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To: Jubal Harshaw

Would Turkey or any of those other countries you mentioned be willing to become involved in a war with Russia in support of Georgia? If the answer is no, then their support is next to meaningless. All Russia has to do is simply steamroll over the opposition and wait for the condemnations to die down. They have the forces to do so as was the case in Chechnya and they certainly have the funding to ignore the outside world (thank you $4.50 for a gallon of gas).


14 posted on 08/09/2008 12:11:43 PM PDT by KantianBurke (President Bush, why did you abandon Specialist Ahmed Qusai al-Taei?)
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To: KantianBurke

Turkey has already started to get involved, in the sense that after hostilities started, they committed to sell supplies (electricity in this case) to Georgia. There are Chechen separatists who’ve been fighting their own ongoing war with Russia for well over a decade now (though, of course, I recognize that, for the most part, the major conflict in Chechnya is at a standstill). US advisors are already stationed in Georgia. This active phase of the Georgian / Russian war has just begun; it’s too soon to tell just yet what other countries will get involved, but, so far, there’s some indication that Georgia will not be alone.

As for “steamrolling” over the opposition as they did in Chechnya: it took the Russians about a decade to “steamroll” the Chechens — who aren’t yet completely flattened. The Russian military is large, but, from all accounts, it’s poorly led, fed, equipped, trained, and motivated. The Georgian military is relatively tiny, but it’s apparently very motivated, and large parts of it have just been trained and equipped by US advisors as part of the war in Iraq. Further, the Georgians don’t have any other significant conflicts looming on the horizon.

So, again, it depends. If the Russians don’t steamroll the Georgians quickly, then the Georgians might be able to gather international support ... and then all bets are off.


18 posted on 08/09/2008 12:47:04 PM PDT by Jubal Harshaw
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