Part of it is probably oil, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (which has already been damaged by the bombing). Control of that would give Russia more control over the flow of oil from Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Part of it's undoubtedly Russia being pissed off at Georgia wanting to join NATO. Russia traditionally hates to feel hemmed in by potential adversaries.
Part of it's a desire to redraw the map at the expense of Georgia and bring two Russian enclaves back into the Federation.
And despite Bush's blathering, there isn't shit we can do about it even if we wanted to. Diplomacy will have to carry the day, and we know just how effective our Bush-appointed diplomats are. And don't expect the EU to do nothing more than ask politely; Russia exerted its control of the flow of oil and natural gas to the EU last year, causing a great deal of pain.
Too bad Obama isn't already prez. He would just wave his "magic hope and change wand" and all hostilities would cease!!!!!!
Oh, give the Obama bashing a rest, GHC.
Nobody is going to stop this anytime soon.
Mikheil Saakashvili is a stupid jackass who could't be bothered to read a map or contemplate the likelihood that FSB sleepers could be all through his organization. So he figured he'd hand the Kremlin a fait accompli. With jack shit to back it up with.
What sort of a fool raises on a busted flush? When he really doesn't need to?
So he managed to stick his dick into a sausage grinder. Putin is just going to keep on turning the crank until he's history.
A mess. And don't whitewash Georgia's going after South Ossetia, for it's separatist wishes. The "morality" in this one is not cut and dried.
I will agree that Russia has used Georgia's initial acts as an excuse to flex it's muscles all out of proportion to the situation, but what else does anyone expect them to do? Goatboy has reminded them how, if they needed reminding.
What's bush going to do; point to the misery, and act like Mohandas Ghandi, scolding Putin for his lack of peace-loving instincts?
Carlin! Were you born with turnip juice on the brain, or did you acquire it?
Stormcrow: It's worse than that. The only strategic move that would've blocked any Russian ground counterattack would've been to cut off the tunnel linking N and S Ossetia. It took the Russians something like 10 or 15 hours before they were able to send any tank and the like as reinforcements. Yet apparently the Georgian army failed to shut down or bomb the tunnel, leaving it open to Russian troopers.
The only credible explanation I've seen was that the Georgians hoped that a lot of Ossetian civilians would just leave and go North - which half of them actually did. Basically, some goons in the Georgian political or military establishment preferred to be able to ethnically cleanse the area and risk defeat on the ground than have a military victory but to keep a bunch of independantist-minded Ossetians in a "fully reconquered" Georgia.
And so far, I don't see much disproportionate - we're clearly not speaking Shock-and-Awe on Baghdad level. Russia is making sure the Georgian military is crippled enough not to be able to mount any future assault on Abkhazia or S Ossetia, which isn't much different from the big beating the Serbian army (and Serbians overall) took in 1999 over Kosovo. Now, if they decide to have ground assault outside the contested areas, it'll be a whole different matter. Yet I don't think they'll be foolish enough.
And I'm definitely wondering what's going on with the pipeline. At least until recently, the Russian airforce didn't target it and mostly bombed military stuff (with the usual civilian carnage that comes with people who don't care much for civilians). The pipeline is there to last, now that it's built, so unless they bomb the heck out of it all over Georgia, it wouldn't matter much in the long run.
On the other hand, there are many people, Russian, Iranian, US oil business, and others, who would benefit from disrupting some oil trade now that oil prices have gone down.
Whatever, I hope the stupid and mean (edited) on both sides will stop this lunacy and go to ceasefire. Though I doubt the Statu quo ante would please anyone, on the other hand, any other option would massively piss off one side, and even if the Georgian side is the weakest right now, I'm not sure Russia can just grab S Ossetia.
And as always, there's gold in them thar mini-wars:
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/
Comp...3580136,00.html
Something for the after-action debriefing:
"The bigger impact is that others will take notice. The Baltic countries, the Ukraine and Central Asian states now learned that they can not depend on the U.S. as an ally when the going gets tough."
Wrap Up-For Now by Bernhard, Moon of Alabama, 10 Aug 2008
http://www.moonofalabama.org/200...up---for-
n.html
Intuitively obvious, but bears repeating.
Anyone catch the vapid Kristol OpEd in the NYT? According to Kristol, it's all about Iraq. It always is.
