With the APEC Summit getting underway this weekend in Lima, Peru, the world’s eyes are on Latin America, focusing with unusual interest over this oft-forgotten continent, looking for an indication of the prevailing economic winds.  Naturally, thanks to the carefully timed naval war games with Venezuela, Russia is again stealing some spotlight.

But as usual, most of the media I’ve been reading has been missing the point on this summit in Latin America, especially with regard to Russia’s activism in the region.  I refer to today’s disappointing New York Times article, Flux in Latin America Affects Russia’s Diplomacy.

First of all, we do ourselves a disservice to pretend like Russia’s strong diplomacy and interest in Latin America is something new – this has been going on for many years now, with significant success and little reaction from Washington.  One could even argue that Moscow’s presence and influence in the region is a continuation of the Cold War policies to finance communist groups – an activity that drove Ronald Reagan to such heights of paranoia that most Central American nations still carry the damaging legacy of death squads and civil conflict.