Analysis: why the Russia-Georgia conflict matters to the West – Times Online — My friends in the UK are baffled by the fact that this story is not being pounded much by the USA media. Are we in bed with the Russians on this deal? Or what? I’d like to see someone come up with a definitive and believable rationale for this conflict. Any takers? No knee-jerk crap, please.
America and Britain are closely involved in providing military assistance to the Georgians in the form of arms and training. The support is aimed at encouraging the rise of Georgia as an independent, sovereign state.
But the help is also partly a means of protecting the oil pipeline across Georgia that carries crude from the Caspian to the Black Sea, the only export route that bypasses Russia’s stranglehold on energy exports from the region.
If Georgia succeeds in reimposing its sovereignty over South Ossetia in the face of Russian opposition, it will be a huge setback to Moscow’s influence in the region and embolden other former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine and Azerbaijan.
Yes, “it’s all about the oil” is one credible explanation.
Of course it’s about oil as it should be. The wacky left in this country had rather see thousands die in a war over oil than allow this country it’s own vast oil reserves. The Russians are going to take control of the pipeline and thus the vast oil reserves of the east. This country needs oil to survive and we will end up fighting for it!. The crazy liberals just don’t care. Wind and solar power are not even close to being able to provide for the energy needs of this country and never will. Oil, coal, and natural gas are the cheapest forms of energy with the smallest foot print. The energy produced from a 3 square mile refinery complex would require over 300 square miles of land for the same energy from a wind farm! The smartest move is to combine conservation with renewed drilling and put our money into technologies that mitigate the effects of fossil fuels instead of living in this drug induced fantasy of “never using oil”.
http://www.ncpa.org/studies/renew/renew2e.html
maybe this is the big happening that makes shure that mccain becomes president.
the russians conquer the rest of georgia and tries to get to its old size and influence over the former sowjet territories.
this act of violation against the so called free, democratic and west- loving countries causes rage and hate against russia so we (us, gb, frz and gmny) fight back. tanks will head to the new sowjet union and the world is once again at the edge of a third world war. mccain becomes president and we are all happy and distracted again.
how does that sound??
I think any sort of thoughtful (if that is possible) conclusion that “this doesn’t matter to the west” (or shouldn’t) has to come from the same place that any isolationism comes from. I just can’t see how it doesn’t matter to the west unless you are pre-disposed to thinking that nothing “out there” matters to us. How you get there is the part that mystifies me…yet, I know people who think that.
Well, I’ll bite. The posted article itself says that Georgia gaining complete control over its territory would be a blow to Russia and encourage the Ukraine et al to seek complete freedom from Russia. So, if keeping Russia weak is a goal of the USA, helping Georgia would be consistent with that goal.
Now, if that were true, why aren’t we helping Tibet secure its much more valid claim to independence? And we are back to oil. I don’t think “oil” makes any sense at all, but that doesn’t mean thats not what it is?
Oil. Major pipeline in Georgia. Any tension in oil regions can drive prices.
I don’t know if I can come up with a definitive reason. Based on Russia’s recent past behavior (Ukraine, Schröder being bought by Gazprom and pushing to end Germany’s nuc power plants) I would give great weight to the energy supply argument.
Economic warfare and leverage can be more effective in controlling multiple foreign gov’t policies than military saber rattling. And, more economically rewarding…
I also think that this is the democrats nightmare come true. Obama is finished. This will remind everyone that the world is a very dangerous place and once the “Ruskies” have taken the country and pipeline (Putin says that Russia will take the incident “to it’s logical end”) speculators will drive the up the price of oil and Obama and his plans to raise taxes (remember his reply to the increase of gas prices was that he would have like to have seen the increases be more gradual!! and that by just adding a few pounds of air to our tires it will equal Billions of gallons of oil) will be well remembered by voters in the privacy of the voting booth. Hello President McCain
Let’s see:
1) The Osetians wanted to split from Georgia. They held referendums, elections, etc. and used all legal and democratic means to declare their independence.
2) A truce was in place for over a decade. The Russians were an official peace-keeping force keeping things in check.
3) Georgia attacked the de-facto independent territory and killed a number of Russian citizens.
4) Russia retaliated to protect the civilians and its troops that were attacked.
5) And it’s all Russians fault????
Questions for resident brainiacs:
1) Why it is OK for Albanians in Kosovo to split and it is not OK for other nations to follow a similar path?
2) Why it is OK for the US to protect its interests around the globe, but it is not OK for other nations to do the same?
3) Why it is ALWAYS Russians’ fault???
While the US should be supporting Georgia a lot more, its not gonna happen. We need Putin’s support on Iran and Iraq and Turkey. And we need Russian oil. So we can’t do anything real.
The US media is not covering it because they would much rather cover the Olymipics or Paris Hilton.
Russian strategy, paranoid and xenophobic, has always been to create buffer zones between it and opportunistic neighbors. This is mere strategy, not a resource grab.
I do not see as we have a leg to stand on in this, after our invasion of a sovereign nation that posed no risk to us ( Iraq) and our support of Israels invasion of Lebanon and subsequent cluster bombing of non military targets. Our moral and legal high ground was washed out to sea.IMO.
#9 – way too rational and too much accurate history. Do you expect the eedgit vote (see #1, #8) to pay attention to precedent or even consider answering difficult questions (see your own question #1)?
The Georgian government is a proxy NATO terrorist group (much like Iraq was when it attacked Iran). The best explanation I have heard (apart from oil) is that it was to test the Russian military response capabilities.
The Russians, whom I do not necessarily believe, reported some of the attackers were black (I do not think there are many black Georgians).
