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I think Russia's primary contention with the U.S. is our wealth.

A decade later and they're still comparably and significantly poorer than we are.

The general view of the ignorant world is that the U.S. maintains the poverty of other nations through unfair trade practices. Anyone with even half a brain knows that this is not true, and that the reason so much of the world has remained poor is because of the rampant corruption in those countries. If anything, we have done a major disservice to the world by giving so much money to corrupt governments, enabling them to afford to ignore the lack of an economic base, and civil infrastructure.

In my opinion, Russia would've fared better if we'd had Bob Dole as President in 1997, and if Bob Dole had followed after George Bush (41). If Clinton had never been President, in all likelihood, 9/11 would never have happened, Saddam would've been deposed in the 1990s, and Al Qaeda would've never have reformed behind Osama bin Laden in Afghnistan.

(The cost in our nation's greatest treasure, the blood of our citizens - soldiers and civilian - because we elected a weak man to the Presidency for two terms is impossible to measure, and only the fullness of history will reveal how much Clinton's policies will eventually cost us.)

The reality is that Putin and all of his ministers and aides are former SOVIET KGB officers. It does not take a genius to figure out that the entire KGB did not fold up shop and decide to become westernized good citizens of the world when the Soviet Union collapsed. The KGB is the KGB is the KGB under the new name FSB with the same old management.

For political purposes, Putin maintains his pro-democracy sheep's clothing but he is a Soviet all the way. He was born a Soviet, raised a Soviet, educated a Soviet and was a career loyal Soviet officer in the KGB and always will be a Soviet.

Every move he has made in Russia since being handed the presidency by Yeltsin has been aimed at reestablishing Soviet style institutions under new names. Where the post-Soviet government sold government control of major industries, Putin has reclaimed them for reasons of "national security" or "tax evasion." The Russian government now owns and controls the entire military industrial complex, the oil industry, every news media outlet, the steel industry and the list continues to grow. Having taken control of the news-media by having the now government owned Gas and Oil giants buy all of the independent media outlets, Putin controls the internal politics of Russia as did the Soviet Union. Putin has eliminated all of his political opposition except for what little he allows to give him some international political cover. Putin has eliminated local elections for regional governors that he now appoints. Putin has sought to reestablish dominance over the now independent former Soviet States by actively attempting to manipulate political campaigns in the former Soviet states by acts including but not limited open endorsements and campign fund of Kremlin aligned candidates and assassinations of political opposition. Putin has signaled to Europe that now that they are dependant of gas from Russian Government owned companies and pipelines, that he will use energy as a political weapon against them. Putin has made agreements to sell weapons and technology to every major enemy of the US including enemies in our hemisphere such as Venezuela and Cuba. Putin is also seeking to promote leftist leaders elsewhere in Latin-American. Putin is selling weapons to every major US enemy in the middle east including Syria, Sudan, Iran and Libya. Putin has aligned himself with fellow communists in China and helped modernize the Chinese military into a fairly well equipped force. Putin has sought to dominate the Caucasus because of the vast natural gas and oil reserves in the Caspian Sea basin which are currently dependent on Russian pipelines for transportation thereby granting Russia control over the Caspian Sea nations economies by default.

From this position of dominance in the oil and gas markets, Putin can reestablish the Russia as a Global Super Power of Influence. Putin's close ties and support for Iran will destabilize the middle east driving up oil prices to the US and the west and lining his Russian Treasury with BILLIONS of Dollars. Putin's alignment with Iran and China will ensure that Russia's biggest arms customer still has access to cheap Iranian oil and gas in order for China's economy to continue to boom and China to continue to support the Russian military industry by continued purchases of major military platforms. Russian and Putin's influence in Venezuela will destabilize Latin-America, put US oil imports in jeopardy, raise oil prices, promote other leftist-socialist pro-Russia/Soviet governments in Latin-America, supply arms to Columbian rebels and drug lords via Venezuela.

No, it doesn't take a genius to see that these are all of the same policies of the former Soviet Union and if you can't feel that dangerous Cold wind blowing, you are in for a real shocker in the next 10 years. The Russians and the Chinese are teaming up to dominate the world energy market at the expense of the US because that is the obvious weakness of our great nation. Therefore a nuclear armed Iranian ally is in the interest of both China and Russia politically and economically. China isn't building a blue water navy to use against Taiwan. You don't need an aircraft carrier to attack Taiwan from the mainland China but you do need one to operate from the Pakistan port and defend the Straits of Hormuz against the US who may seek to halt all Iranian oil shipments over the nuclear issue. The reason why Russian and Chinese cooperation with the US in fighting terrorism has been limited is that as long as the US is tied-down fighting the struggle against terrorism mostly on its own, the Russians and the Chinese can expand their influence as the enemies of the US are then willing to make alliances.

People need to get their head out of the sand. Geopolitics is a deadly and ruthless game of chess and longterm strategy. The longest term problem for the nations of the world with growing populations, growing economies and dependence on petroleum for lack of any viable alternative, is access to energy. Strategically, energy/petroleum is still the gold standard in the world like it or not. It is important to remember the "golden rule" in such cases - "He who controls the gold makes the rules."