Viddler

Kyrgyzstan announced that it was closing a major US air base in their country which is a strategic center of the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan. This comes one week after a promise of huge amounts of aid to Kyrgyzstan from the Russians, as well as a joint security venture including these two sates and others. But the Russian motives are more complex than just pissing off the US. This move increases western reliance on Russia's aid and influence to fight the Afghan campaign....thereby having a strategic lever by which to get what is wants out of the US/NATO, namely no more NATO meddling in Ukraine and Georgia, and possibly stopping the development of the proposed NATO missile defense shield in eastern Europe.