But Georgia, a nation of about 4.6 million, has had the third-largest military presence — about 2,000 troops — fighting along with U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq. For this reason alone, we owe Georgia a serious effort to defend its sovereignty. Surely we cannot simply stand by as an autocratic aggressor gobbles up part of — and perhaps destabilizes all of — a friendly democratic nation that we were sponsoring for NATO membership a few months ago.
Obviously some of you all know much more about this conflict than I do. But it seems to me what this comes down to is that Russia's neighbors are simply going to have to learn to live with the bear however they can. Just like Central America has had to learn the hard way over the years that they will always be within the US sphere. No one else is around to do anything except play games. At 4.6 million people, Georgia is about 1/4 the size of Guatemala. Regardless of the merits of the Georgian territorial claims, they had to know they were going it alone here. Talk about a miscalculation to be messing with a newly resurgent Russia flush with petrodollars and nursing a long list of grievances against the west.
part of it oil?
controlling the georgian bypass give russia the full hand on the throat position with europe's supply.
it also give them complete veto on the service contracts (you hire who we want or we kick the pipes).
cheney's old company (and its looting subsidieries) is heavily invested in georgia.
The Estonians knew a long time ago that they couldn't rely on the US if the going got tough. The next time that some little thug from "Nashi" (a neofascist pro-Russian, Kremlin-backed group of agitators in Estonia) gets so much as a paper cut during a police action, Putin will rattle sabers there.
For an interesting analysis comparing what Putin is doing in Georgia to what Stalin did in Finland go here:
http://tinyurl.com/5a77re
Putin is playing the Kosovo precedent to a "T".
The first move was the Georgians moving into South Ossetia, and leveling the capitol with artillery fire, which sure as hell sounds like attempted ethnic cleansing to me.
The only difference is that, unlike the US, Russia is not relying on fixed wing aviation exclusively.
The Russians have a good case that Saakashvili is a war criminal, and the Russians have been VERY restrained by their historical standards.
They are hitting targets of military value, military air fields, bridges, etc., as opposed to doing to Tiblisi what they did to Grozny.
All I know is, the War Nerd sure picked a helluva time to take a summer vacation.
Ah, Marching Through Georgia.
A bit of background. I understand that after the USSR called it a day, the CIS or maybe the Russian Federation extended an offer to citizens of former Soviet republics. Hey, no hard feelings guys, if you ever want to be Russians, there're passports waiting at the local embassy. Most former SSRs couldn't resist messing with Russians or Party apparatchiks who stayed when the Red Army left, so the thanks of a grateful Soviet Union might be worth something one day.
So Georgia splits off in 1991, Shevardnadze is pensioned off to run it as his little fiefdom and makes moves toward NATO. And leaves South Ossetia to rot. Actually, back up a bit. Even before the USSR broke up, South Ossetia tried to break away from Georgia, and form the (wait for it) Ossetian Soviet Democratic Republic. No way in hell, says Georgia, canceled Ossetia's autonomy.
1991: August coup attempt in Moscow is FAIL. Ossetians and Georgians burn each other's houses down and Russia steps in to make them stop. Shevardnadze has half-hearted talks with Ossetian separatists, but mostly just lets the place rot. Saakashvili gets in, aims to bring S. Ossetia to heel, and then lets it rot. That Russian citizenship looks like a better deal every day. Especially with all that Russian aid money pouring into Skin Valley, the new capital of Independent Ossetia.
Russia bombed Georgian airfields to prevent counterattacks on S. Ossetia, and the blitz is like Clueless Joe said.
Going by what these guys said 8 years ago(note: rightwing analysis), Russia never liked that pipeline much. Maybe it was the whole Exxon-Mobil buying all of Russia's oil from Khodorkovsky and shipping it west in these pipes thing. So Russia just want us all to know that they *could* cut the pipeline.
So they'll hang around long enough to score an autonomy deal with South Ossetia (and a cut of the freight duty at the N/S Ossetia tunnel?), FTW! And then maybe go home, because, hey, it's the Olympics after all.
The Abkhazians are all carpe diem over this. Their own separatist battles with Georgia were a lot bloodier than thos of S. Ossetia. I couldn't find any mention of a Russian passport deal, but they get a lot of Russian money, and they'll get more to big build ugly hotels on the Black Sea for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. I can't see the Russian Army being much immediate help, but, being on the Black Sea, maybe they'll get a friendly visit from the Russian Navy.
