Medvedev Looks South

Moscow's invasion of Georgia is getting its strongest support, oddly, in Latin America. On September 2, President and former Marxist guerrilla Daniel Ortega made Nicaragua the first country to join Moscow in recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent republics. Soon after, Castro and Ecuadorian strongman Rafael Correa signaled their approval of Russia's actions, and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez hailed Russia's return as a "great superpower" and announced joint Russian-Venezuelan naval maneuvers in the Caribbean.

If Georgia is the litmus test of new cold-war alliances, and it may well be, then the Russian camp now hopscotches crazily from a few former Soviet satellites (Belarus) to a few lefty leaders of small Latin nations. Perhaps this is another sign of how unsettled quarrels and resentment by those left behind in a globalizing economy are re-igniting generic brand anti-Americanism in some parts of the hemisphere. But with large Latin success stories like Brazil, Colombia and Mexico staying mum on Georgia, the threat of a regional split is real.

Courting Russia threatens to revive the specter of "big power competition … all the messy politics we've avoided for years," says Brazilian foreign-policy expert Amaury de Souza. LatAm defense spending is up by a third this decade, and Chávez has bought some $4 billion in military hardware from Moscow. Doesn't take a cold warrior to see the danger there.

With Phil Gunson

© 2008