Maybe the Eurofighter Typhoon was worth investing in after all

The troubles in Georgia seem a long way away from Tameside but the world is undoubtedly becoming a far more dangerous place. I have been studying news coverage of the events in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the difference in the way the US and British media report the events compared to the Russian and other non-aligned international media outlets is amazing. I would urge anyone who has Sky to watch Russia Today which is a 24 hour English language Russian news channel and can be found on Sky page 512. The BBC, CNN and Fox all seem to be producing totally biased anti-Russian propaganda and now the great warlord in Washington (his hypocrisy is totally unbelievable) is upping the ante by openly condemning Russia and accusing the Russians of waging aggressive war – while conveniently forgetting his actions in Iraq and Afghanistan!

The Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili comes across as a very insincere and manipulative individual; he is desperately trying to escalate the conflict by involving the Western powers. If he managed to involve the USA or any other NATO member countries it could lead to a catastrophic confrontation with Russia.

It is not widely reported in Western media that the biggest naval taskforce since WWII is assembling in the Persian Gulf. The task force is lead by the US and supported by Britain, France and other Western powers. It does not take a genius to work out what the ultimate aim of this naval task force will be, but Iran will be no easy push over.

Even though the events in Georgia and the Persian Gulf do not at first seem to be directly related, there are key underlying issues that do link these volatile regions. Interestingly and very worryingly for our sailors in the Persian Gulf region Russia has for some time been supplying Iran with the world’s deadliest anti-shipping missile, a missile known as SS-N-22 -Sunburn and it supposedly has the capability of sinking any ship and is near impossible to defend against.

My worry is that we find ourselves in the situation of the great world powers in 1914 where a relatively minor event (the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand) led to the outbreak of the most catastrophic conflict the world had ever seen. In my opinion the similarities are there to be seen. Up until 1914 there had been a naval arms race between Britain and Germany and an air of general anticipation that something was going to happen, all that was needed was the spark to ignite the powder keg, and of course that spark come from the barrel of a Serbian nationalists gun in June 1914. A lot of people I speak to now feel that some kind of conflict is not too far off, does anyone reading this blog have any opinions on this thought provoking issue?