George W. Bush, famously, once said that he looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and saw his soul. Apparently he missed something in those KGB peepers, though, because Russia has been cleverly toying with the West ever since. Whether it's threatening oil and gas supplies to Europe, or doing basically whatever it wants in Georgia, Russia's winning almost every battle it enters into.Indonesia, take note. Because there's a new report out that Indonesia's ambassador to Russia, Hamid Awaluddin, is positively giddy over the idea of Russian investors developing Indonesian oilfields.
In normal times, nothing surprising. But perhaps the good fellow hasn't been following the progress of Russian 'capitalism' over the last while. Almost every major Western oil company has been muscled out of their Russian joint ventures, most recently BP, whose top executives actually had to flee the country because of ongoing threats.
When the almighty oil companies are scared, you know these are people not to be messed with. So before you jump into promising joint ventures with Russian execs, keep your hand on your wallet and install a terrific home-security system. You're going to need it.
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