The new Cuban Missle Crisis or is Russia preparing for WW III?

Russia has announced that it will stop and inspect all ships coming and going to the Georgian port city of Poti. There is another announcements from the Kremlin that is are adding to the real threat that Russia may be looking to widen the conflict. All Russian Federation ships entering the Mediterranean are now under the control of the Black Sea fleet.

Furthermore the Russians have announced that all ships transiting the Georgian port city of Poti are subject to inspection. Obviously the Russian will say it is to protect their troops who are illegally occupying the Georgian port. This does not bode well for world stability, as such a unilateral declaration on a sovereign country, without international support, would give the United States the right to stop all ships heading for Iran. The fact that the Russians were taken back by the American response of sending the destroyer the USS McFaul to deliver humanitarian aid, has caused the Russians to remove their best anti-submarine protection for their aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, the guided missile cruiser Moskva. The Moskva is returning to the Black Sea and will now serve as the flagship for the Black Sea Fleet.


By assembling their armada from Murmansk into the Black Sea the Russians are escalating, not reducing friction in the region. Now the US is sending the carrier USS IWO Jima and its Task Force into the Mediterranean for an extended cruise before moving to the Persian Gulf, along the amphibious assault ships the USS San Antonio and the USS Carter Hall with two full complements of Marines that would be necessary to protect Georgia's only remain free port for receiving humanitarian aid, these ships will be defended by the guided missle crusier and destroyers, USS Velha Gulf and the USS Ramage and USS Roosevelt, and will be supported by the fast attack sub the USS Hartford. The Black Sea will be crowded for the foreseeable future, and in this volitale atmosphere accidents can quickly become "casus belli."


While Syria is actively dredging the port of Tartus in preparation of giving the Russians a supply base close to Israel and southern Iraq. It would be interesting to note if the Russians did not ask King Abdallah of Jordan over-fly rights of Jordain airspace when he met with Syrian President Assad and Russian President Medvedev in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi. Is there a subliminal message here, with Sochi opening a museum to the Yalta Conference of 1945 where Europe was carved up between the Allied powers of WW II. Could Medvedev have used of a tour of the museum to pose a similar idea to King Abdallah over Israel's land?

King Abdallah has never been a supporter of radical Islamic ideals, and has shown great interest in bridging the western culture with that of his own. He used his influence to modernize his country and his people. The fact is that King Abdallah may just be the best stabilizing force in the region if he does not give Russia over-fly rights so the Russian can use the Kuznetsov as a floating base for attacks against US forces in the west of Iraq, but the history of violence and attempts of violence against his family by radical Islamics cannot be over looked, and the King will need to choose his words carefully.


Choosing Sochi is no mistake, for the meeting , the museum, the upcoming 2014 Olympics. The irony that may well be, is not that the statue produced is the first statue of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, a Georgian from the destroy city of Gori, but the author of the statue is Israeli architect Frank Meisler.