Cold War 21: U.S. Missile-Warning Satellite Fails

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Northrop Grumman Corp U.S. military satellite used to track enemy missiles stopped working in mid-September, underscoring the urgent need to keep a program for replacement satellites on track, a defense official and several analysts said on Monday.

The U.S. Air Force had no comment, but Space News reported on Monday that the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer John Young has signed a memorandum asking Congress to provide $117 million in funding in fiscal 2009 for a new satellite to hedge against a potential gap in satellite coverage around 2014.

"There is no gap today in U.S. missile warning, but the apparent loss of a satellite means there is an increased danger of a gap down the road because the redundancy of the existing constellation has been diminished," said Loren Thompson at the Virginia-based Lexington Institute.

Thompson said he had learned of the problem with the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite from several sources, and it underscored the urgency of getting the new Space Based Infrared Satellite (SBIRS) system being developed by Lockheed Martin Corp into orbit.

"There's a sense of renewed purpose. We need to be sure that the SBIRS launches proceed as scheduled," agreed one defense official, who asked not to be named, adding that the loss of the satellite posed challenges for the DSP constellation.

Theresa Hitchens, who heads the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said several amateur astronomers had reported that DSP 23, the last of the U.S. missile-warning satellites built by Northrop, and launched in November 2007, had stopped transmitting in mid-September.

The defense official said it was unclear what caused the failure, but said the explanations could range from defective parts to natural phenomenon, and possibly, although unlikely, an intentional attack. There was also a chance that the problem stemmed from the satellite being hit by debris in space.

The U.S. government has launched 23 DSP missile-warning satellites into space since 1970, and experts estimate that six to 10 are still working, about double the number needed to watch the entire Earth at once.

The satellites have generally lasted longer than initially expected, which makes it even more troubling that the newest of the DSP satellites would have developed trouble a year after its launch, said the official and the analysts.

SBIRS PROBLEMS

"The DSP constellation is starting to degrade now, that's not a surprise. But it wouldn't even be a concern if SBIRS weren't so screwed up," said Jonathan McDowell, astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The SBIRS program has seen its share of problems, including delays due to technology challenges, and Lockheed is rewriting software for the satellites after software problems prevented communication with a smaller satellite once it went into orbit in late 2006. The U.S. government shot down that satellite last February, saying its toxic fuel tank posed a potential threat.

The first SBIRS sensor is already in space on board a classified satellite in highly elliptical orbit, but the first dedicated satellites are not due to be launched until 2010.

The SBIRS program was launched in 1996 with an eye to launching the first satellites in 2004 at a cost of $4.2 billion. The program has been restructured several times and its price tag is now seen at well over $11 billion.

The defense official said the success of the first SBIRS payload in space was good news for the next satellites being developed for geosynchronous orbit.

But it was prudent to secure additional funding to ensure that the U.S. military was able to maintain its ability to spot enemy missiles, the official added.

Hitchens said some amateur astronomers, who use optical and radio telescopes to track objects in space, suggested the DSP satellite may have been adrift in geosynchronous orbit, which could pose a danger to other satellites operating in that orbit, she said.

The defense official downplayed that possibility, and said the failed satellite also posed no imminent threat to human life, as was the case with the NRO satellite. (source)

Cold War 21: Russians Ships Almost At Venezuela's Shores

Russian cruiser at dock.

Russian warships approached Venezuela Monday for upcoming joint maneuvers -- Moscow's first military presence in the region since the Cold War -- as Washington closely monitored the situation.
Venezuelan defense officials said the ships, including the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great and destroyer Admiral Chabankenko, would arrive on Tuesday.

The joint exercises were to coincide with a two-day visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Venezuela, the strongest US critic in the region.

Medvedev was due to arrive Wednesday and meet fiercely anti-liberal President Hugo Chavez on Thursday, before heading to communist Cuba.

Analysts see Medvedev as bringing a defiant message to Washington's doorstep, in the wake of Russian outrage at US plans to install a strategic missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, and support for the brief Georgia war in August.

The maneuvers will start on Wednesday in port and take place at sea on December 1, Venezuelan Operations Command chief General Jesus Gonzalez told journalists.


"It's a natural exercise that we've carried out with various countries, and many others carry out," the general added.

A Russian naval spokesman said in Moscow that the exercises would include operation planning, helping ships in distress and supplying ships on the move.

"If the Venezuelans and the Russians want to have, you know, a military exercise, that's fine, but we'll obviously be watching it very closely," US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday.

"I don't think there's any question about who ... the region looks to in terms of political, economic, diplomatic and as well as military power," McCormack added.

The US has expressed concern, however, about Russian arms supplies to the oil-rich OPEC country.

