By SIMON ROMERO, MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: November 21, 2008
CARACAS, Venezuela — When President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia planned
his coming trip through Latin America, his country seemed poised to
present one of the most visible challenges in years to American
influence in the region. With oil prices high, Russia was flush with
cash and planning a variety of measures, including helping Venezuela
build a nuclear reactor and strengthening military ties with Cuba, a
former cold war ally of the Soviets.
But when Mr. Medvedev reaches the region next week, he will find it in
flux in reaction to recent events — and in some cases less receptive to
his overtures. Plunging oil prices and the global financial crisis,
which have hammered Russia particularly hard, have raised questions
about Russia's reliability as an economic partner, while Barack Obama's
victory in the presidential race has raised hopes throughout Latin
America of a new era of improved relations with the United States.
In this rapidly changing landscape, most Latin American countries are
recalibrating their political interests, frustrating Russia's efforts to
deepen regional ties, like the ones China established in the past decade.
"Russia's elites, including President Medvedev, look on China's rising
diplomatic and economic successes in Latin America and in Africa with
envy," said Stephen Kotkin, the director of Russia studies at Princeton
University. "They also perceive an opportunity, much exaggerated, to
send the U.S. a message in its supposed backyard."
But Mr. Medvedev faces a hard sell in the region. In Cuba there are
lingering suspicions over Russian intentions, as the Cuban economy
collapsed when the Soviets withdrew in the 1990s, as well as a
reluctance to alienate an incoming Obama administration that might push
to end the trade embargo.
Brazil, Latin America's largest country, which also places a high
priority on relations with an Obama administration, wants to engage
Russia not as a source of weapons or military assistance, but as an
equal partner.
"We are not interested in buying defense products off the shelf," said
Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Brazil's minister of strategic affairs and the
architect of a new military strategy set to be officially unveiled in
December.
"Unlike other South American countries we don't go around buying things,
and we are not interested in some kind of balance-of-power politics to
contain the United States," said Mr. Mangabeira Unger, a former Harvard
law professor who taught Mr. Obama when he was at Harvard Law School.
"We have friendly relations with the United States, and with the
incoming administration intend to make them even more friendly."
By contrast in Venezuela, itself battered by falling oil prices, Mr.
Medvedev can expect a warm welcome. President Hugo Chávez has long
sought closer ties, traveling to Russia seven times and forging deals to
buy more than $4 billion in arms. Until recently, however, Russia showed
little interest in expanding ties with Venezuela beyond weapons sales
and a handful of energy deals.
But Russia's position evolved in recent months, and it is now seeking a
beachhead with a raft of oil, as well as mining, banking and military
contracts. Yet in choosing to invest in Venezuela, energy executives and
foreign diplomats say, Moscow is becoming involved in one of the most
problematic countries in the region. Countries like China and Iran have
faced a morass of corruption and institutional disarray while seeking to
expand their presence here.
The Russian foray into Latin America has been viewed in many quarters as
payback for what the Kremlin sees as an aggressive infringement by the
United States on its sphere of influence. Moscow has been angered by
American plans to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe as
well as by Washington's support for Kosovo's independence and for
Georgia in the August war, which the Kremlin claimed that the White
House helped provoke.
In Colombia, where there is fear over Russian-made weapons in
neighboring Venezuela finding their way across the border to leftist
guerrillas, Russia's moves are partly seen as tit-for-tat for the
growing NATO presence in former Soviet bloc countries. "In a sense,
Venezuela is becoming Russia's Ukraine," said Román Ortiz, a security
analyst in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.
Two Russian strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons made a
visit to Venezuela in September, a few weeks before Russia announced a
$1 billion loan to the country for weapons purchases. And a contingent
of the Russian Navy's North Sea Fleet is now en route to the Caribbean
to take part in training exercises with the Venezuelan Navy, maneuvers
scheduled to coincide with Mr. Medvedev's visit here.
"If the country has stood on its feet and is beginning to extend its
economic and political roles, then it cannot remain locally focused,"
said Andrei Klimov, the deputy head of the International Affairs
Committee in Russia's Parliament. He emphasized that Russia's policies
in Latin America were not "directed against a specific country."
"It is simply that Russia has developed defined interests, and we want
to realize those interests, particularly in business — in oil, gas, in
new technologies, in weapons sales," Mr. Klimov said.
Russia has also been seeking to rekindle cold war-era ties in countries
that are now allies of Venezuela, like Nicaragua, the recipient of
Soviet military aid in the 1980s. With the left-wing Sandinistas back in
power in Nicaragua, Russian officials have traveled recently to Managua,
the capital, to discuss grandiose projects like a new canal to rival the
Panama Canal.
But for now, Russia's foray into Nicaragua remains limited to the
training of about a dozen Nicaraguan military personnel, a shadow of the
once prominent role played by the Soviet Union during the first
government of President Daniel Ortega, when Soviet military specialists
helped build Pachito Air Base, now badly in need of repairs.
Russia has carved out a presence in other small countries with limited
economic clout in the region, like Bolivia, where Russia is offering
military and antidrug assistance. In Guyana, Russia has warm ties with
President Bharrat Jagdeo, who studied economics in Moscow when Guyana
was ruled by socialists with close ties to the Soviet Union.
But elsewhere in the area, the Kremlin is having a harder time. In Cuba,
where the Soviet Union once focused the bulk of its military presence in
the region, concern persists over the collapse of the Soviet Union. The
abrupt withdrawal of billions of dollars of aid devastated Cuba's
economy, which has yet to completely recover despite receiving large
subsidies from Venezuela.
Under President Raúl Castro, the Cuban government may be looking to
capitalize on the change in leadership in Washington by seeking to
loosen America's costly embargo, said Brian Latell, a former C.I.A.
analyst and the author of "After Fidel."
"Raúl and the Cuban leadership are much more pragmatic than Fidel and
are less inclined to poke Washington in the eye," he said. "Why
antagonize American interest groups now by cavorting" with the Kremlin?
Cuba backed Russia's military incursion into Georgia, but it has been
unwilling to recognize the two separatist enclaves, South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, whose independence Russia recognized after the August war.
That action was strongly condemned by the international community, with
Nicaragua the only other country to offer official recognition.
Meanwhile, skepticism persists even in Venezuela over Russia's ability
to expand ties that mainly involve weapons sales into a relationship
that involves greater amounts of investment and diplomatic coordination.
In diplomatic circles in Caracas, a joke is making the rounds comparing
the Latin American strategy of China, which views market-oriented
economies like Brazil, Chile and Mexico as gateways to the region, with
that of Russia, which is largely focusing on Bolivia, Nicaragua and
Venezuela. In Brazil, Russia's trade of $5.2 billion in 2007 was dwarfed
by China's $23.4 billion.
"The Russians have picked the most erratic and unreliable partners in
the region," said a Bush administration official, speaking on condition
of anonymity, following normal diplomatic protocol.
And even in areas where Russia and Venezuela are starting to cooperate,
like offshore natural gas exploration, the new alliance belies the
resilience of ties to the United States, which remains by far
Venezuela's largest trading partner.
When state television in Venezuela trumpeted the start of exploration
this month by the country's state oil company and a consortium of
Russian businesses amid cries of "Comrades!" all around, little
attention was directed to the drilling platform they were standing on.
It had been leased from Scorpion Offshore, which monitors its rigs
around the world from its home office in Houston.
Simon Romero reported from Caracas, Venezuela, Michael Schwirtz from
Moscow, and Alexei Barrionuevo from Rio de Janeiro. Blake Schmidt and
Marc Lacey contributed reporting from Managua, Nicaragua.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/world/americas/22russia.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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