Georgia

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

I think that one thing that's being lost in this war is the destabilizing effect it has on many land-locked former Soviet states with oil or gas fields. Georgia is the only convenient non-Russian transit points for their reserves. The war also sends a strong message to the other country that has bucked a pro-Russia candidate, sought NATO and EU membership, and contains a large Russian-speaking minority - Ukraine. Making an example of Georgia helps destabilize the economic interests of much of the CIS and directly threatening their former colonial possession.

[rosslynhoya]

Except to whatever extent that the opposite happens. The Russians have made an example of Georgia, but it's not necessarily going to cow the Ukrainian populace into submission.

The leaders of the Baltic nations and Ukraine have now flown to Tblisi to show their solidarity with Georgia. These countries have to have woken up to the Russian threat and their likely answer is closer ties with NATO. That other great Brussels institution, the EU, has pretty fairly discredited itself in both diplomatic and security arenas (the grand ceasefire negotiated by Sarkozy pretty much boils down to "Georgia will accede to all of Russia's demands and in return Russian troops will leave when they feel like it." I'm pretty sure the Quai d'orsay found the original text in their archives and just did a quick find-and-replace for all the occurrences of "Germany."

The Kyiv Post yesterday called for an immediate push to modernize Ukrainian defense forces and launch a public education plan to teach Ukrainians about the importance of NATO membership.

www.kyivpost.com/opinion/editorial/29402/

[SirSaxa]

Aug 13, 2008 17:54:14 GMT -5 RusskyHoya said:

Any kind of harsh rebuke could simply be countered by Moscow with something like this: "You call our response disproportionate? How many Afghan civilians did you kill in response to 9/11? How many Iraqis did you kill without provocation?" And much of the world would nod their heads. Russia's going to end the conflict on their terms anyway - better for us to lay low now and try to mitigate the situation in the aftermath.

This is a very important point.
Bush and his team have compromised the US ability to respond because they have squandered the moral high ground with Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and more. We opted to act unilaterally v Iraq, which isolated us and made it virtually impossible to build legitimate coalitions to deal with issues like Georgia. Bush and team also severely stretched the US Military with Iraq so that it is not even a consideration in situations like Georgia.

[EasyEd]

Sir Saxa, why do you repeat the falsity that we acted unilaterally in Iraq? Tell that to the other countries that served and lost members of their armed services.

[Boz]

Clearly, you are against the war in Iraq. I think we've all gotten that point. Fair enough. I will not try to argue out of that position any more than you could argue me out of the position that the war was justifiable.

I don't take issue with your opposition. We can disagree on that. But I think that blaming everything on Iraq really tenuous at best.

Yes. Our military is stretched. Wars do that. But do you honestly believe that if the US was not involved in Iraq that we would contemplate putting boots on the ground in Georgia and getting into a shooting war with the Russians? That's nuts. It would never happen. Not for the action that has taken place to date.

Furthermore, the "moral high ground" argument is pretty weak. Again, do you honestly believe that NATO or the governments of England, France or Germany -- not to mention those in Eastern Europe -- would say, "Oh yeah. The Russians are right. The US invaded in the Middle East, so we don't want to work with them to counter Russian territorial expansion." This is silly.


If you're against the war, that's fine. But please don't try to reduce every geopolitical event to a consequence of our presence in the Middle East. It doesn't work that way.

[RusskyHoya]

Though there are some similarities between the cases, one should definitely not conflate the Ukrainian and Georgian examples. Ukraine is a huge country, far more populous than Georgia, with much more military hardware left over from the division of the Red Army. It also does not have two separatist republics on its border with Russia that fought wars of independence against it and have spent the past years existing in a de facto autonomous state while using Russian passports and currency. And it's leadership is not planning on bombing the crap out of any cities or territories in the near future (you still need some sort of casus belli, and Ukraine ins't in the position of providing one).

No, for Ukraine, I'd imagine VVP and the Gazprom Gang will continue using mainly economic weapons, along with some political chicanery and covert actions.

[SirSaxa]

Aug 14, 2008 10:09:55 GMT -5 EasyEd said:

Sir Saxa, why do you repeat the falsity that we acted unilaterally in Iraq? Tell that to the other countries that served and lost members of their armed services.

Because the reality is it was a virtually unilateral action.
Was it 100% unilateral? No. I realize that.
But compare it to the Coalition that Bush-the elder put together in Iraq 1.

