Chavez started his tour in Argentina, making his official presentation as a new member of Mercosur and bringing his allies, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Bolivian President Evo Morales. This likely was meant to communicate that the Havana-Caracas-La Paz axis is consolidated and they intend to keep being players, albeit disruptive ones, in the political and economic events in Latin America.

The next leg of his trip took him to Belarus and Russia; Iran, Qatar and Vietnam will follow. Chavez has publicized his approaches with Syria, North Korea, China and other governments "adversarial" to the United States. In the past week, he harshly criticized Israel's campaign against Hezbollah, directly blaming the "American Empire" -- as he always refers to the United States -- for everything that is going wrong in the Middle East, and beyond.

The question with Chavez is always: What are his real intentions? How far is he willing to go in his rhetorical war against the United States? And how much of his bravado is he willing to translate into tangible action? We now have a clearer indication.

Chavez definitely wants a seat at the U.N. Security Council. He could not win the consensus of the rest of the nations of the Americas during the past assembly of Organization of American States (OAS) in Santo Domingo. The result was a continent divided between the supporters of Venezuela and those of Guatemala. Not having won the endorsement of the OAS, which would have almost guaranteed Venezuela the seat, Chavez decided to embark on a worldwide campaign, vilifying the United States as his weapon of choice -- and given the state of the world affairs, that could indeed prove to be a vote-winner. Earlier this year, Venezuela failed to win a seat on the restructured U.N. Human Rights Council, so Chavez has intensified the campaign. Once in the UNSC, Chavez would oppose every U.S. initiative and would serve as a voice of those who want Washington's foreign policy objectives to fail.

Along the way, he has been issuing recommendations and flamboyant proposals. To the African countries, he recommended following the example of Venezuela and Bolivia, which have nationalized hydrocarbons or are taxing foreign companies to the limit. African nations might be tempted to do the same, given that most oil companies have chosen to remain in Venezuela despite Chavez's confiscatory measures. In Belarus, he proposed the creation of a bilateral anti-American and defense alliance -- to which Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko replied that they should field joint sports teams as well.

The crux, though, is his visit to Russia. He is going there with the intention of purchasing a fleet of at least 30 Su-30 fighter jets, a similar number of combat helicopters and even a number of Tor-M1 air-defense missile systems. These purchases, which total more than $1 billion, would represent one of the largest weapons procurements of any Latin American country in recent history. It is an interesting question what Venezuela plans to do with so many fighter jets, since there are no obvious threats against the country. Chavez is also likely to sign an agreement to establish a plant to manufacture Kalashnikov automatic rifles in Venezuela. Having already bought 100,000 of them -- again, many more than he would reasonably have a use for -- he wants now to produce thousands more.

For Washington, that is a worrisome prospect. Chavez's capability to mass-produce assault weapons could prove far more destabilizing for the region than his fighter jets. It is reasonable to assume that Chavez would like to then export those guns, overtly or otherwise, to any militant group of his choice in the continent: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Mexico's Popular Revolutionary Army or Peru's Shining Path, to name a few. Drug cartels would be very interested in becoming clients as well.

Is this a direct threat to Washington? Not yet. At least, Chavez is not ready to sever his relationship with the United States given that it is also the main customer for the oil Venezuela exports. But he is contributing to more instability in the continent; sooner or later, this could become a serious headache for the United States, which does not necessarily need any more open fronts.