Vlad The Impaler

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, August 20, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Geopolitics: Vladimir Putin announces the resumption of strategic bomber patrols as it prepares to display its military prowess at the Moscow Air Show. The Russian military machine is back in business.

The MiG-35 and MiG-29 fighter aircraft that Russia plans to showcase at the MAKS-2007 Air Show in the suburban town of Zhukovsky, Russia, Aug. 21 to 26 are only a small part of the five-year, $189 billion military modernization plan under way. Russia is planning to double combat aircraft production by 2025 with new nuclear missiles, aircraft carriers and other goodies on Moscow's shopping list.

Last Friday, Putin officially announced the resumption of long-range strategic bomber patrols that were common during the Cold War but that disappeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Twenty Russian bombers — including the Tu-160 Blackjack, Tu-95 and Tu22M — plus refueling tankers and airborne warning aircraft participated in last week's Peace Mission 2007, a military exercise involving forces from the six members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Speaking after forces from Russia and China, as well as Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, conducted joint exercises for the first time on Russian soil, Putin said: "I have made a decision to resume regular flights of Russian strategic aviation."

Putin claimed that after Moscow suspended such flights in 1992, "other nations haven't followed our example. This has created certain problems for Russia's security."

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow felt helpless and almost irrelevant as it watched China's ascension and NATO's expansion to include former members of the Warsaw Pact.
Now, flush with energy revenues, Russia is intent on proving its military and geopolitical relevance, creating certain problems for American and Western security.

Russia has resented what it perceived as being dismissed as a spent force. As the London Sunday Telegraph reports, it plans to spend heavily on the new Tu-160 supersonic strategic bomber, which can launch cruise missiles; the Su-34 Fullback all-weather fighter-bomber designed to attack heavily defended targets; and a fifth-generation fighter, the Sukhoi T-50, scheduled to become Russia's front-line fighter in 2008.

According to Jane's Sentinel Country Risk Assessments, the Russian shopping list includes two new sub-launched ballistic missiles, the Bulava and the Sineva, each with a 5,000-mile range and capable of carrying 10 nuclear warheads. The new Russian navy will field eight new ballistic-missile submarines and six new nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

Mass production of the Topol-M, also known as the SS-27, the land-based equivalent of the Bulava, has begun. Former Russian Defense Secretary and current Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, a front-runner to succeed Putin, describes it as "the most advanced, state-of-the-art missile in the world."

"Only such weapons can ensure and guarantee our sovereignty and security and make any attempts to put military pressure on Russia absolutely senseless," Ivanov says.
According to Moscow, such pressure came recently in the form of U.S. plans to deploy interceptor missiles and tracking radars in Poland and the Czech Republic. In response, Russia threatened to station its offensive missiles in the former German enclave of Kaliningrad, formerly of East Prussia.

The Cold War may just be back with a vengeance. As Putin said when he announced the resumption of long-range bomber patrols: "Combat duty has begun."