OK, I overstated (because I thought the essence would be obvious) but the point is really the same, even though the US managed to get Britain and some tiny island nations in the Pacific and a few others to join its "coalition".

Clearly, it was not the widely supported, entirely justifiable effort that Kuwait generated.

It is another example of the Bush team acting (virtualy) unilaterally and arrogantly.
It fits with the Cowboy attitude of flying to an aircraft carrier so you can stand in your flight suit and declare "mission accomplished" (when it isn't), and it fits with the "Bring 'em on" posturing, but it is clearly not statesmanlike or effective, and certainly not smart.

After 9/11, we had the entire world on our side. When we went into AFG, we had the entire world on our side.

Fighting terrorists is a major, long term priority for the USA. Thinking you can do it alone, and being so stupid that you would squander that global support and the moral high ground (something that has always been important to the USA) to indulge this fantasy that invading Iraq was somehow a good idea and a war that would pay for itself was utterly ridiculous. It was a disaster strategically, for the US Economy, for the US military, and for US prestige and world standing.

[SirSaxa]

Aug 14, 2008 10:12:10 GMT -5 Boz said:

Yes. Our military is stretched. Wars do that. But do you honestly believe that if the US was not involved in Iraq that we would contemplate putting boots on the ground in Georgia and getting into a shooting war with the Russians? That's nuts. It would never happen. Not for the action that has taken place to date.

Furthermore, the "moral high ground" argument is pretty weak. Again, do you honestly believe that NATO or the governments of England, France or Germany -- not to mention those in Eastern Europe -- would say, "Oh yeah. The Russians are right. The US invaded in the Middle East, so we don't want to work with them to counter Russian territorial expansion." This is silly.

Do I honestly believe we would or should send troops to Georgia right now given the current situation? No, of course not.

But, it is not that difficult to understand how the Iraq war has damaged our international standing and influence and how that impacts everything that we are able to do - or not do.

Had we not invaded Iraq, had we chosen instead to work with the global community -- including Russia and continued working with Iran -- our strategic position in the world would be vastly different. And, as a result, Russia would feel more included and less isolated/threatened, and the temptation and motivation to invade Georgia may never have occurred.

If we had stayed out of Iraq, the threat of our military would be far stronger. The threat (even unstated) of military action is far more effective than the mis-use.

Contrary to your view, moral high ground is very important in world affairs and global popular opinion. How do you think Bush I managed to assemble a real coalition to force Iraq out of Kuwait? Do you think all those countries would have signed on if their citizens did not believe it was entirely justified?

Had we maintained that kind of strategic thinking and leadership, it would have:
1. Made Russia less inclined to feel the need to invade Georgia
2. Made it obvious they would be bucking world opinion which would likely have very negative economic implications for Russia at the very least.

And, I know many don't really want to focus on the alternative energy issues, but that doesn't make them any less real. Russia is moving on Georgia in part to control the pipleiines that run through that country. Moreover, they have enormous windfall profits from the vast run up in oil and gas prices to devote to military adventures like this. AND, they have enormous leverage over Europe because of their dependence on Russian gas and oil. If oil and gas were less vital to the global economy because alternatives were available, the entire strategic calculus changes.

You may not wish to see the long term disastrous implications of the Iraq war and the failure to develop a major, alternative energy technology effort, but that doesn't make them any less real or influential.

Getting the world off of Oil is a crucial issue for global security.

[Boz]

I must've missed the part where the rest of the world has told Secretary Rice that she should stay away from there because they don't want the US and our lost moral high ground to intervene.

Your argument is almost 100% hypothetical in nature. OK, a lot of this stuff is hypothetical, but you are postulating this as fact when, in truth, there is very little to support it as such.

Me? I kind of find it hard to believe that Russia wouldn't be doing what it wanted to do regardless of the strength of our international coalition into Iraq.

As for excluding Russia, I find that really hard to believe. This administration has been more inclusive with Russia that many people would argue is warranted. It got us nowhere. We can go into Russia's reasons for opposing Iraq at length. Many of them were far from noble.

And the threat of our military is still plenty strong. Not strong enough to contemplate ground forces at present, but again, that is moot because that never would happen. At best there might be an international peacekeeping force to oversee a cease fire. But even that really isn't likely to happen.



