Holiday in Venezuela

Russia to send ships to Venezuela for a little visit and, it seems, to tweak the United States. It’s a bit hard to see what kind of benefit the Russians are expecting to see from a stunt like this since they’re nowhere near posing a credible blue water challenge to the West and would, I think, need to spend themselves into penury to get anywhere in the neighborhood. Probably a nice publicity coup for Hugo Chavez, though, as increased Moscow-Washington tensions seem to be giving being the “guy American doesn’t like” in a given region new cachet.