Russia invades Georgia

[gtc]

Cannot Russia trade with whom it wants?

Do you support the various boycotts of Israel?

 

[Klimax]

If the plan is the same Russia will soon go on to take the rest of Georgia, as the Nazis did with Czechoslovakia. Time will tell.

Well,armed attempt - check
They refuse to acknowledge anymore goverment of Georige as legitimate certainly follows.Maybe the only difference is that they need different goverment which would be more cooperating.(Hitler knew that we would not allow it-no politician was so supremely stupid...)

 

[egslim]

I'm asking if Russia and China can trade with Cuba and Venezuela for example why can't the U.S. do the same with Georgia

One major difference is that the US pays for a significant part of the Georgian armed forces, while Russia makes money selling to Venezuela. Russia is in it for the money, the US apparently has other goals.

I have no doubt Russia continues to supply arms to Cuba yet the U.S. is not over reacting with force why?

Despite all the rethoric, the last armed confrontation between the US and Cuba was decades ago. Nor does there seem to be such a confrontation with Cuba or Venezuela on the horizon, regardless of any Russian arms supplied to either country.

On the other hand, the various forms of US military support have likely boldened Saakashvili into his little adventure. Now he is being re-equiped by the US, while the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is even more disputed than it used to be. Will the repeat of the US building up his forces lead to another kind of little adventure?
Russia has more cause for concern with Georgia than the US with Cuba.

 

[SDC]

Actually, the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is not materially changed, not "even more disputed." The Soviets....whoops, the Russian state supports and maintains them. Hardly anyone else accepts them. The Georgians are unreconciled and are going to remain so for the forseeable future. (That's simply Georgian internal politics, not the doing of the US.) And yes, it looks like the US will help Georgia re-arm.

In other developments, history will repeat itself in Wash DC, McCain will catch a bad cold at his inaug and die within a month of that, and President Palin ....

Will that prediction be detailed enough for my million dollars or do I have to go into more gruesome details?

 

[Matteo Martini]

You forgot to mention Poland and the Baltic states.

I find it remarkable that the US sphere of influence includes East Germany. I thought that was part of the BRD now. And evidently, to you, the US sphere of influence includes the entire European Union.

Who'd'a thunk it? All those Europeans, kowtowing and sucking up to the presidents of the US. Remarkable.

They are divided.
This is why.

Somewhow I do not see that in German,France,Spain;somewhat less in CR,Poland,Hungary,GB,...

Influence from USA is far more subtle and not threating then it was from SSSR.(See 1968)And in some way we paid back to world (tunneling was perfected here )

And so far I did not see any threats by USA to contries which disagreeded with USA,like Germany,France.Only threats to those helping terrorists,which is somewhat expectable...

Germany and France have far too many business and political connections to the US for the US consider them as a threat

 

[Klimax]

Germany and France have far too many business and political connections to the US for the US consider them as a threat

Evidence?And better be good...

 

[SDC]

Hah! Please be advised that I work in midtown Manhattan, which today (as so often) is overrun with foreign tourists. Even as I speak, the French and German tourists are being rounded up and will be shipped to ... "reeducation" camps in Staten Island, specifically at the Fresh Kills landfill. (One of only two human-produced artifacts visible from the moon, according to urban legend.) After successful brainwashing, or at least brainrinsing, they will be released and shipped back to their homelands, where they will say things like "I want to work ever-longer weeks, n'est-ce pas?" and "Bush is pretty much OK, nicht wahr?", and even, "European professional basketball is stinky-winky."

The goal, of course, is to eliminate the threat. Other Europeans will not be reeducated -- yet.

 

[CapelDodger]

Do you support the various boycotts of Israel?

Mind your own business.

 

[CapelDodger]

One major difference is that the US pays for a significant part of the Georgian armed forces, while Russia makes money selling to Venezuela. Russia is in it for the money, the US apparently has other goals.

Some elements of the US policy-making and power-projection mish-mash have certain shared goals vis-a-vis geopolitics. The end result is Russia shipping home loads of shiny US and Israeli military kit, and no sign that they wouldn't do it again just as easily.