I will grant you this though. I have not included the energy independance/alternative energy factor. And you're right, that is a critical factor. If you want to blame George Bush for that, fine. But I can think of about 535 co-defendants over 30-40 years you might want to indict as well.

[theexorcist]

All this crap about the "moral high ground" drives me nuts.

Iraq was led me an aggressive leader who invaded his neightbor a little less than a decade ago, fought a nasty war against another neighbor, and GASSED HIS PEOPLE. He got to power by orchestrating coups and stabbing lots of people.

None of these conditions apply to Georgia.

There is NO moral equivalency. NONE.

[EasyEd]

Washington Post lead editorial today:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/13/AR2008081303359.html

[The Stig]

Aug 14, 2008 13:36:40 GMT -5 EasyEd said:

Washington Post lead editorial today:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/13/AR2008081303359.html

If the democratic path had been followed from the start, South Ossetia and Abkhazia would have never even been part of Georgia to begin with.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

Aug 14, 2008 13:36:40 GMT -5 EasyEd said:

Washington Post lead editorial today:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/13/AR2008081303359.html

There's nothing wrong with the logic of the article. It just doesn't tell the full story. The "wave" of democracy that the United States' foreign policy encouraged has reached its high-tide. The most prominent example of the approaching low-tide is that Russia figured out that the government and all of its favored groups could capture the efficiency gains when it threw around its weight and consolidated the natural resource industries and meaningful media outlets in Russia. That's where the article misses the point - the question isn't "who lost Georgia?" - it's "who lost Russia?" For that you have no further to look than the administration that stood still during the second Chechen War (recasting the repeated leveling of Grozny as part of a broader "war on terror"), the dismantling of Yukos, the closing of independent media outlets, and the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.

[SirSaxa]

Three interesting comments from earlier in this thread on the AntiMissile Missiles Bush wants to force the Russians to accept:

Aug 12, 2008 19:56:53 GMT -5 The Stig said:

I don't think most Americans understand just how provocative the missile defense system and the eastern expansion of NATO were to Russia. Russia's biggest fear since the days of Napoleon has been invasion from their west, by way of Eastern Europe. It's happened three times since then (Napoleon, WWI, and WWII), and every time it's been destructive on a level that far exceeds anything in American history. That's why so few Americans can grasp Russia's immense fear of anything that could be remotely hostile coming close to their western border.

... During the Soviet days, the Russians had Eastern Europe as a buffer zone. Now, with NATO moving eastwards, there's nothing left between Russia and the westerners that Russia assumes are hostile

.

Aug 13, 2008 2:06:05 GMT -5 TBird41 said:

You don't know anything about the missile defense system if you think they would be aimed at Russia

Aug 13, 2008 9:45:57 GMT -5 EasyEd said:

At last, someone who understands what the missile defense system can and cannot do

[/i][/blockquote].[/quote]

To tell you the truth, I think TBird actually overstated the limited current effectiveness of the missiles, at least based on tests so far.

But it misses the much more important point that Stig raises...

how the Russians actually feel about it.

Imagine if the Russians -- unilaterally, without discussing it with us -- put a whole slew of "defensive" missiles in Cuba... because they were worried about some rogue regimes in S. America. How do you think the American govt, the American people would react?

And, even if everything were true about their effectiveness, who is to say that technology might evolve rather quickly in the future to be something different? Say, offensive?

So is it wise to provoke Russia with missiles that are unnecessary and probably not all that effective anyway?? What is the point? And.. conversely, what are the risks? "Little to gain, lots to lose, lets Edited off Russia because we can"?


Skip ahead to today's NY Times:

Russia Lashes out on Missile Deal, NY Times

WASHINGTON — The United States and Poland reached a long-stalled deal on Thursday to place an American missile defense base on Polish territory, in the strongest reaction so far to Russia’s military operation in Georgia.

Russia reacted angrily, saying that the move would worsen relations with the United States that have already been strained severely ... a senior Russian defense official, Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, suggested that Poland was making itself a target by agreeing to serve as host for the anti-missile system. Such an action “cannot go unpunished,” he said.

The deal reflected growing alarm ...

... Polish and American officials characterized as unusual aspects of the final deal: that at least temporarily American soldiers would staff air defense sites in Poland oriented toward Russia, and that the United States would be obliged to defend Poland in case of an attack with greater speed than required under NATO, of which Poland is a member.

