Chavez-Russia gambit signals need for U.S. moves

The arrival of a Russian naval squadron and anti-submarine aircraft in the Caribbean for exercises with the Venezuelan navy next week will mark Moscow's first significant military deployments in the Western Hemisphere since the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

However, this exercise presents a political rather than a serious military challenge to the United States.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Russians see the exercise as a provocative way to challenge U.S. influence in Latin America and what they describe as Washington's "unipolar vision."

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