Despite all the rethoric, the last armed confrontation between the US and Cuba was decades ago. Nor does there seem to be such a confrontation with Cuba or Venezuela on the horizon, regardless of any Russian arms supplied to either country.

Latin America, the US's "near abroad", with the Monroe Doctrine as testament. As soon as the commie threat disappeared the US entirely took its eyes off that ball. Without US support autocracies shrivelled, democracy spread, and the people keep speaking.

The US would have been far better served by looking to its own backyard instead of the Middle East or post-Soviet Europe. It's too late now.

 

[Cain]

McCain on Russian aggression in his acceptance speech.
They invaded for oil
They invaded to intimidate others.
They invaded to reassemble the Russian Empire.

It's an interesting geopolitical analysis that has no recent analogs in world history.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Latin America, the US's "near abroad", with the Monroe Doctrine as testament. As soon as the commie threat disappeared the US entirely took its eyes off that ball. Without US support autocracies shrivelled, democracy spread, and the people keep speaking.

The US would have been far better served by looking to its own backyard instead of the Middle East or post-Soviet Europe. It's too late now.

I suggest you reconsider what you think you know about Latin America and the US, post cold war and late cold war.

No need to shoot at people who you tend to trade with and with whom you have historic relationships, of varying quality. (See the trade deals in WW II for an example, that FDR cut. ) The relationship with the Arab world was never that clean. Also, places like Venezuela were sucking hind tit in the oil bizz, a few decades ago, due to the low grade of their crude. Mexico likewise. I still recall back when I lived in Southern California, people would go across the border, early 1980's, to fill up with the much cheaper/subsidized, Mexican gas.

Take a longer look, over a two decade period, where US low key involvement helped enable democracy and reform some rather right wing leadership. El Salvador. A completely different game was played, and it worked pretty well.

Time. That's the key factor.

DR

 

[egslim]

Actually, the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is not materially changed, not "even more disputed." The Soviets....whoops, the Russian state supports and maintains them.

Russia considered these areas "autonomous" parts of Georgia. Now they recognise them as independent. That makes them more disputed than they used to be.

Hardly anyone else accepts them.

The issue is between Russia and Georgia, with other nations almost entirely powerless to intervene. So whether or not these other nations accept them is quite irrelevant.

The Georgians are unreconciled and are going to remain so for the forseeable future. (That's simply Georgian internal politics, not the doing of the US.) And yes, it looks like the US will help Georgia re-arm.

So Georgia is looking for a rematch - under more favourable conditions, of course - and the US will give, not sell, them arms.
See the difference with Cuba?

 

[SDC]

I wasn't discussing Cuba.

The international acceptance question is not irrelevant. If it were, the Russians wouldn't have gone to China (etc.) looking for support after the fact. Further, in international politics, wide acceptance is always relevant.

"Autonomous" in this case is a distinction without a difference.

Really, at least try to follow the Russian press, OK? It's out there, online. Easy to find.

 

[SDC]

It is an error to state that the US attitude towards Latin America, Mexico, and the Caribbean is the same as the Soviet... whoops, Russian attitude towards its "near abroad," the states which emerged from the old USSR. The Russian statist view appears to be that they do not, truly, regard those other states as anything but "artificial and transitory." This means they do not regard them as valid and do not expect them to last.

The US expects to dominate, in a general sense, most of Latin America, and has been willing to send in troops to some of the small states of the Caribbean. But not actually South America or Mexico.

Really, the difference should be apparent.

Well, gotta run. Time to invade Canada.

ETA: and to dominate France and Germany. Matteo said we could. Yippee!

 

[egslim]

I wasn't discussing Cuba.

Then you shouldn't have responded to a post that pointed out the difference between Georgia and Cuba.

The international acceptance question is not irrelevant. If it were, the Russians wouldn't have gone to China (etc.) looking for support after the fact.

Minor effort, minor profit. No more than a footnote in the story.

The Russian statist view appears to be that they do not, truly, regard those other states as anything but "artificial and transitory."

When the former Soviet Republics were defined, they were never as potential independent states. They are as artificial as many African and Middle-East nations, and likely to be just as stable.