A sense of deepened suspicions — and the more darkly drawn lines between countries in the region — were also apparent in the emotional reaction from Russia.

“It is this kind of agreement, not the split between Russia and United States over the problem of South Ossetia, that may have a greater impact on the growth in tensions in Russian-American relations,” Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian Parliament...
...

In exchange for providing the base, Poland would get what the two sides called “enhanced security cooperation,” notably a top-of-the-line Patriot air defense system that can shoot down shorter-range missiles or attacking fighters or bombers.

A senior Pentagon official described an unusual part of this quid pro quo: an American Patriot battery would be moved from Germany to Poland, where it would be operated by a crew of about 100 American military personnel members. American troops would join the Polish military, at least temporarily, at the front lines — facing east toward Russia.

Russia has long opposed the deal, saying the United States was violating post-cold-war agreements not to base its troops in former Soviet bloc states and devising a Trojan Horse system designed to counter Russia’s nuclear arsenal, not an attack by Iran or another adversary.

The real answer is we should have been engaging Russia -- and everyone else -- much more deeply all along, not, for example, unilaterally canceling treaties. The one area that Condi Rice supposedly has expertise is Russia -- she doesn't appear to have handled things very well so far.


So what should the US be doing today?
Well, we don't want to show weakness in the face of aggression.
But is it really SMART strategy to provoke things further right now?

Over the past 7 1/2 years, has the Bush Administration demonstrated reasonable, thoughtful, conservative, cooperative international behavior? Respect for International law and organizations? And world opinion?

None of this is to excuse Russia, but the Admin should have been trying to avert situations like this, and now that it has arisen, to dampen it -- not ratchet it up. Wars have been started over less.

[Boz]

Some questions:

1. Russia has ground-based interceptor missiles and continues to develop missile defense systems. We have not, to my knowledge, asked them to dismantle those systems or halt development of new systems. They are defensive systems that are in place to protect Russia. Why can't Poland have the same, with our support?

2. Poland is a NATO country who has requested this support. This agreement -- after some disagreement and debate last year about it -- now has the support of NATO. Should we not be supporting NATO countries in favor of mollifying a country that once held authoritarian rule over those same people?

3. The NYT points out that the missiles will be pointed toward Russia. Well, duh! That is East. That is where any threat is likely to come, East or Southeast. They'll also be pointed toward the Ukraine. Hmmm, not sure why the Times didn't mention that. Would you prefer that we had the missiles pointed West, so that they can defend against any provocation from, say, France or Belgium?

4. Can someone cite please the agreement that the NYT mentions that says we will not place military personnel or bases in former Soviet-bloc countries? I believe we've had one in Romania for a few years. Not to mention rights to bases in former Soviet republics.

5. Regarding how Russia feels about this, I do not want to discount their history and fear of invasion from the West. But should we then discount the more recent fear and reality that Poland and other Eastern European countries have of occupation and oppression from the East?

6. This deal has been in the works for a long time and they've been nearing agreement on it all summer. Then Russia invades Georgia and we sign the agreement. So, why is it automaitcally that WE are "ratcheting" up the situation? Why are we not leveling that charge (more accurately) at Russia?

[TBird41]

The interceptors in Eastern Europe cannot shoot down Russian missiles aimed at the U.S bc they would go over the North Pole away from them, and they cannot shoot down Russian missiles aimed at Europe bc they could not react in time to hit them in the midcourse of their trajectory aka when they are in space (where they are designed to intercept the missiles), which would be very very small window. There are also going to be a lot fewer inteceptors than Russian nukes. A lot fewer. Think a hundred to two hundred fewer.

They are also worthless as offensive weapons-there are no explosives on them except jetfuel. The Russians know all of this, bc the U.S. Has been very open about the capabilities of the interceptors, and bc they aren't stupid-as Boz said, they're working on the same systems.

if you want to argue that its a poor decision to put them in Europe bc Russia would use it as an excuse to get defensive and act threatened and you think that outweighs the ability to protect Europe from Iranian missiles, and a chance to draw Eastern Europe closer to the west, that's fine. I disagree, but whatever.

If you're going to ignore the realities of the missile defense system in order to claim that Russia is acually threatened (except by the fact they won't have free reign to bully their neighbors), that's not fine. The missile defense system is not now, nor will it be in the forseeable future, a system that can protect us or Europe from Russian attack due to physics, the sheer number of Russian nukes and the defensive systems that Russia has built into its missiles. Its as simple as that.

