With the economic stuff that is controlling the news, there is another situation that needs to be watched.

A fleet of Russian warships led by a massive missile cruiser set sail from their Arctic base on Monday for naval exercises off Venezuela near US waters that have not been seen since the Cold War.

The deployment follows the arrival of two Russian Tu-160 nuclear bombers in Venezuela earlier this month also for exercises, an event that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez branded a “warning” to the US “empire.

The state-owned Vesti-24 television channel, broadcasting from the deck of the Peter the Great, on Monday showed the vessel’s heavy artillery firing to test their readiness for the joint exercises with the Venezuelan navy.

“The planned naval exercises by Russia and Venezuela are not aimed at third countries and do not have an aggressive character. There is no political subtext to these exercises,” Dygalo said, Interfax news agency reported.

The nuclear-powered Peter the Great is one of the largest warships of its kind and carries a variety of weapons systems including Granit anti-ship cruise missiles that can be armed with nuclear warheads.

The pro-Kremlin daily Izvestia speculated the ships could stop in Syria as part of a broader show of force in the Mediterranean, quoting a navy source who said Russian engineers were expanding the Syrian ports of Tartus and Latakia.

“The possibility of basing aircraft carriers and missile cruisers there is foreseen,” the source told Izvestia, referring to the ports in Syria, a Moscow ally during the Cold War that hosted a Soviet naval supply base.

Their visit to the Caribbean is the first such manoeuvre in the vicinity of the United States since the Cold War and it comes as relations between Moscow and Washington are in a deep chill over Russia’s war in Georgia last month.

Moscow’s decision to send warships to the Caribbean also came after Russian officials reacted angrily to the deployment of US naval vessels, including the flagship of the US Sixth Fleet, to Georgia for humanitarian aid deliveries.

Stop!  What’s that sound?  A new Cold War coming down……..to paraphrase Buffalo Springfield.