Russia - Georgia War

[Michael]

US and Russian warships line up in dispute over Georgia

US and Russian warships took up positions in the Black Sea today in a risky war of nerves on opposing sides of the Georgia conflict.

With the Russians effectively controlling Georgia's main naval base of Poti, Moscow also dispatched the Moskva missile cruiser and two smaller craft on "peacekeeping" duties at the port of Sukhumi on the coast of Abkhazia, the breakaway region that the Kremlin recognised as independent yesterday.

[Darthwing Teorist]

There are US military bases in Romania and Bulgaria. There is one in the port city of Constanta, if I am not wrong, so I guess that's where the US ships may be coming from (or the Mediteranean). I don't think US stands a chance in a conventional military conflict with Russia, near their borders. The problem is that small countries everywhere have to be on one side at this point, unfortunately. This is really saddening, but from a pragmatic point of view, the US is better than Russia from a few points of view. However a yoke is a yoke, no matter if it may be covered by silk and flowers.

But all this is a prime example of US's imperialist foreign policy: it is not Russia encroaching and attacking US but the opposite: Afghanistan, Iraq (where Russia had interests in oil) and now Georgia.

I still don't think that it will come to nuclear blows, at least not before the Large Hadron Collider comes online, but you never know.

[Dmitri]

Here's a crazy conspiracy theory -- Pentagon and related "state security" organizations are "promoting" the possibility of this escalation to increase McCain's chances to get elected instead of the "less military-oriented" Obama. Just a crazy random thought; not saying how likely it is, but I could see how that might be possible.

[Darthwing Teorist]

It's all fun and games until a nuke goes off.

[CaliG]

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1....KABOOM!!!

[Michael]

The nukes have been going off in the form of uranium munitions, AKA: DU, since the first Gulf War in 1991. Currently, they are poisoning the entire world when the U-238 is carried in dust and transported everywhere around the globe every 2 weeks. Thousands of tons a year since the invasion of Afghanistan, not to mention Iraq and the former Yugoslavia. Everyone reading this has U-238 nano-particles from US military uranium munitions inside their body.

[Darthwing Teorist]

So THAT explains my "glowing stick".

[Steve James]

It will help McCain depending on the pitch it reaches. It's not front page news the way the missiles in Cuba were. Besides, considering something an act of war is not equivalent to a threat of nuclear retaliation.

On another note, some would argue that the world is safer when there is not "one" superpower. Remember, we can't afford to go to a nuclear confrontation. And, imo, we (the U.S.) does not have the capital or resources to do much on land. We can only arm the Georgians and provide advisors.

If the Russians are thinking diplomatically, they'll be aiming for a non-proliferation agreement. We'll see.