Friday, December 26, 2008

Indonesia and the Russian bear

Russia seems to be making a full-time occupation of tweaking American interests. Sending warships to Cuba, running roughshod over Saakashvili's Georgia, cutting off oil pipelines to Europe whenever it serves its interests.

In short the old Cold War spirit is back, led by a veteran of those times, KGB functionary Vladmir Putin. Russia's latest salvo: Ramping up its military shipments abroad, including fighter jets to Indonesia. Two were just delivered, with more to come.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Indonesia is famously independent, back to the Sukarno days and the creation of the non-aligned movement, and can buy arms from whomever it wants. So too can it enter into joint ventures with Russian oil and gas interests, which are currently scouring the archipelago.

But consider what Russian dealings have brought to foreign companies like BP, which entered into a business agreement in good faith and got their heads handed to them on a platter. Russian friendship, it seems, has its limits. When the bear is becoming cornered - thanks to a plummeting national stock market and ruble, which together have devalued wealth by as much as 80 or 90% - it's useful to keep that precept in mind.


Today's Top Stories

Anniversary of the tsunami
Still rebuilding, four years on

No Christmas issues in Indonesia
Celebrated peacefully in world's biggest Muslim country

Indonesia getting ... boring, says Australia?!
No major crises in 2008

Massive Sumatran flooding
15,000 displaced in Lampung provinces

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Terima kasih atas informasinya semoga bermanfaat bagi semua pembaca. Kalau tidak keberatan tolong lihat article saya Gadis Manis Indonesia.

Anonymous said...

Nice Article...

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