Russian Miscalulations

A couple of points. Russia bluster against Moldova is just noise. Moldova has no intention of changing the status of Trans-Dniester. Russia is feeling an emotional high in it success in hurting Saakashvili and rubbing his nose in his impotence to do anything about it on the ground.

I am hearing a lot about who is at fault and would like to point you to Michael Totten interview in Georgia about that subject http://www.michaeltotten.com.

Supposedly in July Medevev had advised his diplomatic staff that the status had changed and that Russia was going to act from an attitude of strength and not weakness and they were all given the new promotion of more pugilistic nationalist arguments.

So this blustery comment is part of that change in direction. However the increasing antagonistic words from Russia to the US is worrisome. They seem to be derived from a calculation that the US is basically powerless to react on a military basis due several reasons: the current elections, the anti-war resurgence constantly mentioned in the US press, our wish for Russia assistance in Iran, our supply needs for Afghanistan through Russia, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They also seem to have made a political calculation that Bush will not chance military action in the Georgian and Black Sea countries. I am not so sanguine about that. Bush is quite capable of allowing a military action to occur if he gets PO enough. Bush has the courage and fortitude to take immense risks and while he usually approaches that goal slowly he get to be very stubborn about reaching the goal. His determination to get rid of Saddam is an example.

I believe that this calculation is mistaken. The US is quite capable of action if it decided it is warranted and worth the difficulty. Russia should want to reassure us it is not worth it, rather than antagonizing the US

US would like to solve Iran nuclear weapon goals with economic pressure, which has had an effect of Iran’s economy already. But Iran’s leadership has not been slowed from their goal despite the costs. However if Bush is unable to accomplish his goal through sanctions due to Russia and China’s resistance he is likely to change tactics to a military strike or green light Israel to do so. So the question of the value of Russia to solve the Iran issue is not that great. France tried to stop us from enforcing sanction on Iraq, so we invaded.

US was enjoying the end of tension and effort of the cold war, but is quite capable to get back in. Our expertise on economic warfare has been improved in the effort to eliminate AQ funding in the financial markets. This has not been reported on but has been an amazing feat. Turn this against Russia and they are very vulnerable.

The NATO fleet in the Black Sea is a very strong political message that the Black Sea is not any longer the sole property of Russia’s Navy. But we do not want to rattle Russia too much they attack us in fear.

From Russia’s perspective we are encircling Russia from the Baltics to the Balkans and now the Caucasus states. Their proprietorship on Sevastopol is endangered from an uppity Kiev. The ability of Ukraine to prevent a land grab by Russia is minor. Crimea can be taken easily and not much Ukraine can do. So perhaps the comment to Moldova was really meant to Ukraine.

Russia has made the US to review our actual military needs to fulfill NATO obligations in the Balkans and Poland. NATO’s purpose has been reinvigorated. Before the invasion of Georgia the western perception that words and paper was enough to protect these states. That perception has been shown to be invalid. The question is if we want to make the Caucasus states also part of our defensive umbrella is being more realistically reviewed. If we decide to fully protect Georgia then naturally Azerbaijan comes into view and the protection of the independent flow of the Caspian oil to Europe and the west.

These oil pipeline deals were meant to assure an independent source of Caspian oil to Europe to relieve their dependence on Russia oil and gas. Now we have to rethink if the protection should be more overt with military might like we have assured Iraq’s oil will be.

The problem here is that I think Russia's calculation that we don't have the military capacity to do anything is accurate. After the Cold War, both parties bought into the sham idea of a "peace dividend" and slashed our military. They left us with enough forces to fight two regional wars assuring us it would be enough.

Well they were wrong. I said so then, and if there's any justice in the world, these people will be hanging their heads in shame for their error.

We need to start a significant military build up, and we need it to start yesterday. It's too bad we don't have the heavy industry to manufacture the weapons we need in the quantities we need to do that. You can thank the fanatical free traders for that.

We might have a resurgence in US manufacturing in order to rebuild to face Russia.

I have no doubt that we will. The question, however, is can we survive against the Russians until all that comes online? You don't just throw up a building and put an assembly line in it and have a functioning manufacturing plant. You need a trained workforce to operate it.

Given the pace that modern conventional war tends to be fought at, we're probably going to be in a situation where we have to win with what we have. So we'd better make sure we've got enough onhand to do the job.

Agreed. The force comparisons are beyond my knowledge. However we are planning to move the German NATO forces to Poland to make the new Russian front be in the new border states. According to reports, Russia has not modernized its military since the 1990’s and have not refitted a lot. The training is poor. Most of Putin's effort has be consolidatinmg political and economic power by taking over industries like Gazprom.

The USA on the other hand has been on a massive modernization due to the fact that we have been at war for 5 years and we have new fighters F 22 that we can up the contract for and new missiles, artillery etc.

see Military Hardware Backers Lock in on Russia

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/in-july-2006-th.html

The defense contractors are ready to ramp up with new weapons systems as they have been war gaming scenarios like in Azerbaijan.

Or the laser gunship http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/will-new-laser.html

So I believe that with the battle hardened veterans we have and the tech and we still have lots of tanks , ships and fighters and bombers we would win against Russia 100,000 army.

Russia is behind our curve on actual effective troop levels. Their population to draw from is 140,000,000. Ours is 300,000,000 and they have the Chinese on the border hungrily looking at Russia's resources.

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