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The West Begins to Doubt Georgian Leader Five weeks after the war in the Caucasus the mood is shifting against Georgian President Saakashvili. Some Western intelligence reports have undermined Tbilisi's version of events and there are now calls on both sides of the Atlantic for an independent investigation. But now, five weeks after the end of the war in the Caucasus, the winds have shifted in America. Even Washington is beginning to suspect that Saakashvili, a friend and ally, could in fact be a gambler -- someone who triggered the bloody five-day war and then told the West bold-faced lies....

The Russian invasion of Georgia is an ominous portent. Georgia is too small a state to be a threat to Russia, and the composition of its government is of only marginal importance to the Kremlin. Yet here are Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian president, and his Siamese twin Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, raging against Georgia in wild language and crushing it with even wilder action. The Russian national interest, as they understand it, evidently is promoted by the display of brutality. This marks a shift in the world order -- and, seemingly, a reprise of the Cold War. The provinces...

Georgians streamed to Sunday Mass a month after the start of a war with Russia and prayed for lasting peace while Russian forces remained dug in deep inside Georgian territory. A day before European Union leaders are due in Russia and Georgia in an effort to ease the crisis, Moscow gave no sign it would accede to their demand to withdraw its troops to pre-conflict positions. Nor was there any letup in Russia's aggressive rhetoric. At the Kashueti church on the main avenue in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital, Georgian Orthodox faithful lit candles and lined up to kiss the glass pane...

KIEV, Ukraine – With Russian troops stationed deep in Georgia, fears run high that Ukraine may be the next victim of a Kremlin drive to reclaim dominance in the former Soviet Union. Many here believe Moscow has its sights on Ukraine's strategic Crimea peninsula on the Black Sea - once a jewel of Russia's empire. Officials both here and in the West worry how far Russia might go to stop Ukraine's drive to join NATO and to regain control of Crimea. Analysts say war between the two nations is highly unlikely. While Georgia is a small nation of 4.6 million,...

Forty years ago this week, the greatest English-language poet of the 20th century sat down and wrote an eight-line verse: The Ogre does what ogres can, Deeds quite impossible for Man, But one prize is beyond his reach, The Ogre cannot master Speech. About a subjugated plain, Among its desperate and slain, The Ogre stalks with hands on hips While drivel gushes from his lips. W.H. Auden did not give this telling piece of brilliant doggerel a grandiose name. (He had, after all, called his finest poem "September 1, 1939," simply after the day on which it was composed.) But...

By now it should be painfully obvious to all of Eastern Europe -- from the Ukraine and Romania to Poland and the Baltic States -- that they can not count on Western Europe or the U.S. for the defense of their sovereignty. They don't want to go back to being under Russian dictatorship and dysfunctional economics. And they can't count on Western Europe, the U.S. or NATO to do much of anything. Western Europe is dependent on Russia for energy and it is pacifist. The U.S. is overstretched militarily and financially and has lost a lot of moral authority. Its...

Eastern Europe Can Defend Itself By MAX BOOT August 25, 2008; Page A13 Eastern Europeans are rightly alarmed about the brazenness and success of the Russian blitzkrieg into Georgia. For many living in Russia's shadow, this is reviving traumatic memories -- of 1968 for Czechs, 1956 for Hungarians, 1939 for Poles. It does not help that senior Russian generals are threatening to rain nuclear annihilation on Ukraine and Poland if they refuse to toe the Kremlin's line. Even those states which, unlike Georgia and Ukraine, are already in NATO can take scant comfort. As Poland's foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, says,...

Mr. Putin’s mistake By VANYA EFTIMOVA BELLINGER - Guest Columnist I might be biased. My husband was one of the first American soldiers deployed to train the Georgian troops in 2006. We pray for our friends stuck in that tiny country — both Georgians and Americans. I am Bulgarian by birth, an Eastern European — a member of a group of countries and societies known as very sensible when it comes to the Russia of the past of the Soviet bloc. Reading the news about the violence in Caucasus, the average Westerner might be surprised and confused about how the...

This August 21st marks 40 years since the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops, an invasion meticulously planned by the Soviet Union to crush the period of economic and political reforms known as the Prague Spring. Within hours of late August 20th and early August 21st some 2,000 tanks as well as an estimated 200,000 troops had poured in. It was the beginning of the occupation which changed the course of Czechoslovak history. Marta Hubscherová – a former radio reporter - witnessed the arrival of the first tanks in northern Bohemia; in an interview for Radio Prague in 2004...

Text of report in English by Polish national independent news agency PAP Warsaw, 20 August: I am very glad that irrespective of all ups and downs we have a good agreement, President Lech Kaczynski said on Wednesday after Poland and the USA signed a deal on placing 10 missile interceptors in Poland. The president stressed that the Polish-US deal was the implementation of one of the strategic goals of his presidency. He stressed the deal was reached thanks to the two governments and one presidency.