And I'm turning in one soldier, one cannon and one cavalryman for 8 armies, and I'm putting them all in Ukraine.
As of last night, Tskhinvali, the capitol of South Ossetia, was still being shelled and taking Grad rocket fire from Gerogian positions in and around Gori.
Like the incident that started this little war, it appears that the Georgians want to claim a ceasefire with out actually stopping shooting.
bjacques, the War Nerd came through with a post today.
Marek:
Where's the War Nerd located on the web?
From the online videos the Russians are far better equipped and look to be in good spirits. Much improved from the crap army of the Chechen campaigns.
The Georgian light infantry was riding in the back of non-militarized Toyota Tundras and the column was without anti-aircraft support.
Cheney...always with the oil. I bet he cooked up this Bay of Pigs II disaster.
The War nerd just got back at the right time.
Now, like Matthew Saroff said, it is heavily copied on Kosovo. Which doesn't mean that Russia is all white, they have some serious interests involved and will use their massive force to hit on someone weaker.
That said, contrary to the US of last few years, they seem to be able to pick someone so considerably weaker that they won't lose.
Besides, Georgia was in the very unenviable place of being a small weak nation neighboring a huge monster - like France from Middle Ages to Napoleon, like US for the last 2 centuries, like, well, like Russia since at least 250 years. Or like being a puny Germanic independant town too close to 18/19th century Prussia.
By the way, Ossetians and Georgians have a centuries-long history of hitting each other. Actually, pretty much every time you have 2 neighboring ethnies in the Causasus, they have a fighting history going back centuries ago - with usually the bigger one winning, unless a bigger bully comes around (usually the biggest bully being Russia who plays the weakest against the moderately-sized bully, just like UK did in 18-19th and US in 19-20th, and like the Romans did way back then - read about the fightings between Ptolemaic Egypt and the Antigonid kingdom).
Now, I just hope Georgians will see it's over, Russians will stop any ground assault at the provinces' borders and it'll end there. Because ground invasion of purely-Georgian Georgia would be a very bad idea and might have consequences. Not as bad as Kristol or Kagan want them to be, but still. And that would be a worrying signal from Moscow - far more than the mess of these last days, which shouldn't surprise anyone.
Abkhazians got a lot of Russian passports as well, I think. Since like Ossetians they're more or less autonomous and satellites of Russia more than of Georgia, they more or less tend to refuse to use Georgian IDs, pretending to be independant. And since their own Abkhazian/Ossetian papers are worth nothing outside their area, they quickly grabbed the Russian passports that were so conveniently offered.
Speaking of Sochi and the 2014 Winter Olympics, it's quite close to Georgia. At least the official one, it's quite close to Abkhazia. In fact, in the chaos following Oct. 1917 Revolution, the Georgians actually controlled Sochi for a time, before a bigger player snatched it from them. So, all in all, I think Russia is also keen to have the real de facto border between Russia and Georgia as far as possible from their incoming show.
I suppose one thing this fiasco will accomplish is kill Georgia's efforts to join NATO. And make the rest of NATO think hard about adding more eastern European countries.
Thinking about it, what does Georgia have to offer NATO? Nothing I can see. On the other hand, who wants to be sucked into an alliance with a loose cannon like Saakashvili running things. It's one thing to form a mutual defense pact with stable sensible democratic countries like Norway and the Netherlands. Another thing entirely to guarantee the defense one of these hot blooded caucus states.
I doubt the people of Gori believe that the Russian jets were attacking military installations
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/
...eorgia.russia11
yet again the innocent suffer because of the egos of politicians.
Well, it is kind of odd that it's Putin and not Medvedev who's everywhere at once. What's with that?
What have people heard about the fact that the so-called separatists were riled up and funded by the russians?
bjacques: Putin remains the de facto leader of Russia. Medvedev is a ventriloquist's dummy.
Well, it is kind of odd that it's Putin and not Medvedev who's everywhere at once.
if by odd, you mean utterly predictable, then yes. it is odd.
littlest gator: It's quite clear (except, apparently, to the apologists for renewed Russian imperialism) that Russia started this by funding the S. Ossetian separatists and then attacking in force as soon as the Georgian government decided to move in and reassert sovereignty. Russia's aim is quite clearly to shut off or take over the alternative pipeline through Georgia for Caspian oil to flow to the west and increase their power over the EU.
