#1 Venezuela Gets $2.2B Loan for Russian Arms
Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 12:09 am
Defensenews
Let's review his neighborhood. He has the Caribbean Sea to his north with a dozen or so island nations, some are friendly like Cuba, most are neutral, none are really hostile. Either way he isn't planning operations there, he didn't get anything for navy so fuck that.
South of him is Brazil. Given that the current President and government of Brazil is friendly to him, I doubt he bought these toys with them in mind. Disregarding that, that part of Brazil is very much jungle, tanks are not gonna be useful and his troops will get bogged down before he can do much. He doesn't have the logistics for a march to the more valuable coastal regions where most of the economic activity is going. As a former officer, I would expect Chavez to know that, not because he's a genius but because it's basic military common sense. Brazil with many domenstic problems and in the middle of a internal campaign of moderization is unlikely to go looking for a fight itself, so he cannot seriously be worried about Brazilian attack (besides they've been backing up Zappy, his Honduran little brother so what would they fight about?).
East is Guyana. Yes, there is an old territorial dispute (like a 100 years old at best) but does anyone care? An English speaking state that is part of the Commonwealth of Nations with unsuitable terrain for an armored attack. All sorts of people are likely to get excited if he were to attack and with not even a million people living there it would require an outbreak of mass insanity for them to attack him.
That leaves dear old tormented Columbia, the nation whose internal affairs Chavez likes to fuck around with best. Columbia isn't going to do an offensive attack. It would have to deal with FARC running loose in it's rear, bad logistics (the border areas are heavily forested with little to no roads) and a lack of projection power. Course all of that applies to attacking Columbia to. With one additional factor. If he assaults Columbia he's gonna get the US running up his backside.
So let's ask if this order makes him more able to fight off an US attack... The short answer is no. T-72s are really just target practice in the end against the US Armed Forces, that Su-30 while equal to the F-15E isn't present in enough numbers to make a dent and the air defenses while impressive looking aren't present in enough bulk to stop a determined attack. Also none of this can be shipped to FARC without making his support for them so blatantly obvious that even Bolivia will drop him like a bad habit.
So I'm left to ask, with oil prices dropping and the Venezuelan oil fields in need of maintenance and reinvestment, food prices in Venezuela raising and a host of domestic needs. Why is he buying military equipment he can't use and won't achieve any purpose for him? I seriously hope he didn't take a 2 billion dollar loan for pretty parade toys, that just adds a new level of ridiculous to the whole Chavez saga.
To be honest this order confuses me. It's money Chavez doesn't have for gear that... Well I'm not sure what he can use it for...Russia has issued the biggest post-Soviet loan to Venezuela to buy Russian arms as Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez meanwhile recognized two rebel Georgian regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as independent states.
U.S. officials have expressed concerns the Venezuelan purchases would set off an arms race in the region, while Chavez maintains he needs Russian arms for defensive purposes.
Speaking on his weekly television show in Caracas on Sept. 13, Chavez said Russia had offered him a $2.2 billion loan to buy tanks and advanced anti-aircraft missiles.
Venezuela will buy 92 T-72 tanks and several T-90s from Russia, as well as S-300, Buk-M2 and Pechora anti-aircraft missile systems, Chavez said. The S-300 system (NATO codename: SA-20 Gargoyle) can track up to 100 targets, including cruise missiles, while engaging six simultaneously at a range of 200 kilometers. In 2007, Russia signed a contract to provide S-300 systems to Iran but the delivery was suspended over Israeli and U.S. concerns that they would be used to protect Iranian nuclear facilities.
Chavez also said Caracas would buy Russia's Smerch multiple-launch rocket systems.
It was not immediately clear when the contracts would be completed. Russian officials declined to comment.
The loan is the biggest ever offered by Russia to an arms client for buying Russian weapons. It is equal to half the value of all previous Russian arms deals with Venezuela since Chavez turned to Moscow in 2006. Last fall, Chavez and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to open a $1 billion credit line for Caracas to buy Russian arms. Russia issued a similar loan to Indonesia in 2007.
During a Sept. 10 meeting with Medvedev in Moscow, Chavez announced that Venezuela would recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia recognized the two separatist regions in August 2008 after its five-day war with the pro-Western Georgia.
Nicaragua was the only country to follow Russia's example. Moscow was criticized internationally for its decision, which also opened the way for Russian military bases in the rebel regions, which signed military cooperation pacts with Russia.
