A Rising American Enemy?

Within recent months Venezuela has caused policy makers to raise an eyebrow in Washington. The new democratic leader, Hugo Chavez, has made various questionable decisions on words, actions, and allies. The question is, What are we going to do about it?

Chavez has idolized Bolivia since his election. He was in fact elected democratically, yet his leadership has been very different. Venezuela is riddled with inflation, corruption, crime, and recently a sense of discontent with Chavez. New allies to Venezuela have arisen such as Iran and Russia. Chavez supported the Kremlin's invasion of Georgia as the rest of the world cringed. Lots of talk between Russia and Chavez is about the advantages to doubling up on energy. This would bring Russia's influence into the western hemisphere and allow Russia to have a major influence on energy production in future years.

Along with their tag team on energy, Russia views Venezuela as a lucrative weapons market. Chavez has already spent four billion dollars on munitions. This includes 100,000 AK-47s, dozens of military helicopters and twenty four advanced fighter bombers. All of these were made within Russia. As a display of cooperation between the two nations, Russia is sending four warships to Venezuela for "military exercises". Puton and Chavez have recently discussed the possibility of Russian aid with nuclear power facilities. All Chavez has had to say is, "go ahead and squeal, Yankees".

The American leadership in Washington has been eyeing these events with caution. They do not want to provoke any reason for an incident and they want to avoid making and unnecessary accusations. As of now American policy makers have decided to let the events play out and take any necessary action. After the dispute with Georgia and now issues with Iran and Venezuela, tensions are rising. Claims of a new "Cuban missile crisis" have been made, but there are no nuclear weapons involved and it is on a much different scale and this may very well not escalate in the slightest. No matter what happens this should provide an interesting topic of foreign affairs for the next president of the United States.