Meanwhile, over in Georgia

So I guess the Russians basically made Sarkozy look like a dope for flying all the way to Moscow only to have the war end just a few minutes before he arrived? Of course, that's exactly how Russia wanted it -- "thanks but no thanks, we've got our business under control and we don't particularly need your input."

Anything that makes Sarkozy look like a dope is fine by me

anyone post Fred Kaplan's article?

The second half of the article is good, but I don't like this:

It's heartbreaking, but even more infuriating, to read so many Georgians quoted in the New York Times—officials, soldiers, and citizens—wondering when the United States is coming to their rescue. It's infuriating because it's clear that Bush did everything to encourage them to believe that he would

No it's not, it's infuriating because it paints the Georgians as naive, vulnerable idiots. I don't for a minute think they were banking on the Americans wading in - they were banking on making the Russians retreat with one blow - but if they were, they had no grounds to do so. Grounds for believing Bush wishes them well and will support them to an extent, but come on

I wish I shared your certainty that Sakaashvili is not an idiot

The eXile has it's own take

Saakashvili just didn’t think it through. One reason he overplayed his hand is that he got lucky the last time he had to deal with a breakaway region: Ajara, a tiny little strip of Black Sea coast in southern Georgia. This is a place smaller than some incorporated Central Valley towns, but it declared itself an “autonomous” republic, preserving its sacred basket-weaving traditions or whatever. You just have to accept that people in the Caucasus are insane that way; they’d die to keep from saying hello to the people over the next hill, and they’re never going to change. The Ajarans aren’t even ethnically different from Georgians; they’re Georgian too. But they’re Muslims, which means they have to have their own Lego parliament and Tonka-Toy army and all the rest of that Victorian crap, and their leader, a wack job named Abashidze (Goddamn Georgian names!) volunteered them to fight to the death for their worthless independence. Except he was such a nut, and so corrupt, and the Ajarans were so similar to the Georgians, and their little “country” was so tiny and ridiculous, that for once sanity prevailed and the Ajarans refused to fight, let themselves get reabsorbed by that Colussus to the North, mighty Georgia.

Well, like I’ve said before, there’s nothing as dangerous as victory. Makes people crazy. Saakashvili started thinking he could gobble up any secessionist region—like, say, South Ossetia. But there are big differences he was forgetting—like the fact that South Ossetia isn’t Georgian, has a border with Russia, and is linked up with North Ossetia just across that border. The road from Russia to South Ossetia is pretty fragile as a line of supply; it goes through the Roki Tunnel, a mountain tunnel at an altitude of 10,000 feet. I have to wonder why the Georgian air force—and it’s a good one by all accounts—didn’t have as its first mission in the war the total zapping of the South Ossetian exit of that tunnel. Or if you don’t trust the flyboys, send in your special forces with a few backpacks full of HE. There are a lot of ways to cripple a tunnel. Hell, do it low-tech: drive a fuel truck in there, with a car following, jackknife the truck halfway through with a remote control or timing fuse—truck driver gets out and strolls to the car, one fast U-turn and you’re out and back in Georgia, just in time to see a ball of flame erupt from the tunnel exit. And rebuilding a tunnel way up in the mountains is not an easy or a fast job. Sure, the Russians could resupply by air, but that’s a much, much tougher job and would at least slow down the inevitable. Weird, then, that as far as I know the Georgians didn’t even try to blast that tunnel. I don’t go in for this kind of long-distance micromanaging of warfare, because there’s usually a good reason on the ground for tactical decisions; it’s the strategic decisions that are really crazy most of the time. But this one I just don’t get.

Sure, the Russians could resupply by air, but that’s a much, much tougher job and would at least slow down the inevitable.

Even if Georgia had intended for this to blossom into war between Russia and Georgia, which I doubt, I don't think it would have been in their interest to prolong the conflict once it started.

perhaps Sarko's flying to Russia caused them to hold up a bit?

Saakashvili would never have provoked Russia to that extent without, at the very least, the explicit agreement from someone in Washington.

o rly?

