But Moscow's new assertiveness isn't just talk. Sales of Russian military hardware to Iran, Syria, Venezuela and North Korea are up more than 25 percent in the past two years. A few weeks ago, Russian explorers planted a flag on the seabed at the north pole, "claiming" the region for Moscow -- despite angry protests from the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Norway. Last week, Pentagon officials acknowledged Moscow's boast that two Russian Tu-95 long-range turboprop bombers had "buzzed" U.S. military bases on Guam. And this week, Russia and China began a massive joint military exercise -- only the second ever, and it's the first to be held on Russian soil.
What's going on here? What's "the Bear" doing behind "the Owl's" back? Is Vladimir Putin bent on starting a new Cold War?
The fact is, we don't know. Our human intelligence resources are so thin that "we have no idea what's happening inside the Kremlin," according to one retired senior intelligence officer. But what we do know for certain should be alarming enough to make us pay attention.
First, we know that Russia is awash in gas and petrodollars. Thanks to the worldwide spike in oil and natural gas prices, Moscow is raking in euros and fueling military and intelligence expenditures that were previously financially impossible.
Second, we know that in the long term, Russia is in very serious trouble because it is simply running out of Russians. To sustain economic growth, a nation needs a growing population. Increasing the number of people requires either babies to be born in sufficient numbers or immigration -- or both. Moscow's problem is that it has neither. Even neutral population growth requires 2.1 live births per couple. Russia's birthrate is less than 1.6 -- and nobody immigrates to Russia.
According to the CIA, Russia also has one of the lowest average life spans on the planet: 66.6 years. Absent a dramatic increase in birthrate, longevity and/or massive immigration, the population of 141.3 million Russians will continue to decline at a rate of about 700,000 per year. This population implosion means that in little more than a decade there will simply be too few Russians to control one-sixth of the world's land mass and perhaps a third of the world's petroleum and natural gas reserves. To further complicate the situation, to the south, energy-starved China -- population 1.4 billion -- already has 70 million more men than women and a military more than double the size of Russia's.
We don't seem to know what Vladimir Putin has decided to do about his country's precarious future, but it would be naive for us to ignore the enormous potential for miscalculation. Better intelligence is a must. Even owls move their heads to look around. Maybe that's why they are said to be wise.