The Sea Hype of the Week

Russia has deployed its little surface action group to Venezuala. Why is this even news? That really is a good question.

A Russian Navy squadron set off for Venezuela Monday in a deployment of Russian military power to the Western Hemisphere unprecedented since the Cold War.

During the Cold War, Latin America became an ideological battleground between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Kremlin has recently moved to intensify contacts with Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American nations amid strained relations with Washington after last month's conflict between Russia and Georgia.

The squadron comprising the Russian Northern Fleet's Pyotr Veliky (Peter the Great) battle cruiser and the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) ship Admiral Chabanenko will participate in exercises off the Venezuelan coast.

The local TV stations, Navy.mil, and this blog is about all the world gets whenever a US Navy strike group deploys from the US. Not so with the Russians, they put to sea a cruiser and a destroyer and the world media does backflips. I don't even know how to put that in context, except maybe to suggest, this really is more hype than substance.

To be honest, I am more interested in what the other two ships are. What is the logistical accompanying force with the 2 warships? That question tells us more about the state of the Russian Navy than any focus we put on the warships. If you recall, when the Russians deployed the Admiral Kuznetsov with a pair of warship escorts, we described that Mediterranean Sea deployment as the high end of power projection the Russian Navy is capable of. That remains true today. If you also recall, the Russians deployed the fleet tug Nikolai Chiker with the carrier group, you know, just in case.

The $10,000 question regarding this deployment isn't the significance of the deployment, because the only significance to be found here will be in the mind of Hugo Chavez, looking for a propaganda moment to his domestic audience. No, the $10,000 question is whether one of the two ships not named in any of the news reports is a fleet tug, and whether the Russians are ready to make a forward deployment without a fleet tug ready to salvage a major embarrassment.

It will also tell us the level of confidence the Russians have in their own Navy.

One side note. Some Russian news sources also suggest this task force will go to Syria after Venezuela. From my point of view, that is interesting. I'm not impressed that Russia can operate in the safety of the Caribbean Sea, I am interested when Russia is operating naval forces anywhere near the eastern Mediterranean Sea.