As Russia agrees to provide weaponry to Yemen it is clear that what essentially underlies Russia's attempts to increase its sales of arms abroad. Russia's main motive for such sales is commercial. It simply wants to boost its exports to win badly needed foreign reserves while stimulating heavy industry. Foreign policy concerns are merely second to the commercial motive although in particular individual cases it may be primary. We must not forgot that relatively weak Russia is not the Soviet Union in its hey day. Much of the time Russia uses bluff in its foreign policy since it lacks the clout of the Soviet. However this cannot fool Washington. Strategically the most that Russia, especially in place further from its frontiers, can achieve is the pursuance of its foreign policy in terms of upgrading its nuisance value to Washington's strategic interests.Russia's foreign policy is basically domestic policy in disguise. Russian foreign policy only begins to come into its own at its frontiers --and even there this is questionable. On the world scale Russia no longer really counts as a significant force. Warm regards George Pennefather Be free to check out our Communist Think-Tank web site at http://homepage.eircom.net/~beprepared/ Be free to subscribe to our Communist Think-Tank mailing community by simply placing subscribe in the body of the message at the following address: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---