Sergei Prikhodko, Medvedev's foreign policy aide, told reporters Sept. 10 that the recognition by Chavez was not part of a trade-off for the weapon loan, but most Russian political analysts agreed it was exactly that. Chavez had to make this concession to Moscow because reduced oil prices are affecting Venezuela's budget, the analysts agreed.
Along with the weapon loan, Caracas received another $1 billion from the Russian oil consortium for its access to Venezuela's Junin-6 oil project, the country's Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said in televised remarks Sept. 13. Chavez said he had also won Moscow's pledge to lead Venezuela's nuclear program, but stressed that he was not going to make an atomic bomb.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced concern Sept. 15 over the fervently anti-American Chavez's arms purchases from Russia. "They outpace all other countries in South America and certainly raise questions as to whether there is going to be an arms race in the region," she said.
Konstantin Makiyenko, a military analyst with the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow think tank, defended the Venezuelan deal, saying it doesn't violate any international legal norms.
"If the U.S. Department of State is really worried about arms sales in the world, including in Latin America, possibly it slightly restricts its own arms makers and suppliers, which annually deliver their products worth tens of billions of dollars," Makiyenko said.
According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service report on the international arms trade, released Sept. 4, the United States concluded $37.8 billion in arms deals in 2008, accounting for 68.4 percent of the global arms trade's total volume. Russia signed contracts worth $3.5 billion last year, according to the report. The official Russian estimate is $10.5 billion in new contracts in 2008.
Venezuela is embroiled in a diplomatic spat with its neighbor, U.S. ally Colombia, with Chavez protesting that American military bases there can be used to launch an attack on Venezuela.
Since 2005, Chavez has ordered 24 Su-30MK2 fighters; more than 50 Mi-17V, Mi-35M and Mi-26T helicopters; 12 Tor-M1 missile systems; and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles from Russia. In 2006, Moscow and Caracas signed a separate contract to build a plant producing Kalashnikovs in Venezuela under the Russian license.
Top Russian officials called the arms sale to Venezuela a "breakthrough" into a region that the United States traditionally considers its sphere of influence.
Let's review his neighborhood. He has the Caribbean Sea to his north with a dozen or so island nations, some are friendly like Cuba, most are neutral, none are really hostile. Either way he isn't planning operations there, he didn't get anything for navy so fuck that.
South of him is Brazil. Given that the current President and government of Brazil is friendly to him, I doubt he bought these toys with them in mind. Disregarding that, that part of Brazil is very much jungle, tanks are not gonna be useful and his troops will get bogged down before he can do much. He doesn't have the logistics for a march to the more valuable coastal regions where most of the economic activity is going. As a former officer, I would expect Chavez to know that, not because he's a genius but because it's basic military common sense. Brazil with many domenstic problems and in the middle of a internal campaign of moderization is unlikely to go looking for a fight itself, so he cannot seriously be worried about Brazilian attack (besides they've been backing up Zappy, his Honduran little brother so what would they fight about?).
East is Guyana. Yes, there is an old territorial dispute (like a 100 years old at best) but does anyone care? An English speaking state that is part of the Commonwealth of Nations with unsuitable terrain for an armored attack. All sorts of people are likely to get excited if he were to attack and with not even a million people living there it would require an outbreak of mass insanity for them to attack him.
That leaves dear old tormented Columbia, the nation whose internal affairs Chavez likes to fuck around with best. Columbia isn't going to do an offensive attack. It would have to deal with FARC running loose in it's rear, bad logistics (the border areas are heavily forested with little to no roads) and a lack of projection power. Course all of that applies to attacking Columbia to. With one additional factor. If he assaults Columbia he's gonna get the US running up his backside.
So let's ask if this order makes him more able to fight off an US attack... The short answer is no. T-72s are really just target practice in the end against the US Armed Forces, that Su-30 while equal to the F-15E isn't present in enough numbers to make a dent and the air defenses while impressive looking aren't present in enough bulk to stop a determined attack. Also none of this can be shipped to FARC without making his support for them so blatantly obvious that even Bolivia will drop him like a bad habit.
So I'm left to ask, with oil prices dropping and the Venezuelan oil fields in need of maintenance and reinvestment, food prices in Venezuela raising and a host of domestic needs. Why is he buying military equipment he can't use and won't achieve any purpose for him? I seriously hope he didn't take a 2 billion dollar loan for pretty parade toys, that just adds a new level of ridiculous to the whole Chavez saga.