Russia - Georgia War

[Steve James]

Reminds one of the Polish missile crisis ... er, I mean the Cuban missile crisis. Jeez, though, I am a little surprised how the villains can change so quickly. What happened to the Islamo-fascists? I don't know if I can take a Cold War and a War on Terror at the same time. Damn, it could make some strange bedfellows.

Hmm, I wonder what would happen if Russia offered Castro some missiles?

[Wuyizidi]

Exactly. Border conflict is one the most common excuse for one country to start war with another. But just because they exist doesn't automatically mean war. It's all about the bigger political picture at the moment.

Russia went through a very humiliating period after the Cold War. Its status was that of a third world country under Yeltsin. U.S. took the chance to weaken it further, extending influence all the way to Russia's doorstep. Now Russia is back, a stronger, more prosperous nation, ready to restore its previous status as a superpower. It needed to send a message to all the former republics "hey, don't get too cozy with the West, don't be their eager running dogs, don't you dare cross us, and the next time you want to elect a pro-West leader, well, that could be very bad for your health". It also needed to send a message to U.S. and the west in general "hey, I'm back. I will not be trifled with. This is my neighborhood, my sphere of influence. You stay out of it. I will be assertive in securing my interest here. And you can't do anything about it. Love me or hate me, you cannot ignore me. You have to deal with me, have to care about what I think the next time you plan to do something big. P.S. don't even think about trying to encircle my border with your allies and military force."

This ill-advised move by Georgia was just the right opportunity to send those messages. It can't get more perfect: Georgia is a much smaller country, with the type of military resistance Russia can easily take care of using formal tactics, Russia can stop that war whenever it wanted, no messy desert guerrilla fighting here...

Wuyizidi

[Wuyizidi]

The thing is we (meaning Americans) haven't actively pursued REAL hegemony since the 19th century. Cultural and economic prevalence simply don't apply.

complete and utter BULLSHIT!!!!!

...america dising on the russians is like the pot calling the kettle black..... just as bad as each other....

Hmm, let's say if China has nuclear carriers, and it sends those carriers around the world, including around U.S. waters (PLA Atlantic Fleet if you will), and that it has massive armies stationed all over the world, in lands far away from its border, say like Europe, Middle East, would people say "hey, what's wrong with that? That's perfectly normal. They are curious but neutral observers, just wondering about, in no way trying to influence what is happening in my neighborhood"?

Wuyizidi

[Michael]

I love this guy's art work.

[Steve James]

Well, the US has had missiles in Turkey for a long time. (In fact, it was one of the big bargaining chips in the Cuban Missile Crisis.) It's easy to see why Russia wouldn't want Nato missiles on its border. Of course, the US was pressing the Georgian gov't not to try to do anything militarily.

Ok, if you extended the above drawing a bit south and east, you'd come right to Iraq. Across from that border is Iran. We're waiting to see who'll take power in Pakistan, and what the new president's stance will be. Afghanistan is getting worse. Some of our coalition there may be leaving. Really interesting times.

[Michael]

At the moment, the US has assembled the largest Naval fleet in the Persian Gulf since 1991, apparently in preparation for an attack on Iran that many analysts have predicted for September after the staging of some incident or pretext to blame Iran and provide a reason for sending in the bombers. Of course, Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersch revealed recently that Cheney had actually proposed just such an event, but was allegedly talked out of it because it involved Americans dressed as Iranians shooting real Americans.

[nianfong]

[Michael]

Is it just by chance that Americans are so incompetent at basic geography? My Chinese students also have significant trouble with any geography. They can't tell me how many provinces/regions are in China because they haven't been taught and don't know how to use a map. If I ask a class of 30 of my Chinese students how many provinces are in China, I will get about 20 different answers, but some of them know that the USA has 50 states. Fairly easy question compared to China with all it's different kinds of special autonomous regions and such The longer I live in China, the more similarities I see with America in the educational system failures.

[Darthwing Teorist]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/0808 ... ussia_nato

Norway says Russia plans to freeze all military ties with NATO

By The Associated Press
ADVERTISEMENT

OSLO, Norway - Norway's Defence Ministry says Russia has informed it that it plans to cut all military ties with NATO.

