Okay, so we need to take a long view of this, remembering a few things about the current standing in terms of international relations;
- Oil and natural gas is going to become scarce and very very expensive in the near future.
- Russia is full of the stuff.
- Most of Europe and the US isn't.
- Under OPEC agreement (1971... I think), all oil, anywhere in the world /must/ be bought and sold in US dollars.
- The only countries that don't buy/sell oil in US$ are Iraq, Iran and North-Korea; Bush's 'Axis of Evil' members 1, 2 and 3.
(NB; Iraq might have switched it's national commodity account at BNP Paribas back from Euros to US$ by now - certainly in 2000 it was a Euro account.)
Now, Putin has been swinging his weight around in the east by denying gas to the eastern bloc - and potentially more major EU members. If a similar assertion of power is to take place over oil, Russia is entirely handicapped by the need to deal in US$ - the US simply has too much influence over the flow of it's own currency (as so oil) for any other nation to do much about it. It seems entirely reasonable, therefore, that Putin's administration would hope to secure a military coalition of what the bush administration referred to as 'new Europe', a Balkan buffer zone. With a union like this in place, Russia can begin to assert authority over it's own resources without the unilateral condemnation from the west which would follow if it were merely a Russian national bullying tactic.
This is not necessarily a good or bad thing. Certainly it would be interesting to see how China will react to a more independent Russian oil market, given that the US owes the Chinese National Bank several trillion dollars (which of course is fine for the US, because China needs to keep buying dollars to buy oil).
In terms of high-politics, this does create tension between Russian and American leaderships, but don't see it as a Russian attempt to 'regain glory'. A military operation in Europe to reclaim the 'Soviet Empire' would not be feasible, or even beneficial. Just as the American failure in Vietnam was redressed by economic activity (later collapsing Vietnamese welfare provision, and so their government) economic stick-swinging is by far the most likely option.
Incidentally, Denzel173; the US' habit of supporting those who later become their enemies is hardly 'recent'. The Iranian coup in 1952 backed by Roosevelt (and run by his nephew with some Nazi collaborators), Franco in the Spanish Civil War, the 10 billion US$ (in 1945 money) campaign against Fronti Populari in Italy (which resulted in a US supported Mussolini acolyte taking power) have all served to prove the American approach to world events. US foreign policy is just one long game of 'there was an old woman who swallowed a fly'.
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I could never attack Russia in this game for social reasons.
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