I think so too, this is why I wonder when folks like some of our commenters above concentrate on the Georgians as the aggressors.
I'm not apologizing for Russia. Their track record in things like this is as clear as can be, but they didn't start this. Georgia did. They tried to take over South Ossetia and force the Russian majority there to drop their separatist demands.
It was, to say the least, a "rough wooing"...and Putin's response was predictable. Georgia has been begging for membership in NATO. What if Mexico, years ago, had opted for membership in the The Warsaw Pact?
And of course, Georgia is one of the few remaining members of the coalition of the rented, and called in THAT chit by insisting that bush airlift it's 2,000 troops back to Georgia and into the fighting...which airlift has not gone unnoticed by Putin.
Oh. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was, for years, a long-time registered lobbyist for Georgia. His company received about $900,000 from Georgia over the past 6 years.
Unlike Obama, McCain is assigning the blame to Russia. Let's see if the MSM makes the lobbying connection.
BTW, Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, doesn't exactly have a lily-white record for dealing with opposition in Georgia.
And, Obama is about to get another test. McCain is directly blaming Russia for this, and so far, Obama hasn't assigned the responsibility for the bloodshed to one side or the other...just saying they should both stop fighting.
Let's see if McCain can make some headway with his latest Gen. Jack D. Ripper/Curtiss LeMay "The Russkies are coming!" bullshit, and if he can force Obama to dump the blame on Russia.
If he does, instead of pointing out that Georgia attacked South Ossetia last week, it will be one more cave for him, and I'm already tired of them.
An aside: Good luck to bush with getting Russia to sign off on more pressure on Iran to daylight or postpone their nuclear energy program, after bush had our military fly those 2,000 well-rested, well-armed, troops back into Georgia.
Putin has already had a few choice words to say about it.
The question is, how soon is george bush going to run out of chits to hand out like they were party favors?
I know Medvedev is Putins's stooge, but since he showed a bit of initiative while Putin was in China, doesn't he get at least a little face time instead of being elbowed offstage?
Russia's been pouring money into both S. Ossetia and Abkhazia for years. When we did it, it was called dollar diplomacy.
After Georgia shells Tskhinvali it's hard to work up much outrage over Russia moving in. None of the actors are acting in good faith, but Russia quickly shutting down Georgia's military looks like the least worst outcome right now. With Russia controlling the air and the main highway, Georgia's army can't move at all.
None of this had to happen. But Clinton's and Bush's policies towards Russia haven't shown a lot of good faith. I really think encouraging the IMF and World Bank to loot the country left a nasty taste in Russians' mouths and allowed someone like Putin to flourish. Ignoring centuries of (well-founded) Russian paranoia and expanding NATO and building an anti-missile shield on their doorstep was lunacy. Maybe Putin would have ended up on top anyway, but it seems the US (and the UK to some extent) went out of their way to ensure he would. (Like Bush pissing off Iranians enough to vote in Ahmadinejad.)
CNN are taking the official line of the Soviet-style crushing of a beautiful democracy. I'll get more useful info reading the War Nerd and watching the music videos (Saakashvili vs T.A.T.U.?) now turning up on YouTube.
tlg:
US interests are running a heavy agitprop campaign on behalf of Georgia.
Excellent Mark Ames article:
The invasion was backed up by a PR offensive so layered and sophisticated that I even got an hysterical call today from a hedge fund manager in New York, screaming about an “investor call” that Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze made this morning with some fifty leading Western investment bank managers and analysts. I’ve since seen a J.P. Morgan summary of the conference call, which pretty much reflects the talking points later picked up by the US media.
DOD is claiming the Georgians are full of shit.
US defense officials said they were unable to corroborate the Georgian claims. "We don't see anything that supports they are in Gori," said a defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I don't know why the Georgians are saying that."
Unless you're a Russian oil oligarch, an American oil plutocrat, or one of the poor saps getting killed there is no point in picking sides in this game. Just the rich looking to get richer.
The second time as farce: invocations of international law, demands for a ceasefire and proportionality of response. Condi stays shopping. W plays the fool.
odd I see a lot of the asame names that where pro tebetin sovernty that seem to be anti S. Ossetia sovernty.
China, leaves people alive, tries t ominamly assimilate culture (a lot less then msot western antions) Georgia, runs campine of ethnic cleansing.
Coudl some one give me a cheat sheet of who the good guys and who the bad guysare, my criteria seems to be off.
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