 

[SDC]

When the former Soviet Republics were defined, they were never as potential independent states. They are as artificial as many African and Middle-East nations, and likely to be just as stable.

Cut by me to one point.

"Defined," by whom and in which period? Do you mean within the Soviet federal structure? Don't forget that the Ukrainian and Belorussian SSR's (Soviet Socialist Republics) had seats in the UN. If that doesn't represent "international recognition" it is hard to understand what does.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were independent states in the interwar period, which gives them as good credentials as many others. Likewise Finland, which was part of the Russian empire pre-1918 but never became part of the USSR (though the Soviets debated doing that; also discussed absorbing all of Poland).

Armenia and Georgia had historic kingdoms before being absorbed by the Russian empire... Were you the poster who denied that, though? Someone in this general discussion did.

Could you please describe the extent to which you make use of Russian and other vernacular language news sources? I'm not asking for deep research, just some understanding of the extent to which you follow the news. I follow Russian and Polish news online daily (in those languages)... You can read Ukrainian or Russian news on the BBC, probably pretty reliable and thorough. What the Russians and all say among themselves, and how the Poles and Ukrainians (etc.) react to what for example the Russians say (because knowledge of Russian is quite widespread among them) is rather different from what turns up in the Anglophone press.

 

[Matteo Martini]

Evidence?And better be good...

Look at the trade volume between Germany and the US..

 

[egslim]

"Defined," by whom and in which period? Do you mean within the Soviet federal structure? Don't forget that the Ukrainian and Belorussian SSR's (Soviet Socialist Republics) had seats in the UN. If that doesn't represent "international recognition" it is hard to understand what does.

Nowhere did I mention "international recognition". Not to mention that Stalin basically blackmailed the US and UK to accept those additional seats for the SU, in exchange for his support of the UN as an organization. Recognition by blackmail is hardly credible.

And international recognition says nothing about viability.

Their modern boundaries were "defined" by Stalin if my history is correct, and he never intended them to become independent nations. Stalin favoured interdependence between Soviet Republics.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were independent states in the interwar period, which gives them as good credentials as many others. Likewise Finland, which was part of the Russian empire pre-1918 but never became part of the USSR (though the Soviets debated doing that; also discussed absorbing all of Poland).

I know all that, and I should have been more clear: When I mentioned "artificial states" I referred to those in the Caucasus and the Stans.

Armenia and Georgia had historic kingdoms before being absorbed by the Russian empire... Were you the poster who denied that, though?

It wasn't me.

But while Georgia as a nation in some form does have a long history, its modern borders do not. They were drawn up by Stalin, for purposes that had nothing to do with defining an independent state.
And therein lies the problem. Modern Georgia contains a number of minorities who also have a long history. They are decidedly non-Georgian, and have spent much of history under non-Georgian rule. So now they want no part of it. Much like the Czechs don't want to be part of the Austria-Hungarian empire anymore, even though they were for a significant period in history, and even if it became a democracy.

As long as the areas where those minorities live remain part of Georgia, its borders will continue to be artificial and there will be no end to its internal problems. Making the country very vulnerable to outside pressure, which is a recipe for an unstable state. Countries with such perpetual internal problems tend not to survive very long.

 

[CapelDodger]

Take a longer look, over a two decade period, where US low key involvement helped enable democracy and reform some rather right wing leadership. El Salvador. A completely different game was played, and it worked pretty well.

Looking back over those two decades, it was the disengagement of the US from such places as El Salvador that enabled democracy to progress. It disabled the autocracies because they were no longer of geopolitical signficance, in US eyes. The US contributed by no longer preventing democratic progress.

 

[CapelDodger]

Actually, the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is not materially changed, not "even more disputed." The Soviets....whoops, the Russian state supports and maintains them. Hardly anyone else accepts them.

As you say, there is no material change in status. These were "frozen conflicts" before, and they are now. There's no pressing need to unfreeze them.

The Georgians are unreconciled and are going to remain so for the forseeable future.

They might, just conceivably, start asking themselves how much they really care about South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Is a display of manhood by some chancer in Tblisi really worth all this aggro? And the bloated military budget? Why not modus vivendi and make some serious money out of the oil bonanza?