Mark Goleman

Instead of competing, as in the past, the three countries are now closely coordinating development of this key strategic country. Massive infrastructure projects: rail, roads, pipelines, electricity.

This article first appeared in New Eastern Outlook under the title: "The Triangle: Russia, Mongolia, China". The political relationship between Russia and Mongolia is actually much longer than this article suggests. Mongolia was the world’s second Communist state, adopting Communism in 1921 shortly after it broke away from China. Thereafter the USSR and Mongolia had extremely close relations until the USSR’s collapse. In 1939 the two countries fought together against the Japanese who they defeated in the famous battle of Khalkin Gul. Mongolia also fought alongside the USSR during World War II. The article nonetheless gives a good overview of relations today and of the way in which from being competitors for influence in Mongolia China and Russia have become partners as their own relations have converged.

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Patrick Martin

The Obama administration and the Pentagon are stoking up military tensions with Russia in the wake of the October 26 Ukrainian parliamentary elections, claiming that flights by small numbers of warplanes over international waters Wednesday constituted “political saber-rattling” and even “Russian aggression.”

The latter characterization was made by the top general in the US Army, Chief of Staff Raymond Odierno, in an interview Wednesday with CNN. Given that the flights never crossed the airspace of any country, Odierno’s claim is deliberately inflammatory. Under Article Five of the NATO charter, “Russian aggression” would provide a legal pretext for a US military strike against the nuclear-armed power.

According to a press release issued by NATO headquarters in Belgium, there were a total of four flights by Russian warplanes in European waters Tuesday and Wednesday. “These sizeable Russian flights represent an unusual level of air activity over European airspace,” the NATO statement said, although it acknowledged that the flights were over international waters and did not violate any country’s airspace.

On Tuesday, seven Russian planes left their base at Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania (the former Konigsberg, capital of German East Prussia until the end of World War II). They flew north along the coast of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the Gulf of Finland, landing at a base in Russia. German, Danish, Swedish and Finnish warplanes shadowed the Russian flight at various stages.

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