As the Bush administration speeds ahead with plans to construct a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, some Democrats in Congress want to put on the brakes, saying it has not been adequately tested.

NATO declared Tuesday that it cannot have normal relations with Russia while its troops occupy large parts of Georgia, but alliance foreign ministers failed to terminate any cooperative programs. The outcome of the emergency session called by the Bush administration indicated continuing divisions within the 26-nation organization even as Moscow has failed to withdraw its forces under a French-brokered ceasefire agreement. Russia's representative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, made light of the western alliance's indecision. "The mountain gave birth to a mouse," he told reporters. Some European powers, like Germany, have been counseling restraint, anxious not to aggravate the crisis and...

Recent developments in Central Asia – with Russian geopolitical influence again rising, while U.S. power in the region wanes – stand to invigorate a long-running debate over the philosophical foundation of the Kremlin’s foreign policy. The turn of events could breathe new life into so-called Eurasianists, who argue that Russia has a unique identity and should thus embark on a development course apart from the West. Since the Soviet collapse in 1991, Russian academics and policy-makers have struggled to develop a concept that could guide Russia’s revival. Westernizers and Eurasianists have played prominent roles in the ongoing debate. Eurasianism as...

<p>UKRAINE yesterday offered to create a joint missile defence network with the West amid fears that its port city of Sebastopol, home of the Russian Black Sea fleet, could become the next flashpoint between Russia and its former satellites.</p> <p>The Ukrainian offer, which means its early warning radar stations could become part of the West’s civil defence system, will further damage poor relations between Kiev and Moscow.</p>

<p>WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland strikes a deal on a U.S. missile defense base. Ukraine tries to limit the Russian navy's movement in its waters. The Czech Republic's leader warns his nation is in danger of being sucked back into Moscow's orbit.</p>

Poland’s President not afraid of Russia Created: 16.08.2008 10:39 Despite aggressive rhetoric coming out of Moscow, President Lech Kaczynski thinks the West is stronger than Russia and can and must stand up to it. Russia’s anger with Warsaw for its strong support of Georgia in the war over South Ossetia grew on Thursday evening when the Polish government announced that it had signed a preliminary agreement with Washington to house ten interceptor rockets on its soil as part of the US antimissile shield in Europe. An American garrison is also to be hosted in northern Poland by 2012. On Friday...

There may yet be hope for Olde Europe. The Frances and Germanys (Left Europe) still look down their snoots at the poorer, grittier Eastern cousins (Right Europe) whom they grudgingly let into their club as junior partners. But the Polands, Romanias, and Baltic States may end up being their salvation. One immediate benefit of the East's reintegration is that Europe no longer has a testosterone deficiency, although there is still an east (mucho) - west (nada) imbalance.Poland and the Baltic States do not share France and Germany's conciliatory attitude towards Vlad the Impaler. Here's what Polish President Lech Kaczynski had...

A top Russian general said Friday that hosting a U.S. missile shield makes Poland a Kremlin military target, even as Moscow lowered its saber by agreeing to a cease-fire with the former Soviet republic of Georgia in their nations' weeklong war. According to Russia's Interfax news agency, Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said Poland's decision could even lead to a nuclear attack on the Kremlin's former Warsaw Pact ally. Russia's president also denounced the U.S.-Poland deal as an anti-Russia act, though he stopped short of threatening Warsaw. "By hosting [U.S. anti-missile missiles], Poland is making itself a target. This is 100 percent,"...

KIEV, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Pro-Western Ukraine vowed on Thursday to make Russia seek official permission for movements of its warships based in the ex-Soviet state despite Moscow's objections, placing the neighbours on a collision course. Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based on Ukraine's Crimea pensinsula under an agreement signed by the two ex-Soviet states. Kiev's jurisdiction over the area remains a highly sensitive issue among Russian nationalists and in the peninsula dominated by ethnic Russians. Ukraine's plans for tougher rules on Russian naval moves, announced by President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday, are the latest affront to Moscow after Kiev's...

Solidarity with Georgia concert in Warsaw 14.08.2008 A concert is to be held in Warsaw evening today to show Solidarity with Georgia. The concert will take place by the Warsaw Rising Museum, which is co-organising the concert with Poland’s public television broadcaster, TVP. A few renowned Polish bands are to perform, including Perfect and Pogodno. The concert is to be performed in the place where Polish and Georgian Presidents, Lech Kaczyński and Micheil Saakashvilli, paid homage in May 2007 to the Georgian contract officers who fought in the Polish Army, and who were killed at Katyn, the Warsaw Rising and...