Ok, so what we’ve got to do is follow up on this. Vlad isn’t going to get it until he really hates what we do to him. Out of the G-8, no way on WTO, more NATO nations, find ways to cut his oil income - basically when he looks like the putz he is, then he’ll have to do something to fix the problem, and not before.
I see it as more of a question related to what NOT to do.
What we can not do is roll over to the idea that Russia somehow has a claim to the territory they desire which would total nearly a third of Georgia. They simply must be stopped.....Period...end of statement....
We must escalate in direct proportion to what they do, and maintain the high ground by what ever means we have, to include military force and even the risk of a nuclear exchange.
That's what we must do. There is no other conclusion that is viable. Russia has made their intentions quite clear.
As to these areas of dispute, the land belongs to Georgia, and the people on it are free to leave.
This is the only possible way to put it, without ceding to Russian demands which are the same as they were in the early 1920s when Russia invaded for the first time and when my grandparents fled as refugees to the U.S.
The demands then were similar. A faked protectorate response to aggression by Georgia that never happened to begin with. This is all repeated history to me.
Bush should call for Chechen independence also.