A New Cold War?

According to Washington Post:

President Vladimir Putin welcomed Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez for talks at the Russian presidential retreat outside Moscow on Thursday, saying economic affairs and military-technical cooperation were on the agenda.

Amid media speculation that Chavez would sign a major weapons deal while in Russia, Putin said bilateral relations were developing and praised the opening earlier Thursday of a Venezuelan cultural center named for the South American revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar.

Nice.

What’s on the Chavez shopping list? Russian submarines! They’ve already purchased $3 billion in arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters and 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets.

Although not quite as close as Cuba, Venezuela is still a little too close for comfort. Chavez brokering arms deals with our pals in Russia is sure to raise some eyebrows; especially with comments like these…

“We must defeat imperial hegemony that is imposed on us or we head toward barbarism; we either defeat imperialism or imperialism destroys the world,” … “The empire must understand that it cannot dominate the world.”

I suppose President Bush would be the Hegemon?

::: UPDATE :::

June 29, 2007-3:01pm: Venezuela to enhance economic ties with Russia. Chavez hailed cooperation between two countries in such spheres as power engineering, military cooperation and scientific research. Chavez says there are huge gas fields in the Caribbean, about 200 trillion cubic meters and “discussed with President Putin the possibility of organizing a meeting of specialists, so that they could assess projects [Chevez] has outlined.”

June 29, 2007-9:14pm: More on Chavez military aspirations: A nuclear Venezuela?