With Russian bombers making a provocative visit to Venezuela Thursday, it looks like Nicaragua's erstwhile Marxist president, Daniel Ortega, is chomping at the bit to reprise his brief, and disastrous, star role in the cold war three decades ago.

Last week Ortega became the only national leader outside of Moscow to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, invaded by Russian troops in early August.

And the reaction from Washington was swift, if low key.
 
On Wednesday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez cancelled a long-planned visit to Nicaragua, scheduled for later this month, because "circumstances have changed," according to the American ambassador in Managua.

"The secretary's office said that now is not an appropriate moment for the visit because circumstances have changed," U.S. ambassador Robert Callahan told reporters.

Callahan declined to link the cancellation directly to Ortega's recognition of the two Black sea provinces.

But he said, "We have have publicly said regarding ... the Russian occupation of these two entities and the Russian recognition, that this is a violation of some of the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council."

Ortega may also be angling to get Moscow re-involved militarily in Nicaragua, observers said.

As a leader of the Marxist-dominated Sandinistas who took power in 1979, Ortega allied himself with Cuba and the Soviet Union, which supplied him with small arms, Mi-24 combat helicopters and some 2,000 portable ground-to-air SA-7 missiles, called MANPADS.

Ortega recently reneged on an agreement with Washington to destroy the missiles. 

Since he returned to power in 2006, Ortega has also aligned himself with Venezuela's firebrand president Hugo Chavez, who this week welcomed the nonstop arrival of two Russian strategic bombers from across the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. A Russian Navy flotilla has also scheduled a port call in November.
 
Ortega has also irritated Washington by accepting Iran's offer to undertake large-scale infrastructure projects in Nicaragua, the hemisphere's second poorest country after Haiti, but Tehran has yet to show any signs of fulfilling its promises.

Russia's punishing attack on Georgia has already harvested bitter fruit beyond the Black Sea.

On Thursday U.S. and Polish officials reached agreement to install a battery of American  missiles in Poland, a plan sure to infuriate Russia and escalate tensions with its former  puppet states in Eastern and Central Europe.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the deal includes a "mutual commitment" between the two nations -- outside of the NATO alliance -- to come to each other's assistance in case of danger.

With a wary eye on Russia's lightening attack on Georgia, Tusk said NATO would be too slow to act if it was threatened by Moscow, according to an A.P. report from Warsaw.

"Poland and the Poles do not want to be in alliances in which assistance comes at some point later -- it is no good when assistance comes to dead people. Poland wants to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours of -- knock on wood -- any possible conflict," Tusk said.

Russia, meanwhile, has positioned ballistic missile launchers in Georgia, WIRED's Noah Shachtman reported Thursday, based on a transcipt of a little noticed briefing by Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Jeffrey and other Bush administration officials earlier in the week.

"The President was informed immediately on Friday, when we received news of the first two SS-21 Russian missile launchers into Georgian territory," Jeffrey said.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans think they can use Russian aggression in Georgia to bludgeon the Democrats into supporting the deployment of an American "missile shield" in Eastern Europe, according to a story by CQ's enterprising Josh Rogin:

In September, lawmakers will resume their debate over the missile sites -- this time amid fresh concerns over Russian threats to U.S. allies in eastern Europe. Though the administration has presented the missiles sites as a defense against Iranian attack, missile defense advocates say they now plan to cite the Russian threat as a way to get Democrats to let construction begin...

"Russia's actions represent compelling data that should be convincing to Democrats that we don't want to delay this thing," said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., a leading missile defense champion.

"This is not just about missile defense; this is about demonstrating to Russia that America is still a nation of resolve . . . and we're not going to let Russian expansionism intimidate everyone."

But some key congressional Democrats aren't budging from their opposition to the plan, Rogin reports.

"I would say that we mostly were focused elsewhere, unlike during the Cold War, when we'd see a single Soviet armor battalion move. So, yes, the size and scope of the Russian move has come as something of a surprise."