Ministry spokeswoman Heidi Langvik-Hansen says the country's embassy received a telephone call from Russia's Defence Ministry today, saying Moscow plans "to freeze all military co-operation with NATO and allied countries."

Norway was told in the telephone call a written note about this would be sent out shortly.

Russian officials were not immediately available to confirm the information and officials at NATO headquarters said they have not been informed of any such moves.

NATO foreign ministers Tuesday suspended formal contacts with Russia as punishment for sending troops into Georgia.

[Michael]

Thank you Bush/Cheney for re-starting the Cold War. Quoting Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst of almost 30 years who used to brief Presidents on the National Intelligence Estimate, "Bush is mentally ill."

I will add that Cheney certainly is as well.

[Andy_S]

Best article I have read on this situation yet...by Max Hastings in The Guardian:

The Russians yearn for respect in the same way as a street kid with a knife
Rubbing Moscow's nose in its historical failures cannot bring peace. The west must revive the art of traditional diplomacyAll comments (337)
Max Hastings The Guardian, Monday August 18 2008 Article history

Seldom since the 1968 Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia has the west found itself in such a muddle as it is today about events in Georgia and South Ossetia. Among rightwingers, hawks are suddenly back in fashion, and not only in Washington. David Cameron wants Georgia admitted to Nato in quick time. Russian threats to Poland are compared to the Cuban missile confrontation.

In truth, of course, this remains a small crisis by comparison with those of the cold war, even if some of the principals, in Moscow as well as Washington, talk as if Stanley Kubrick was writing their lines. It is nonetheless a real one, because Moscow has shown its readiness to use force in its proclaimed sphere of influence.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, US policy in eastern Europe and beyond has sought to exploit Russian weakness to install pro-western regimes wherever fertile soil could be found. In Washington's perception, this does not represent aggression or even unreasonable assertiveness, because its honourable objective is to replace tyranny and repression with democracy and freedom.

The Russians do not care sixpence about these fine things. They perceive only that American missiles are on their way into Poland and the Czech Republic, while Georgia is becoming a US puppet. A Russian academic living in the west inquired in my hearing a few weeks ago: "What would George Bush say if our government announced that it was installing an anti-missile system in Cuba?"

Even those of us who deplore US attempts to include Georgia and Ukraine in Nato should not lose sight of the fact that, if Moscow's will prevails in the states around Russia's borders, precious few human rights are likely to be available to their citizens. Thirty years ago many western Europeans were too ready to acquiesce in eastern Europe's indefinite enslavement by the Soviet Union. In the name of "peaceful coexistence", it was deemed prudent to allow the Poles, Czechs, East Germans, Hungarians and so on to remain, often literally, behind barbed wire.

It was one of the happiest events of the past century when the Warsaw Pact collapsed, and the nations of eastern Europe became free. Granted the problems of Romania and Bulgaria, it is astonishing how successfully the other former Soviet satellites have embraced democracy and the European Union.

Many British people are so preoccupied with the relatively minor inconveniences imposed by the EU upon this country that they ignore its triumph in bringing peace and stability to many societies that had not known these things in living memory.

Yet Russian exceptionalism persists. It remains unlikely that, in the foreseeable future, it will want to join the EU or share its values. For almost half a century, Russia saw everything through the prism of its second world war experience and that of the cold war. Today its people are obsessed with the collapse of the Soviet Union and their perceived loss of status in the world. Far from recognising this as the consequence of political and economic failure, most Russians from Putin downwards blame western malice and domestic traitors succumbing to western intrigues.

Moscow's behaviour today should be seen not as a reflection of "oil arrogance", though this plays a part, but of neurosis about its own weakness and failure. The Russians yearn for respect, in the same fashion as any inner-city street kid with a knife. They will become willing to play with the west by western rules only if or when they no longer perceive those rules as disadvantaging themselves. Today they cannot compete on the EU's terms, still less those of the US, so they make up their own.

It is unnecessary for the west silently to acquiesce in the Russians' excesses, but it must tread cautiously in the face of their sensitivities. America must stop pretending that democracy is, of itself, the answer to all the world's ills. Washington is already learning painful lessons about this in the Muslim world. Few people doubt that, even if Russian elections are flawed, Putin's policies command overwhelming support among his own people.