If you really want to know ask former Al-Qaeda commander Zbigniew Brzezinski.
This is a big deal. Ballistic missiles, naval blockade, strategic bombers, armor, and ground troops against a European country. Russia is asserting it’s dominance over the region.
They are testing Europe and the US to see how they’ll respond. NATO should be plenty worried. If no one stands up to them on this then the Ukraine should be more worried than anyone.
Georgia is huge ally of the US, even sending troops to Iraq. Putin went back to Russia to manage this and Bush hung around Beijing watching woman’s volleyball. Bush has no support at home to deal with this due to his lack of credibility, the US military is over extended, and Americans are obsessed with gas prices.
It’s up to the EU now.
History
The USSR was held together with fear. It was so diverse, fear was the only thing that worked. Stalin knew this, even though he took it to extremes. All those iron handed tactics made for a lot of hate. Georgian leaders need to understand that if you play with fire, you can get burned. This message is intended for the rest of the world, not just Georgia. In other words the Kremlin wants the world to know they’re back in business. Another reason NATO needs to think twice about over committing.
#15: Thanks for the links. Here is one more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/10/georgia.russia5
I’ll concede this is all part of something greater that we can’t as yet comprehend. But what’s interesting to me is that it’s happening during the Olympics.
#17: Very simplistic view of the history.
I wonder if cars will run on blood, may end up being less costly than oil
#16 “It’s up to the EU now.”
In other words, nothing will be done about it.
For those who really want to dive deep 🙂
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/default.cfm
If only energy fell from the sky, how much fear and aggression would disappear.
#22 Exactly.
Ironically Condi Rice is supposed to be a Russian policy expert.
Must be OIL or POLITICS. One of the other, or even both of them.
Russian peacekeeping…
#26 Nothing to do with oil. This is Russia telling it’s neighbors to quit cozying up to the US. Politics? This is pretty frickin’ hard politics.
#19 No coincidence. Putin knew he’d be meeting Bush face-to-face. The Europeans saw Bush hesitate and do nothing.
People are going to look back and say that this is when George Bush really, really screwed up. Iraq is bad, this is worse.
Fedup, how exactly does this doom Obama if the American media already decided to toss it on the backburner?
#28. this is worse than Iraq? how many thousands of American dead and trillions of American dollars is this going to cost?
this is no biggie – the Soviets … er, the Russians … just demonstrating who’s boss in their neighborhood.
oil will go up a tick, but it has been down about 20% from its peak, so this may just slow the decline in prices.
cutting dependence on foreign oil isn’t good enough – a crisis in the Caucuses or Nigeria pushes all oil prices up, no matter where it comes from. the only solution is to end our addiction to petroleum.
this crisis will also demonstrate that, for all its bluster about “this will not stand,” the Bushies are afraid to do anything meaningful.
the reason for the american news blackout until today (monday) -i gather, is because we were the ones who helped start/engineer it.. (basically the same black op
crap we pull everywhere else..in the name of securing strategic energy, yada yada)
on top of that, reports are coming in of few dead mercenaries found wearing black with american insignias (perhaps blackwater?)
Georgia attacked s.osset *civilians* and Russia came in to provide support..
of course since we’ve all been brain washed that the russians (actually the soviet union) are ebil communists bent on world rule, its easy to see how nobody questions the accusation that the russians are at fault…
the opening of the olympic games..and the Senator Edwards scandal were perfect covers for this Op.. oh and dont forget to add that nice little murder-then-suicide routine in bejiing to keep all eyes off the real “ball”
i hate to say it, but the whole thing stinks to high hell of some sort of distraction for something bigger in the pipeline.. also, several russian news sites were DDoS’d during the attacks as well.. smells like CIA/MI5/Mosad crap to me.. (and if blackwater is involved, well we know who’s mits are definitely in the cookie jar then..)
(i cant be arsed to provide links to support the above, but will if pressed)
just read the posts… #9 hit on the head…
so its a distraction and a test, imo.
distract what, you say? well..the fact that we are sailing *two more* carrier groups (for a total of four) to the pursian gulf to um, “help” Iran make a decision..
I do believe the russians are supporting iran in a big way, esp with the S-300P/MU zuper duper abm/cruise/aircraft system…
should the insanity that is our government decide to attack iran, we will no doubt start off the festivities with america’s favorite weapon: the TLAM cruise missile for which the upgraded s-300 has a claimed .8-.98 kill ratio and .8-.93 vs aircraft..
creating a little chaos over in georgia might tip the balance in our favor, if the russians cannot resupply the iranians… *shrug*
what i do know, is that our major media is being feeding us a load of crap. which i translate into a false flag Op…and false flag Ops just before a presidential election is *never* a good thing.
-esp with the nut cases running the show this time around.
so, put on a helmet and hang onto your wallet cause there is a naasty storm brewing..there will be spilt oil, sobbing stock traders and blood all over the place soon enough…
you know, this is basically the cuban missile crisis in reverse,
-smothered in blackwater sauce and a side order of trans-baltic pipline. (-to stay, if they have their way)
the end game will probably have the USD collapse to nothing just because we’re pissing off all the wrong people (again) -but i digress.
hey John, want to borrow my tinfoil hat?
[john: I have my own, thanks!]
-s
#30 “this is worse than Iraq?”
If this is mishandled then it means that a new “cold war” will come back and the US is in no shape to deal with it. The fact that Bush, Rice, and Cheney have been caught off guard speaks volumes.
Remember, this is not a bunch of religious zealots, these are Russians who are armed to the teeth.