The two countries have signed 4.4 billion dollars in bilateral arms deals signed since 2005, including radars, 24 Sukhoi-30 planes, 50 helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikovs.


Medvedev was expected to expand arms deals during his visit, as well as economic and energy ties, including plans for a joint civilian nuclear reactor.

"Russia is a friend which held out a hand to us," Gonzalez told AFP in a recent interview.

"We want to be very strong, but in a highly dissuasive direction. So that any country in the world thinks not once but 10 times before coming here."

In September, two Tu-160 Russian strategic bombers carried out training for several days in Venezuela.

The Russian warships were due to sail into La Guaira, near Caracas, and Puerto Cabello in northern Carabobo state.

The fleet includes five aircraft and several small ships, and Venezuela will provide eight aircraft and 11 ships, Gonzalez said Monday, adding that 1,150 Russian forces and 600 Venezuelans would take part in the exercises.

"Nations frequently exercise with each other. Russia is free to exercise peacefully with anyone that they want to exercise with," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Monday.

"But also people note through these exercises the company that nations keep." (source)

The New Face Of The European Union

PRAGUE — In the 1980s, a Communist secret police agent infiltrated clandestine economics seminars hosted by Vaclav Klaus, a fiery future leader of the Czech Republic, who had come under suspicion for extolling free market virtues. Rather than reporting on Marxist heresy, the agent was most struck by Mr. Klaus’s now famous arrogance.

“His behavior and attitudes reveal that he feels like a rejected genius,” the agent noted in his report, which has since been made public. “He shows that whoever does not agree with his views is stupid and incompetent.”

Decades later, Mr. Klaus, the 67-year-old president of the Czech Republic — an iconoclast with a perfectly clipped mustache — continues to provoke strong reactions. He has blamed what he calls the misguided fight against global warming for contributing to the international financial crisis, branded Al Gore an “apostle of arrogance” for his role in that fight, and accused the European Union of acting like a Communist state.

Now the Czech Republic is about to assume the rotating presidency of the European Union and there is palpable fear that Mr. Klaus will embarrass the world’s biggest trading bloc and complicate its efforts to address the economic crisis and expand its powers. His role in the Czech Republic is largely ceremonial, but he remains a powerful force here, has devotees throughout Europe and delights in basking in the spotlight.

“Oh God, Vaclav Klaus will come next,” read a recent headline in the Austrian daily Die Presse, in an article anticipating the havoc he could wreak in a union of 470 million people already divided over its future direction.

An economist by training and a free marketeer by ideology, Mr. Klaus has criticized the course set by the union’s departing leader, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. The ambitious Mr. Sarkozy has used France’s European Union presidency to push an agenda that includes broader and more coordinated regulation by the largest economies to tame the worst of the market’s excesses.

Even those who worry about Mr. Klaus’s potential role as a spoiler concede that his influence over policy in the European Union will be circumscribed, given his largely symbolic functions as president in the Czech Republic.

But Mr. Klaus’s sheer will and inflammatory talk — the eminent British historian Timothy Garton Ash once called him “one of the rudest men I have ever met” — are likely to have some impact.

“Klaus is a provocateur who will twist his arguments to get attention,” said Jiri Pehe, a former adviser to Vaclav Havel, Mr. Klaus’s rival and predecessor as president.

To supporters, Mr. Klaus is a brave, lone crusader, a defender of liberty, the only European leader in the mold of the formidable Margaret Thatcher. (Aides say Mr. Klaus has a photo of the former British prime minister in his office near his desk.)

To his many critics, he is a cynical populist, a hardheaded pragmatist long known as a foil to Mr. Havel, the philosopher-dreamer, and a troublemaker.

Mr. Klaus declined to be interviewed for this article. His office called a list of proposed questions “peculiar.”

As a former finance minister and prime minister, he is credited with presiding over the peaceful 1993 split of Czechoslovakia into two states and helping to transform the Czech Republic into one of the former Soviet bloc’s most successful economies.

But his ideas about governance are out of step with many of the European Union nations that his country will lead starting Jan. 1.

While even many of the world’s most ardent free marketeers acknowledged the need for the recent coordinated bailout of European banks, Mr. Klaus lambasted it as irresponsible protectionism. He blamed too much — rather than too little — regulation for the crisis.

A fervent critic of the environmental movement, he has called global warming a dangerous “myth,” arguing that the fight against climate change threatens economic growth.

Perhaps his greatest ire has been reserved for the European Union. In 2005, he called for it to be “scrapped.” Now, he is a vocal opponent of the Lisbon Treaty, which aims to help Europe become more of an international player, but which he argues will strip countries of sovereignty.