I wish I shared your certainty that Sakaashvili is not an idiot

-- Tom D., Tuesday, August 12, 2008 6:56 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

OTM. A very camera-savvy, media-ready idiot, with strong friendships with American conservatives aside from McCain going back to before he was even elected

How does such rubbish, advocating active US military involvement, get published in the lol "liberal media" ?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/152012

Even the National fucking Review's goddamned slanderous editorial (omitting any of Saaky's provocations) didn't espouse that

Ah I forgot tipsy mothra already linked to that, but still. It's kind of infuriating.

It's a pretty amazing article.

I think Paul Krugman's definition of "know-nothingism" is apt:

know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise

I guess the reports of the death of neo-conservative hawkishness were somewhat premature. Soon "realist" will be as much of a dirty word in foreign policy debate as "liberal" has become in domestic politics.

Obama, naturally, is going the pragmatic route, calling for UN intervention, a review of Russia's global status, and most telling of all, "deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO."

The President-In-Waiting clearly understands what his upcoming gig demands. NATO expansion is but one of many tasks on the docket. The only "change" we can believe in is how Obama will polish the same old bullshit using fresh, uplifting rhetoric. Yet I suspect in the short-run, when shoved and slimed by a desperate McCain, Obama may very well dispense with the niceties that have endeared him to so many hopeful consumers, and show that he too can growl and promise sadistic punishment for our many enemies. Not that his liberal followers will mind all that much....

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2008/08/another-chokehold-routine.html

know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise

that Perrin post is pretty nonsensical. "UN intervention, a review of Russia's global status, and most telling of all, "deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO" = "Sadistic punishment of our enemies"? uh yeah, okay buddy.

I don't think I've seen a Perrin post that wasn't nonsensical.

(Granted the only ones I've seen are the ones Morbius posts.)

Obama's working on a McCain-style League of Democracies (ie, a better rubber stamp than the UN) too.

the nerve of that guy, trying to get people to cooperate and talk to each other

no, to agree to sanctify our holy bombings, Mo.

Don't you ever get bored of being the most one-note poster on the political threads?

do you have a link for that? this is all i could find:

[foreign policy advisor Anthony] Lake was sympathetic to aspects of Mr McCain’s idea of a League of Democracies, one of the centrepieces of the Republican’s foreign policy plans.

Stressing that he had not spoken to Mr Obama about it, he backed the general idea of a grouping that was “not an anti-Russian device but an effort to find ways for the democracies to act together on issues of defence of our common values . . . specifically on issues when the UN can’t act”.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/039d5b8a-47b2-11dd-93ca-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=729ab242-9cb1-11db-8ec6-0000779e2340,print=yes.html

I think drawing that conclusion is a bit premature

x-post

Painting Obama as a bloodthirsty war-crazed holy bomber is a little uhhhh

goole, see Prez thread

everything's relative, Shakey. But he does want to be the American President.

"find ways for the democracies to act together on issues of defence of our common values . . . specifically on issues when the UN can’t act won't suck our dick with the precise pressure and speed we demand”.

so you think we should just limit our foreign policy to what the UN approves

this event is a interesting (funny? sad? gross?) test-case of media coverage and diffusion of just basic knowledge of the situation. coverage on center-left blogs and media like slate has been pretty good (and on ilx lol), on the right it has been disgusting, the center-mainstream-cable is been just moronic, what i've been able to watch of it anyway.

it's clear that, if john mccain's ideas about foreign policy were followed, we'd be in a nuclear standoff with russia by now. and even now he still wants to bring georgia into NATO, effectively dragging the rest of the west into georgia. i haven't turned on a tv in about three days, but, you think that would be a problem for him...

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/Pictures/336xAny/p/a/i/Gordon_Brown_4_ready.jpg+http://www.liveyp2008.org/web/images/patrons/david_milliband.jpg=http://www.geotimes.ge/uploads_script/news/8e86bf9d2b38eb6.jpg

Derbyshire, making sense:

Either you believe the U.S.A. ought to commit — in writing — that we shall go to war on behalf of Georgia (Estonia, the Ukraine, etc.), or you believe we ought not.

If you do believe it, as our President does (or else what were all those efforts to get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO about?) then you ought honestly to admit the nonzero probability that Putin, or some future Putin, will call our bluff. Then we shall be at war with Russia. On behalf of Georgia. ("The U.S.A. should commit to go to war against Russia on behalf of Georgia" — anyone care to estimate how that would poll among the U.S. population?)

