I think that Russia’s adventure in Georgia just might turn out to be a fiasco:
Ukraine offers satellite defence co-operation with Europe and US
The proposal, made amid growing outrage among Russia’s neighbours over its military campaign in Georgia, could see Ukraine added to Moscow’s nuclear hitlist. A Russian general declared Poland a target for its arsenal after Warsaw signed a deal with Washington to host interceptor missiles for America’s anti-nuclear shield.
The move came as the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a cease-fire deal that sets the stage for a Russian troop withdrawal after more than a week of warfare with its neighbour Georgia.
Russia has created a mountain of crisis, looks like it will obtain a mole hill of territory, and has angered just about everyone in Europe. Not a very slick move on Putin’s part. The analogy here is the Agadir crisis of 1911 - Germany stamped on its neighbor’s foot and the only real result of the aggressive act was a stronger anti-German alliance.
One thing we have to keep in mind here is that Putin and his gangsters aren’t all of Russia. While we do have to react in various anti-Russian ways, we must always keep the door open to more sensible Russians who may be able to force Putin out at some future date and re-set Russia on the patch of democracy.
Oh, as an aside: don’t you lefties who fought so hard against SDI feel like, well, a bunch of stupid fools? You know, like a bunch of suckers who fell first for communist propaganda about it, and now have fallen for Putin’s semi-fascist propaganda about it? Man, its gotta suck to be wrong about everything, all the time.
Tags: Georgia, Poland, Putin, Russia, South Ossetia, Strategic Defense Initiative, Ukraine
August 17th, 2008
Exactly the sort of thing needed to inject a note of reality into Russian deliberations:
The United States and Poland reached a long-stalled deal on Thursday to place an American missile defense base on Polish territory, in the strongest reaction so far to Russia’s military operation in Georgia.
Russia reacted angrily, saying that the move would worsen relations with the United States that have already been strained severely in the week since Russian troops entered separatist enclaves in Georgia, a close American ally.
But the deal reflected growing alarm in countries like Poland, once a conquered Soviet client state, about a newly rich and powerful Russia’s intentions in its former cold war sphere of power. In fact, negotiations dragged on for 18 months — but were completed only as old memories and new fears surfaced in recent days.
Those fears were codified to some degree in what Polish and American officials characterized as unusual aspects of the final deal: that at least temporarily American soldiers would staff air defense sites in Poland oriented toward Russia, and that the United States would be obliged to defend Poland in case of an attack with greater speed than required under NATO, of which Poland is a member.
Polish officials said the agreement would strengthen the mutual commitment of the United States to defend Poland, and vice versa. “Poland and the Poles do not want to be in alliances in which assistance comes at some point later — it is no good when assistance comes to dead people,” the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Polish television. “Poland wants to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours of — knock on wood — any possible conflict.”
Next up, the Baltic States - we really need to teach Russia a lesson about which nation is the super power and which nation is the rapidly declining power of the second rank. Putin and his gang seem to labor under the illusion that Russia has the strength to stand on her own in the world - she doesn’t. Russia either gives up her imperial ambitions and agrees to alliance with the United States (after, of course, becoming a full democracy), or Russia will eventually find itself the conscript ally of China. There is only one way Russia retains her Asian territories beyond 2050, and that is in alliance with the United States.
The world changes and things do shift - and one of the shifts has been the eclipse of Europe by the Americas and Asia. Europe has its choices to make, and the wisest choice for all of Europe is to cling tightly to the United States, the bulwark of western (ie, European) civilization. Poland has figured this out, and we pray that Russia will eventually figure it out, too.
Tags: Georgia, NATO, Poland, Russia, South Ossetia, Strategic Defense Initiative
August 15th, 2008
