Posted on 09/07/2008 5:03:56 AM PDT by maquiladora
The US is negotiating with Georgia and Turkey to establish a naval base at one of the two key Georgian ports of Batumi or Poti, reports say.
Turkey, in an attempt to avoid political tension with Russia, has not officially revealed its position regarding the plan, said Gruzya Online, a Russian-language internet site.
Russia had previously announced its intention to station its own special forces at the Georgian ports.
One of the responsibilities of US Special Forces in the region is to ensure the security of an oil pipeline passing through Georgia.
Great news.
Insanity.
That would be a non-sequitur. :)
Thought we already had a Submarine Base at Kings Bay.
Russia is a dictatorship. The only thing Putin understands or respects is power. We should establish the naval base.
Not at all. There are degrees of insanity. Having to face off the Ruskies is just your garden variety insanity (in this case, on the part of the Russians). Extreme insanity would be screwing around and pretending that it wasn't going to come to this. So, in this case, insanity is good news (as opposed to extreme insanity).
I will believe this when our DoD announces it. But its a great idea.
Yeah, I’ll wait until someone (something) else than the Iranian government announces it.
Good ol Cheney, he is trying to show how bad we can make it.
Are you scared?
No. Just curious why anyone would support such a stupid idea. What's the purpose? Protect Georgia? Hard to do that from the Black Sea. Besides, Russia doesn't want the rest of Georgia, it has South Ossetia and Abkhazia. And it has already said that it isn't going to give them up. So the rest of Georgia is safe and a navy base isn't going to get Ossetia back.
So you put a couple of destoyers in the Black Sea, then what? They don't have any air cover, which means they're vulnerable to attack. So do you establish an air force base there, too? And if you put an air force and a navy base in Georgia then won't you need to put some marines or army units in there to protect them? So soon you've got tens of billions of dollars spent and thousands of military personnel in Georgia, and you still haven't answered why?
To support the BTC pipeline (no Russian ownership) and other commerical endeavors and start-ups. And, not least of all, to further the cause of liberty not only there but throughout the region.
Heck, Turkey just found common cause with Armenia with the visit of Gul to Yerevan. If the balance of Caucasian republics could find cause to agitate together, the Russian Bear could be pretty busy indeed.
With a destroyer or two?
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person here with sane grasp of the Georgia situation. Unfortunately, the idiots in Washington are in agreement with FR's keyboard warrior brigade. I think they're perfectly willing to continue to escalate this situation to the point of war with Russia.
Of course, it may not come to that - there's a lot of things the Russians can do to retaliate for our interference in their affairs, and to weaken us to the point that intervention becomes impossible.
Russia could go ahead and occupy all of Georgia. They've made it perfectly clear that they won't have Georgia in NATO, the US says they're going to keep pushing membership, so maybe they just make it a moot point by occupying Georgia and installing a friendly puppet gov't.
Russia can begin supplying aid to the resistance groups in Iraq & Afghanistan. As you may already know, the Russians had pretty much defeated the resistance in Afghanistan by 1986, but when the Afghans were supplied with Stinger missiles, the situation returned to the type of stalemate that is occurring today - US/NATO occupiers basically controlling every square inch of ground that they are standing on, and pretty much nothing else.
You can imagine the effect Russian munitions would have in those conflicts. Instead of 50-60 dead a month, maybe it'd be 50-100 dead each day. Every low-altitude aircraft targeted by a barrage of missiles, massive US troop buildups to maintain control - it would be a disaster.
The Russians could start (if they haven't already) supplying weapons to every country we're on bad terms with - large quantities of modern weapons, and maybe even Russian troops, in places like Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua would put a lot of strain on our already dangerouslly-overstretched military.
The worst Russian response I save for last - target our economy. Imagine that you wake up one day and see that overnight the Russians have dumped all their dollar-denominated holdings on the global financial market, stated that they will no longer take dollars in payment for debt, and that they are shutting down Russian oil production for a few weeks.
The global daily production and consumption of petroleum are almost exactly the same - imagine the effect on the economy if 12% of daily global supply disappears. It would be nothing short of catastrophic for us.
For the Russians, and most other oil exporters, they wouldn't be effected much. Unlike the bankrupt US, Russia is solvent, and any loss of income from taking their $105/bbl oil off the market would be made up by putting it back on the market a few weeks later at $500/bbl.
Yea, let's go ahead and keep antagonizing those Godless commies in their own back yard - after all, Georgia is so vital to US security and well within the traditional US sphere of influence.
No. A base.
OK why not just rent a gas station, call it a base, and then you're happy?
By keeping control of Batumi we are also establishing a presence on Turkey's eastern border if Russia decides to advance that far.
Seldom have I read more ignorant moronic Putinista Bullcrap on this forum. You should go to work for the Kremlin's information ministry. The rest of Georgia is "safe" because the Kremlin says they don't want the rest of Georgia? You must be unaware that your oh-so trustworthy Kremlin said they would pull back to the separatist territories and they still haven't. They continue to occupy Georgian territory outside Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Our force is in fact strong enough to defend Georgia. The Russians won't dare attack US forces and risk nuclear war. They only pick on the weak.
It's a good thing we have smarter people than you in charge.
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