Free Republic

While the Russians burn and pillage Georgian towns and villages, strangling Georgia’s economy to the point of collapse, the free world dithers. As one American analyst bitterly remarked, “The Europeans have telegraphed their total capitulation to Russia, and Moscow knows it. The Kremlin has looked into the soul of Europe and found – there is none.”

M oscow’s blitzkrieg in Georgia is more than a military campaign. It is designed to empower Russia’s diplomatic strategy, which seeks to make the European Union (EU) the West’s chief representative in future negotiations with Russia. Quite naturally the Kremlin wants to escape the logic of U.S. and NATO policy, which is to contain Russia within her national borders. Meanwhile, the European Union is an entirely different animal: toothless, utopian and ready to please.