Heading toward Cuban Missile Crisis II?

NewStatesman reports on state of affairs which seems to ignored by the media - the build up of navies by both the US and the Russians in the Caribbean:

"A ratcheting up of tension in the Caribbean is underway with the deployment of ships and other military hardware by the US and Russia. Where will it end asks Hugh O'Shaughnessy

The black shadow of the Cuban missile crisis, that series of miscalculations and mishaps which brought the world closer to the abyss of nuclear war in 1962 than ever before or since, is rapidly falling over the Caribbean once again.

In July the US government decided to resurrect its navy’s Fourth Fleet for the first time since 1950 and get it sailing round the Western Hemisphere. The idea, according to the US Navy is to “promote coalition building and deter aggression” and “to promote peace, stability, and prosperity”. That is a very tall order. For one thing it is difficult to see any Latin American state threatening the US with the sort of military aggression which could be repelled with warships. For a second thing the Bush government has few allies now in Latin America with whom to build coalitions."

Read on here.

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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