[PINR] 14 September 2005: The Significance of Sino-Russian Military Exercises

sept 13

poor russians, they'll sell their mother to the devil these days. and they are in fact doing just that.

we have seen lately several good illustrations of the dictum of permanent interests but not permanent friends:

1. israel making cooing noises with musharraf
2. russia making eyes with china

meanwhile, india's 'leaders' seem congenitally incapable of understanding that
a) there's such a thing as india's national interests, and that doesn't mean china's or saudi arabia's or the vatican's interests
b) it is okay to discard allies like used condoms when they are no longer useful
c) india is no longer a banana republic for whom it's fine to run around playing footsie with minnows. as a major power it had better act like a major power, not be someone's patsy

we need chanakya, really badly.

_______________________________________ Power and Interest News Report (PINR) http://www.pinr.com content@pinr.com ------------------------------ 14 September 2005 To contact today's analysts, please e-mail inquiries@pinr.com. ------------------------------ The Significance of Sino-Russian Military Exercises Drafted By: Erich Marquardt, Yevgeny Bendersky http://www.pinr.com Between the dates of August 18-25, 2005, Russia and China participated in their first ever bilateral war games, dubbed Peace Mission 2005. The games were symbolic of the growing cooperation between the two powerful states. Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, which led to an increasingly influential role for Washington in Central Asia, Moscow and Beijing have drawn together under the common interest of preventing further U.S. influence in the region. Their mutual interest formed after a series of "colored revolutions" in the region; these revolutions weakened Russian influence in its near abroad and concerned China that an intensified U.S. role in Central Asia would lead to regional instability in an area that Beijing hopes to exploit for energy resources. For instance, China National Petroleum Corporation is expected to win a bid for the Canadian energy company PetroKazakhstan, which holds oil reserves in Kazakhstan and owns a major refinery there. [See: "Economic Brief: China's Energy Acquisitions"]