On a state visit to Ireland this month, Mr. Klaus incensed the government and annoyed many in his own country by publicly praising Declan Ganley, a businessman and political activist who was influential in persuading a majority of Irish voters in June to reject the treaty.

And while other European leaders have criticized a newly assertive Russia, Mr. Klaus has forged close ties with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin and recently distanced himself from the Czech government’s criticism of Russia over the war with Georgia in August.

Those who know Mr. Klaus say his economic liberalism is an outgrowth of his upbringing. Born in 1941, he obtained an economics degree in 1963 and was deeply influenced by free market economists like Milton Friedman.

Mr. Klaus’s son and namesake, Vaclav, recalled in an interview that when he was 13, his father told him to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to better understand Communism’s oppressiveness.

“If you lived under communism, then you are very sensitive to forces that try to control or limit human liberty,” he said in an interview.

In 1989, during the Velvet Revolution to overthrow Czechoslovakia’s Communist leaders, Mr. Klaus offered his services as an economist to Civic Forum, the group opposing the government. When the new government took control, he became finance minister. But his relationship with the dissidents quickly soured.

Mr. Havel recalled in his memoirs that Mr. Klaus had an aversion “to the rest of us, whom he had clearly consigned to the same Dumpster, with a sign on it saying ‘left-wing intellectuals.’ ”

In 1991, Mr. Klaus founded a new center-right party, the Civic Democratic Party, which won elections in June 1992, making him prime minister. His radical privatization strategy — including a voucher scheme later emulated in Russia, where it led to the amassing of vast wealth by a few oligarchs — was marred by allegations of corruption, with Mr. Havel accusing Mr. Klaus of “gangster capitalism.”

Ladislav Jakl, now Mr. Klaus’s pony-tailed private secretary, said that the main difference between the leaders was that Mr. Havel sought to give people goodness whereas Mr. Klaus was determined to bestow freedom.

Mr. Klaus was forced to resign as prime minister in November 1997 after a government crisis caused by a party financing scandal. And in 2002, he was forced to resign as party leader when his party lost a second election.

But Mr. Klaus later decided to run for the presidency and won by a slim margin in 2003. He has since gained in popularity, and was re-elected this year by the Czech Parliament.

Bohumil Dolezal, a leading commentator who once advised Mr. Klaus, said Mr. Klaus’s greatest talent was his ability to appeal to average Czechs, who imbibed his easy populism along with their beers.

“Czechs have a deep and hysterical past full of injustice, and Klaus is a master at tapping into this,” Mr. Dolezal said, adding that the office of the presidency, despite its limited powers, lends the aura of emperor-king.

“Even if a horse was president of the Czech Republic, it would have a 50 percent approval rating,” he said. “And Klaus is surely much cleverer than a horse.” (source)

COLD WAR 21: Venezuela Elections Show Growth For Opposition Party

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela's growing opposition and President Hugo Chavez's left-wing party shared the spoils from weekend elections as they jostled for political momentum in the OPEC nation on Monday.

The multi-party opposition eroded Chavez's dominance of regional politics, winning six top posts that govern over almost half of the population, although his Socialist Party took a clear majority of state races.

The results make more challenging Chavez's goal of changing the law to run for reelection in 2012. The opposition defeated that move in a referendum vote last year and gained some extra ground on Sunday.

In power for almost a decade, the popular anti-U.S. president won 17 of 22 states, but the opposition held onto the two states it won at the last regional elections four years ago, picked up three more and won the powerful mayoralty of the capital Caracas.

Opposition candidates were helped by widespread voter complaints the government has done too little to control some of the world's worst murder rates and Latin America's highest inflation rate.

The overall mixed results triggered a public relations battle as each side fought to seize the momentum by persuading Venezuelans it was the victor in an election where a high 65 percent of voters cast ballots.

The outcome of the post-election tussle could determine whether Chavez has the backing to realize his reelection goal or follow through on threats to spread his nationalizations program by seizing assets from landowners or food companies.

Chavez had campaigned frenetically saying his political future was at stake, and he claimed victory on Monday.

"The (revolutionary) flame is stronger today," he said. "This is a great victory for the party ... and now we will focus on the task of deepening and extending our project."

Still popular for spending freely on the majority poor, the man who calls former Cuban President Fidel Castro his mentor vowed to press his drive toward socialism despite plummeting income from Venezuela's main export, oil.

His party said the political map was still painted the red of Chavez's self-styled revolution and that his allies tallied about 1.5 million more votes overall than the opposition.

But emboldened by its second electoral advance in 12 months, the opposition celebrated that it now governs over Venezuela's most populous areas in a coastal "electoral corridor" that is often key to winning Venezuelan elections.

The opposition's wins in major urban centers enhance its visibility and its chances of building credibility that it can meet voters' demands for better services such as trash collection.

