Russia bing a market player of major concern, that seems to be Chinas bag. Ethics seem to be the key. Which door does it open?

I may revisit this post of mine, once i get a clear day, to again answer Sharon.

Russia is not 'on the way up', its fortifying its position at the summit. Putin has comprehensively trumped UK-US neocolonialism in three continents, which considering where he started from was no small feat. The US may no longer get any Siberian LNG at all, BP has to sell half of just-commissioned Sakhalin 1 back to national co., and Exxon was shut out of numerous exploration leases it had paid good bribes for - just who does Putin think he is running the country for!

Nearly all of Western and Eastern Europe is dependent upon Russia for the bulk of its gas and a fair whack of its oil (Russia being worlds biggest gas exporter and second biggest oil exporter, soon to be first?). So it is easy for Putin to use the energy noose to sweep away years of careful 'cultivation'/bankrolling by the West of chosen elites in former soviet states.

Putin probably copied the schitzoid yes/no/okaymaybe stalling of sanctions against Iran from US+Au participation in Kyoto Protocol negotiations, is easing back now possibly because Iran has taken delivery of as many SSN22s and other advanced armaments as can usefully use (Russias arms exports still well short of US, #1)

It really is high time Aus. woke up and smelt the coffee - surfing on the coattails of neoliberal globalisation at gunpoint wont much longer deliver the favourable terms of trade on which Australias dig-it-ship-it export income is predicated. Too bad John Howard is accustomed to crawling only before anglo foriegn powers.

Interesting points Sharon. I too may sleep on these thoughts.

It did not help the situation when the US was fast to invade Afghanistan with the cooperation of Russia, without thinking of the consiquences. They never did get Bin Laden, did they? What exactly did they achieve? You know that the Taliban is just going to take it back again, sooner or later. All the US did was isolate the west from the east, Islam from Judai Christendom and freedom from dictatorship.

Then again, Rumsfeld and Cheney never listened to their own CIA, so one would expect that it was also a war against intelligence.

There was no closure over the tragedy of 9 / 11 at all, just a slide down from frustration and disappointment to infuriation over stupid reactions. American voters are angry at their leaders. Australian voters, alas, are behaving like ADHD children: so "special" in learning.

The idea of "a war against terror" has no logic as there is no defined enemy, entity, or country. The "war against drugs" never worked either, it only made drugs more seductive. In a similar way, terrorism becomes seductive to angry people with this framework. Does the American Government want to promote terrorism through the psychology of uniting spite and furious anger?

It was only ever a campaign of fear from all directions. All sides in this sad story failed.

Time to listen to the women and children who get trapped in all these bombs.

Then there is the war in Iraq. What a mess! Pavlov's dog even knew that this war is based on a lie, internationally illegal, shameful, and will lead only to blood, death and bankruptcy. Now the US is talking about "placing" Saddam's Bath Party back in control of Iraq to find a way out. After how many dead American and allied soldiers?

If we had alternative fuels, we would be free from all the oil and fossil fuel rich countries including Russia with its gas.

If the UN banned all new power stations internationally, backed by the US, well, Iran could not cry foul play.

A very good friend of mine, examining the politics of detente in the early 1970s, made the observation that the Soviet regime was pursuing Tsarist imperial ambition under a different (ideological) cloak. Some academics in the same gathering sneered but when the Berlin Wall fell and the communist bloc disintegrated, he was asked his opinion about prospects for democracy in Russia. He was suitably gloomy, even though Yeltsin dissolved the Communist Party, embraced the Russian Orthodox Church and instituted what appeared be open and fair elections. He said that he did not expect it to last and when Putin emerged from the shadows, he muttered darkly in words reminiscent of Sir Humphrey Appleby: " Governments come and governments go, but the KGB goes on forever."

Looking at recent diplomatic maneuvers on the world stage including warming relations between Russia and the PRC in the Shanghai cooperation group and Russian links with the Iranian government, his pessimism appears warranted. The prophet, however, remains without honour or recognition in his own land. One can only gaze in wonder at the cretinous beliefs that recently appeared in the US State Department and were recycled through the Washington Post, that Russia has a "commercial relationship" with Iran, ignoring current portents and signs

Russia has not given up imperial ambition - under Putin, the bear has begun to stir and it remains to be seen whether he will step down from the presidency; attempt to remain in office or govern through a willing catspaw.