When Russia sent troops into Georgian territory, they said it was just a peacekeeping force. Well, it hasn't taken long to dispel that notion. Yesterday Russian troops advanced south, leaving the disputed region of South Ossetia. Russian ships are covering the port cities, and the bombing by Russian planes has widened -- including a radar installation near the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
Frankly, now it's starting to look like the Russians are going to take over all of Georgia and impose a regime change -- to a regime that would go along with Russian desires. And there's really nothing that George Bush can do about it except try to sound tough.
After his misadventure in Iraq, Bush no longer has the moral authority to demand action on the world stage. And after what he has done to the American military over the last five years, they are in no shape to take on the Russian military. That means the European countries must take the lead in this dangerous situation.
And it is a very dangerous situation. If the Europeans aren't careful, we could be watching the opening moves of World War III. But if they are too timid, then Russia has carte blanche to intimidate all of it's former Soviet states into becoming basically nothing more than Russian colonies. It could be sort of a rebirth of the Soviet Union, with Putin as the iron-fisted dictator.
Bush has screwed up. He took his eyes off Russia, who poses a real danger to the Western democracies, and wasted our military trying to help his oil buddies steal Iraqi oil. Had the American military still been strong, vigilant and ready, the Russians might not have dared to invade Georgia.
You've been listening to too much U.S. media propaganda. Russia poses no threat to Western democracies. They are a second-rate power with an army comprised largely of half-starved and ill-trained draftee soldiers armed with leftover Soviet weapons from the 1970's and 1980's. They have sufficient forces to slap smaller neighboring states against the wall for the crime of poking the bear, but they have neither the logistical capability nor the force projection capability to do much more than that -- indeed, there's probably only 50,000 soldiers in the entire Russian Army that have anything approaching modern weapons and training. But those were not the ones that went into Georgia. The Russian tanks that rolled into Georgia were 1970's vintage T-72 tanks and 1960's-vintage T-64 tanks, albeit the unit that rolled into Georgia was one of Russia's better-trained units, fresh from fighting Chechan rebels (which is right on the other side of the border, remember -- this was Russia's rapid reaction force for in case Chechnya flared up again, not a force they had put there to invade Georgia, else they would have put a force armed with their best 1990's-vintage weapons rather than 40-year-old Soviet leftovers). If the Georgians had fought rather than run screaming like little girls, they had equipment that was twenty years newer, roughly equal numbers to the invading Russians, and could easily have fought the Russians to a standstill.
ReplyDeleteRussia does not want to occupy Georgia, and is rolling around Georgia now mostly out of bemusement at how the Georgian army units run screaming like little girls away from them rather than any intent to stay. I have no doubt they will withdraw to South Ossetia as soon as they destroy enough Georgian military equipment that the Georgians can't come back after them and re-invade South Ossetia again. Remember, the Georgians have better equipment than the Russians. Or perhaps we should change the verb tense to "had" :-).
Think Gulf War I, not Gulf War II. Like George H.W. Bush, Putin is a spook. Like George H.W. Bush, Putin has no intention of having his troops tied down in occupation duties when he can pull them back after teaching the Georgians to be properly respectful of their large and surly neighbor. The difference between Putin and Sonny Bush is that Putin actually has a brain. He has enough insurgent problems in Chechnya without taking on new ones in Georgia, so unlike Bush in Iraq, Putin isn't going to stay in Georgia (outside of the autonomous districts where Russians are welcomed as defenders against genocide at the hand of the ethnic Georgians). A suitably abashed Georgia that ceases poking at the bear and serves as an object lesson to neighboring states that if they try using military force against Russian interests they, too, will get thrown up against the wall and mauled, will serve Putin's purposes quite well. The Trashcanistans to the east will be suitably abashed, and Russia's southern border secured -- which, given Russian paranoia, is all they care about.
-- Badtux the War Penguin