SPACE IN THE CENTER

Leopoldo Lopez, a young star of the opposition who the government blocked from standing with legal technicalities, said the election showed Venezuelan politics had finally shifted after years of Chavez's dominance.

"The main lesson from the election is that there is a sentiment of plurality among voters that is over and above the government and the opposition," he said. "We need to build an alternative for a different Venezuela that brings people together in the center."

Chavez, whose military formation was in a tank division, has sought to polarize the electorate.

In the campaign that he wanted to turn into a plebiscite on himself, he threatened to jail opposition leader Manuel Rosales, cut funds off to areas won by the opposition and even warned he could deploy tanks if the rich "oligarchs" beat his TV star pick in one state.

Controlling the judiciary, Congress and state companies, he eavesdropped on opponents and aired their conversations on state TV hoping to embarrass them.

Chavez has stripped some powers from elected officials, including authority over the police and hospitals in Caracas, and threatened to create government posts to oversee them.

"This reduces the importance of the gains made by the opposition as it will make it more difficult ... to build on them to mount a serious challenge to the regime down the road," Goldman Sachs senior economist Alberto Ramos said. (source)

COLD WAR 21: Venezuela Elections Held

Residents wait to cast their ballots outside a polling station in Caracas, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008. President Hugo Chavez sought to hold on to his dominance in state and municipal elections Sunday, facing an opposition aiming to win back power in key states and cities.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez's opponents made important gains in Venezuela's local elections, capturing the Caracas mayor's office and three of the most populous states, but his allies won a strong majority.

With more than 95 percent of votes counted, pro-Chavez candidates kept gubernatorial posts in 17 states, while the opposition won five states. Chavez trumpeted his party's domination of Sunday's vote as a sign to continue driving Venezuela toward "21st-century socialism."

"The people are telling me: 'Chavez continue down the same road,'" he said, hinting that he has not abandoned plans for constitutional changes that would expand his powers, push the economy toward socialism and allow him to run for re-election indefinitely.

Voters rejected the president's proposed overhaul of the constitution last year but Sunday's results clearly encouraged Chavez, who famously described U.S. President George W. Bush as the devil at the United Nations and has cultivated relations with U.S. antagonists in Cuba as well as Iran and more recently Russia. (source)

Cold War 21: Chavez Announces That The Russians Are On Their Way

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russian warships will soon reach his country's Caribbean coast for joint naval exercises.

Chavez said the Russian ships "will enter Venezuelan waters within a matter of hours." He didn't say exactly when the ships are to arrive.

It's the first such deployment by the Russian navy in the Caribbean since the Cold War. Russia is sending the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great, the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko, and logistical vessels including a tugboat and a supply ship.

The Russian navy said the two warships will visit the Venezuelan port of La Guaira starting Tuesday, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. It said the ships are scheduled to hold joint exercises with Venezuela's navy starting Dec. 1.

Chavez is also expecting a visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev starting Wednesday as part of a Latin American tour.

Chavez has been boosting ties with Russia while tensions with the U.S. have grown, and he has bought more than $4 billion in Russian weapons. (source)

Cold War 21: Medvedev Likes Obama's Weakness On Missile Issue

LIMA, Peru (AFP) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday he believed US president-elect Barack Obama could change Washington's position over a hotly contested plan for a US missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.

Asked if he saw a chance of a shift on the issue under Obama, Medvedev told reporters: "I think there are chances, because if the position of the current administration on this question looks extremely inflexible, the position of the president-elect looks more careful."

Striking a positive note about relations with the next US administration, Medvedev referred to the Obama team's refusal so far to establish its position on missile defense, after Poland claimed the matter was already decided and the project would go ahead.

"It shows at least our future American partners are thinking about this.

"They don't have a once-and-for-always prepared template for solving this problem.

"It means dialogue is possible.... A change of position is possible," Medvedev said.

The Russian leader was speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Lima, at which he met US President George W. Bush on Saturday.

Washington insists the proposed missile defense facilities to be established in the Czech Republic and Poland are directed purely at "rogue states" such as Iran and not against Russia's vast arsenal.

Medvedev earlier this month announced he would deploy Iskander missiles to the western exclave of Kaliningrad in response to the US plans, although he has indicated this could be reversed in the event of a US change of heart.

On Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed Russia wanted a complete abandonment of the US plans and said US promises to ease Russian concerns had so far been empty.

"There has been no easing of our concerns," Lavrov told reporters, adding that Russia would set out its formal position at talks in December.

"Our concerns can only be removed by one thing -- the renunciation of plans for unilateral establishment of a missile defense system and an agreement to work together from scratch," he said. (source)