Hugo Has Aspirations and Delusions of Grandeur

On his shopping list this visit were tanks, coastal surveillance aircraft, air defense systems and non-atomic submarines, all of which represent another installment of the five to six billion dollars oil-rich Venezuela eventually plans to spend on Russian arms. This latest purchase, combined with the previous ones, have made the South American country Russia’s biggest arms customer in Latin America.

Already between 2005 and 2007, Venezuelan oil revenues bought an estimated two billion dollars in Russian weapons. Among these items was a controversial purchase of 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. Although Chavez claimed they were for home defense use, some of them, it is believed, were smuggled to leftist South American terrorist organizations in neighboring countries, such as FARC in Colombia.

Chavez has said the Russian weapons he has purchased will protect his country from an American invasion, a claim that Washington calls ludicrous. Venezuela’s president believes the United States may one day try to capture his country’s oil reserves. Venezuela is currently the world’s fifth-largest exporter of oil and provides America with about 15 per cent of its crude imports. The real reason behind Chavez’s Russian arms purchases, however, is not self-defense. On the contrary, one analyst states they are meant to back up his ongoing quest to expand his influence in South America. Chavez’s end goal is the creation of an anti-American bloc with himself as leader, which would also satisfy his reported inclination to megalomania. In carrying out his plan, he is emulating his hero, Castro, who long tried to export communist revolution throughout the region.