[RusskyHoya]

For what in my view is a very good strategic and historical assessment of the conflict, read Jeffrey Taylor's piece in The Atlantic:
www.theatlantic.com/doc/200808u/georgia-russia-war

Also, TBird, while Russian missiles aimed at the US would largely go over the Artic, the same cannot be said for Russian missiles targetting the rest of NATO (sans Canada), including nuclear-armed NATO members. This was built into the logic of the ABM and remains valid now, especially since Russia's working nuclear missile complement has badly degraded since then.

[Boz]

Well, Russia just threatened to nuke Poland, so it's good to see that they're not ratcheting things up at all.



I think I'm going to go get drunk this weekend.

OK, I was probably going to do that anyway, but now I can say it's because I don't know how many weekends we all have left.

[The Stig]

Aug 15, 2008 11:45:27 GMT -5 Boz said:

Some questions:

1. Russia has ground-based interceptor missiles and continues to develop missile defense systems. We have not, to my knowledge, asked them to dismantle those systems or halt development of new systems. They are defensive systems that are in place to protect Russia. Why can't Poland have the same, with our support?

2. Poland is a NATO country who has requested this support. This agreement -- after some disagreement and debate last year about it -- now has the support of NATO. Should we not be supporting NATO countries in favor of mollifying a country that once held authoritarian rule over those same people?

3. The NYT points out that the missiles will be pointed toward Russia. Well, duh! That is East. That is where any threat is likely to come, East or Southeast. They'll also be pointed toward the Ukraine. Hmmm, not sure why the Times didn't mention that. Would you prefer that we had the missiles pointed West, so that they can defend against any provocation from, say, France or Belgium?

4. Can someone cite please the agreement that the NYT mentions that says we will not place military personnel or bases in former Soviet-bloc countries? I believe we've had one in Romania for a few years. Not to mention rights to bases in former Soviet republics.

5. Regarding how Russia feels about this, I do not want to discount their history and fear of invasion from the West. But should we then discount the more recent fear and reality that Poland and other Eastern European countries have of occupation and oppression from the East?

6. This deal has been in the works for a long time and they've been nearing agreement on it all summer. Then Russia invades Georgia and we sign the agreement. So, why is it automaitcally that WE are "ratcheting" up the situation? Why are we not leveling that charge (more accurately) at Russia?

1. The ABM Treaty allowed a certain number of missiles in very specific places (mostly around a country's capital). I never heard anybody accusing Russia of violating that treaty. What the US is doing is different because it's outside what's allowed in the ABM Treaty. Russia wanted to keep that treaty.

2. Saying Poland requested our support is stretching it. We bribed Poland into accepting our missiles by promising them huge upgrades for their conventional military. That's part of what's so ridiculous about this system. We say we're putting them in Poland to defend Europe from Iran, but Europe doesn't particularly want to be protected from Iran by those missiles.

3. I think we'd prefer that there are no missiles there at all, pointed in any direction.

4. I know we have an agreement about the territory of East Germany (Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany). I'm not sure about the rest of Eastern Europe. I think we might have made an unofficial verbal promise to the Russians on that, but I'm not sure.

5. You're right, we shouldn't discount Eastern Europe's fears of Russia, but we should deal with those fears in a way that doesn't increase Russia's fears. We need to work to allay both Eastern Europe's fears and Russia's fears. Remember, the Russians are paranoid. A lot of times things that shouldn't make them scared end up terrifying them. Our attempts to allay Eastern Europe's fears are making Russia even more scared. The irony is that Russia's more likely to go after Eastern Europe when they're scared, so in reality we're actually making Eastern Europe less safe.

6. The ABM deal didn't ratchet up tensions now, it ratcheted them up a long time ago. I wouldn't say that this Georgia clash is a result of those increased tensions, since Russia was always going to move in if Georgia attacked South Ossetia. However, if you want to trace the deterioration of post-Cold War US-Russian relations, the US throwing out the ABM Treaty is a good place to start.

[SirSaxa]

Russkyhoya, thanks for the tip and link on the Atlantic article. Great background.

And thanks as well to The Stig for another good post of specific points/responses and insight into the situation.

Actually, you guys along with St. Pete, Rosslyn, FewFac have all made excellent points and observations throughout this thread, and provided a high level discussion. Are all of you from the SFS?