They smell weakness - today's edition

Filling the vacuum left by a fading post-America:

Russia has begun a large-scale militarization of the Arctic Ocean region, with a military command structure planned by 2017.

It comes after recent discoveries of oil and natural gas reserves under the ocean floor, and the possibility a potential Northern Sea Route -- an alternative to the Suez Canal -- could soon be established as global climate change causes melting of Arctic ice.

Former Soviet bases are being reactivated, a 6,000-soldier permanent military force will be established in the northwest Russia's Murmansk region, and radar and guidance systems are planned in the area, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Col. Oleg Salyukov said, "For the defense of national interests in the Arctic, a multiservice task force will be formed. A motorized rifle arctic brigade is now being formed in the Murmansk region. The second arctic brigade will be formed in 2016 and will be stationed in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous region," a reference to the Arctic Circle area east of the Ural Mountains, RIA Novosti reported earlier this month.

Putin is now able to act on some ambitions he's had for some time:

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to Poland's then leader that they divide Ukraine between themselves as far back as 2008, Poland's parliamentary speaker Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview published by the U.S. Politico website.

According to Sikorski, who until September served as Poland's Foreign Minister, Putin made the proposal during Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's visit to Moscow in 2008.

"He wanted us to become participants in this partition of Ukraine ... This was one of the first things that Putin said to my prime minister, Donald Tusk, when he visited Moscow."

"He (Putin) went on to say Ukraine is an artificial country and that Lwow is a Polish city and why don't we just sort it out together," Sikorski was quoted as saying in the interview dated Oct. 19.

Before World War Two, Poland's territory included parts of today's western Ukraine, including some major cities such as Lwow, known as Lviv in Ukraine.

According to Sikorski, who accompanied Tusk on his trip to Moscow, Tusk did not reply to Putin's suggestion, because he knew he was being recorded, but Poland never expressed any interest in joining the Russian operation.

"We made it very, very clear to them - we wanted nothing to do with this," Sikorski said.

I know!  Let's hold a conference with the Russians on climate change!