While the west can offer political and economic encouragement to nations on Russia's borders, it is folly to go further, seeking to include them in western security organisations, or bribe them to accept US military installations. Such policies merely provoke violent Russian virility displays, to which the west can make no effective response.

Edward Lucas, an impassioned hawk, wrote before the latest Georgian imbroglio: "The west is losing the new cold war, while hardly having noticed that it has started." The Bush administration today talks of gallant little Georgia in 2008 as if it was gallant little Poland in 1939. As so often, it draws the wrong lesson from history. Britain and France had to fight Hitler. But in September 1939 both countries found themselves in the grotesque position of having offered security guarantees to Poland, while being incapable of doing anything practical to frustrate the German invasion.

It is several bridges too far today to pretend that the west can defend Georgia, or indeed Ukraine. The only sensible advice Washington and its allies can offer their governments is to rub along as best they can with the Russians, and avoid offering them military provocations.

Appeasement gained such a bad name in the 1930s that it is sometimes forgotten, especially by Washington's neoconservatives, that it is often indispensable. It can be defined by more honourable names. Most of the world's problems cannot be "solved", least of all by force of arms. They must be managed or endured, in the hope that better times will come, as they often do.

In a world which has seen within the past 20 years the peaceful transfer of power to the black majority in South Africa, as well as the peaceful collapse of the Soviet European empire, it seems absurdly pessimistic to suggest that current difficulties with Russia can be resolved only through confrontation.

American foreign policy is still cursed by post-cold war triumphalism, and aspirations to the "victory" of democracy and capitalist values, while that of Russia languishes under the stigma of defeat. These sensations inspire excessive hubris in both. If Barack Obama wins the US election, the highest hope of the rest of the world must be for a revival of traditional diplomacy, an understanding of the virtues of talking to everybody: the Iranians, the Syrians, Hamas - and the Russians. Successful diplomacy also requires recognition of banal principles of give-and-take, you-win-some-you-lose-some.

US policy towards Moscow for almost two decades has been based upon the assumption that since the Russians were losers, their wishes could be ignored or defied on every front. No useful business could result from such a posture. Putin conducts an ugly polity, and his Russia is not a place where even most successful Russians want to live. But the west will find it easier to coexist with this tormented, intransigent, melancholy and oil-rich neighbour when Russia feels comfortable with itself, not when its nose is rubbed in its long history of failure.

[Andy_S]

And to the Hastings article above I would add:
If we do NOT return to "traditional diplomacy" with Russia, what options to we have?
(1) Economic sanctions (unworkable given the masssive scale of US agricultural exports to Russia, and EU energy imports from Russia)
(2) Military action (get real; even the Georgian military seems unwilling to fight invading Russians)

Where does this leave Georgia? Fucked, as I see it. The chances of them getting "their" Ossetian territory back under any kind of administrative control now looks to be practically zero - even if the Russians pull all the way out, for good.

[edededed]

Russia and China have the same problem - basically, they enjoyed eras where they were at the top of the world, and cannot "forget" those times, and would do almost anything to get back to that place... I think that UK actually handles this better (as they were also at the top of the world for a long time centuries ago).

Now that Bush has made lots of booboos and America is having a lot of problems, I wonder what America would be like if put in the same situation?

[Michael]

"I think that UK actually handles this better (as they were also at the top of the world for a long time centuries ago)."
The UK was very clever in setting up governments in the former empire that would continue to follow UK goals, not to mention the Cecil Rhodes secret Round Table Councils in nearly every one of the 50 odd commonwealth countries, plus the USA. They just switched from overt to covert when it suited them to do so.

[Michael]

As I have been saying about the Georgia - Russia war, it is the brain child of Zbigniew Brzezinski, who writes in a new article that reveals what his concerns really are. I love the irony when a leading power broker of the neocon agenda to invade and dominate Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran accuses Russia of imperialism. Nice one, ZB.

"An independent Georgia is critical to the international flow of oil. A pipeline for crude oil now runs from Baku in Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea, through Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean coast. The link provides the West access to the energy resources of central Asia. If that access is cut, the Western world will lose an important opportunity to diversify its sources of energy."

"Presidential candidates Barack Obama (whom I support)..."