I dispute several assertions. First of all, Russia had been preparing for this for months, and Georgia is adjacent to them. Comparably, it was as hard for them to put forces there as it would be for the US military to put forces in the breakaway State of Michigan.
However, the story does not end there. What Russia hoped to accomplish and what Russia did accomplish are two very different things. If Russia would have known then what it knows now, it most likely would have decided that they should keep out of Georgia.
While Russia got two small pieces of Georgia, that were already mostly gone for a decade, it raised the alarm in every single country of the world that hates Russians. Years of soothing efforts at diplomacy and peace were shot to heck, and now every one of those countries are on the defensive and aligned against Russia.
On top of that, Europe has fully realized that oil from Russia comes with a high price, and so they had better start looking for oil elsewhere. Eastern Europe, especially, is now desperate to join NATO and form any other alliances it can to protect itself. Even neutral Sweden and Finland, which were pretty much demilitarizing themselves, have suddenly discovered a very good reason to have a powerful and well trained army.
Economically, it has been a nightmare for Russia. Since the Georgian invasion, their stock market has dropped 30%, 7% just a day or two ago, recovering 4.5% on a stupid rumor that the government was about to intervene with oil revenues to protect the market. This means more bad news on Monday. Foreign investment is leaving skid marks in leaving Russia, taking at least $20B out of their economy.
Politically, any number of schemes Russia had with foreign governments are blowing up, right and left. They let slip that their next effort would be to seize the Crimea from Ukraine, and while half the government of Ukraine is pro-Moscow, they are probably going to be savaged in the next election.
And remember that the Russians tried to murder their president with dioxin poison? Utter ruthlessness kind of defeats the purposes of guile and subtlety.
Finally, the US is suspending a lot of cooperation with Russia, based on the idea that they are so active in making mischief around the world that it is impossible to do business with them. They are ill-behaved, and must be treated as such.
“newly minted russian citizens” is misleading.
the soviet and stalin moved russian nationals into various peripheral regions for the purpose that putin used recently as an excuse to invade ossetia. even more ossetians now have russian papers.
the statue of stalin in gori was not damaged by the russians during their recent invasion.
interesting, john mccain visted in 2006, according to wikipedia:
>On August 26, 2006, the high-ranking delegation of the United States Senators led by the Arizona Senator John McCain paid a visit to the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone. The group visited Tskhinvali and met with the de facto leader Eduard Kokoity. Speaking about his visit to Tskhinvali, Senator McCain said that the trip was “not very productive.” Senator McCain said:
“Because there was not a direct response to our questions about why OSCE has been blocked from doing its job; why there has been no progress on peace initiatives from Georgia, from the UN, from the OSCE, from other organizations - there has been no progress. I think that the attitude there is best described by what you see by driving in [Tskhinvali]: a very large billboard with a picture of Vladimir Putin on it, which says ‘Vladimir Putin Our President’. I do not believe that Vladimir Putin is now, or ever should be, the President of sovereign Georgian soil”.<
Aside from having no penchant for pushing Cold War 2 propaganda. I enjoyed the whammy illustrated by Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster on the military during the Clinton years.
Excellent article. I’ve grown rather weary of the endless blathering about “4th Generation Warfare” (I actually don’t think much about dividing concepts of war into tidy generational sections in general).
>”I do not believe that Vladimir Putin is now, or ever should be, the President of sovereign Georgian soil”<
john mccain said that.
Thanks for posting.
btrl