George Will's line — "If we had succeeded in getting those countries into NATO, then Putin wouldn't have dared, because no NATO country ever had its territory invaded … well, all right, only the one …" — is just wishful thinking. Conservatives are the people who believe in the meaning of words. If we are not willing to go to war with Russia over Georgia, let's not commit ourselves to it. If we are, then of course we should commit … but I'd like to see those poll results first.

At this moment, Putin & his pals are rolling around the Kremlin floor laughing helplessly at our stupidity and gullibility. As a patriotic American, I don't like to contemplate that. What could we do to wipe the smiles off their faces, though? Bomb Moscow? They know we're not going to do that. That's why they're still laughing. Game, set, and match to Putin.

As for the reader who raised my many indignant remarks about Chinese aggression against, and occupation of, Tibet and Eastern Turkesan: unless something happened while I was walking my dog just now, we have not gone to war on behalf of those countries. Nor should we. Nor have I ever advocated doing so, or committing ourselves to do so. Indignant protestations are what free people utter when their sense of justice is outraged. Going to war is what nations do when they believe their interests are gravely threatened. Two different things.

woah, that is frighteningly sane

Are you sure that's the same Derbyshire?

lolz O RLY

"that great little nation"

wtf 90% of the American population probably completely ignorant of Georgia prior to last Friday

Are you sure that's the same Derbyshire?

It's very Derbyshire. He's pretty much been saying Iraq was a stupid blunder for years.

(xp) They knew about the Braves and "Designing Women"...

i hope ethan and curtis are ok

Derbyshire is a classic paleo-con whose distemper is often funny, except when he talks about queers.

Who am I confusing him with, then? Podhoretz?

Podheretz is a total cockfarmer.

so, yeah, probably

Podhoretz is probably writing something right now about how it's a shame we haven't got troops in the Kremlin this very second.

"We should have finished what Patton started."

Meanwhile, the Stratfor elves sum it up this way:

...the United States has a problem — it either must reorient its strategy away from the Middle East and toward the Caucasus, or it has to seriously limit its response to Georgia to avoid a Russian counter in Iran. Even if the United States had an appetite for another war in Georgia at this time, it would have to calculate the Russian response in Iran — and possibly in Afghanistan (even though Moscow’s interests there are currently aligned with those of Washington).

In other words, the Russians have backed the Americans into a corner. The Europeans, who for the most part lack expeditionary militaries and are dependent upon Russian energy exports, have even fewer options. If nothing else happens, the Russians will have demonstrated that they have resumed their role as a regional power. Russia is not a global power by any means, but a significant regional power with lots of nuclear weapons and an economy that isn’t all too shabby at the moment. It has also compelled every state on the Russian periphery to re-evaluate its position relative to Moscow. As for Georgia, the Russians appear ready to demand the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. Militarily, that is their option. That is all they wanted to demonstrate, and they have demonstrated it.

The war in Georgia, therefore, is Russia’s public return to great power status. This is not something that just happened — it has been unfolding ever since Putin took power, and with growing intensity in the past five years. Part of it has to do with the increase of Russian power, but a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the Middle Eastern wars have left the United States off-balance and short on resources. As we have written, this conflict created a window of opportunity. The Russian goal is to use that window to assert a new reality throughout the region while the Americans are tied down elsewhere and dependent on the Russians. The war was far from a surprise; it has been building for months. But the geopolitical foundations of the war have been building since 1992. Russia has been an empire for centuries. The last 15 years or so were not the new reality, but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being rectified.

Russia has been an empire for centuries. The last 15 years or so were not the new reality, but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being rectified.

truthbomb

It's not directly about Russia vis-a-vis Georgia -- though it's a strong part of it -- but I highly recommend everyone read Lesley Blanch's The Sabres of Paradise. (That links to the old edition but there's a new one that came out in 2004.)

hell, Tolstoy's Hadji Murad says everything you need to know about Moscow's attitude towards conquered territories.

My favourite conspiracy theory of the day - this was Russia moving to secure its borders in anticipation of an 'October surprise' US-led invasion of Iran.