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| In Georgia Clash, a Lesson on U.S. Need for Russia |
| 2008-08-11 |
| WASHINGTON — The image of President Bush smiling and chatting with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia from the stands of the Beijing Olympics even as Russian aircraft were shelling Georgia outlines the reality of America’s Russia policy. While America considers Georgia its strongest ally in the bloc of former Soviet countries, Washington needs Russia too much on big issues like Iran to risk it all to defend Georgia. And State Department officials made it clear on Saturday that there was no chance the United States would intervene militarily. Mr. Bush did use tough language, demanding that Russia stop bombing. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded that Russia “respect Georgia’s territorial integrity.” What did Mr. Putin do? First, he repudiated President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in Beijing, refusing to budge when Mr. Sarkozy tried to dissuade Russia from its military operation. “It was a very, very tough meeting,” a senior Western official said afterward. “Putin was saying, ‘We are going to make them pay. We are going to make justice.’ ” Then, Mr. Putin flew from Beijing to a region that borders South Ossetia, arriving after an announcement that Georgia was pulling its troops out of the capital of the breakaway region. He appeared ostensibly to coordinate assistance to refugees who had fled South Ossetia into Russia, but the Russian message was clear: This is our sphere of influence; others stay out. “What the Russians just did is, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, they have taken a decisive military action and imposed a military reality,” said George Friedman, chief executive of Stratfor, a geopolitical analysis and intelligence company. “They’ve done it unilaterally, and all of the countries that have been looking to the West to intimidate the Russians are now forced into a position to consider what just happened.” And Bush administration officials acknowledged that the outside world, and the United States in particular, had little leverage over Russian actions. “There is no possibility of drawing NATO or the international community into this,” said a senior State Department official in a conference call with reporters. The unfolding conflict in Georgia set off a flurry of diplomacy. Ms. Rice and other officials at the State Department and the Pentagon have been on the telephone with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and other Russian counterparts, as well as with officials in Georgia, urging both sides to return to peace talks. The European Union — and Germany, in particular, with its strong ties to Russia — called on both sides to stand down and scheduled meetings to press their concerns. At the United Nations, members of the Security Council met informally to discuss a possible response, but one Security Council diplomat said it remained uncertain whether much could be done. “Strategically, the Russians have been sending signals that they really wanted to flex their muscles, and they’re upset about Kosovo,” the diplomat said. He was alluding to Russia’s anger at the West for recognizing Kosovo’s independence from Serbia. Indeed, the decision by the United States and Europe to recognize Kosovo may well have paved the way for Russia’s lightning-fast decision to send troops to back the separatists in South Ossetia. During one meeting on Kosovo in Brussels this year, Mr. Lavrov, the foreign minister, warned Ms. Rice and European diplomats that if they recognized Kosovo, they would be setting a precedent for South Ossetia and other breakaway provinces. For the Bush administration, the choice now becomes whether backing Georgia — which, more than any other former Soviet republic has allied with the United States — on the South Ossetia issue is worth alienating Russia at a time when getting Russia’s help to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions is at the top of the United States’ foreign policy agenda. One United Nations diplomat joked on Saturday that “if someone went to the Russians and said, ‘OK, Kosovo for Iran,’ we’d have a deal.” That might be hyperbole, but there is a growing feeling among some officials in the Bush administration that perhaps the United States cannot have it all, and may have to choose its priorities, particularly when it comes to Russia. The Bush administration’s strong support for Georgia — including the training of Georgia’s military and arms support — came, in part, as a reward for its support of the United States in Iraq. The United States has held Georgia up as a beacon of democracy in the former Soviet Union; it was supposed to be an example to other former Soviet republics of the benefits of tilting to the West. But that, along with America and Europe’s actions on Kosovo, left Russia feeling threatened, encircled and more convinced that it had to take aggressive measures to restore its power, dignity and influence in a region it considers its strategic back yard, foreign policy experts said. Russia’s emerging aggressiveness is now also timed with America’s preoccupation with Iraq and Afghanistan, and the looming confrontation with Iran. These counterbalancing considerations mean that Moscow is in the driver’s seat, administration officials acknowledged. “We’ve placed ourselves in a position that globally we don’t have the wherewithal to do anything,” Mr. Friedman of Stratfor said. “One would think under those circumstances, we’d shut up.” One senior administration official, when told of that quote, laughed. “Well, maybe we’re learning to shut up now,” he said. He asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #19 Fred: Re #4: the use of profanity and pseudo authority - 'you lie because I say you lie' - takes your blog beyond opinionated rant. Everyone else merely states disagreements; that character insults for its own sake. Even if he does have an intelligence background, that hardly means he gets it right. I read each and every report of the Federation of American Scientists. A lack of objectivity is apparent in much of same. Knee jerkism is in season. I'll put up a post on the Gamsakhurdia-Shevardnadze feud this evening. The material should diminish all the shouting here. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-08-11 21:35 |
| #18 The Georgia move is a response to NATO's move into the Warsaw Pact pull out. We asked for it. Putin is laughing at our touchy-feely, Alice in Wonderland rhetoric about civilians dying in air raids. Knee jerkism and historical myopia are in season. Re. oil price crises. In the Fall session, the US Congress will have the Oil Futures market on the front burner. Pig farmers, etc need a future's market because it guarantees revenue should there be a producer' supply crisis. There is no such need in the oil business. Clinton bragged about not having an energy policy. It was in that context that the NYMEX sought to sandbag Chicago, with that market from hell. I am optimist that realism will prevail. How are oil prices set? Platts Group - and other related firms - gather price and pay data from oil vendors, and post trends. Vendor costs are now closely tied to NYMEX. Any excuse to raise the price of Futures is jumped on. Supply and Demand have little to do with what we pay at the pumps. Note: half of Gulf of Mexico rigs are capped; prospective yield estimates are NOT recorded in cumulative oil reserves. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-08-11 21:25 |
| #17 First rule for NYT "analysis" - assume it's completely wrong, read all conclusions in reverse, question all "facts", challenge all the assumptions no matter how well hidden or wispily implied. Actually quite optimistic considering the rule. |
| Posted by: Spoper B. Hayes7914 2008-08-11 17:47 |
| #16 The National Security Agency is a forum for shortsighted jackasses. Their work product is: garbage. Too bad it trickles into the minds of Rantburg liberals. Or should I say: Obamites. C-O-N-T-E-X-T P-L-E-A-S-E |
| Posted by: Beldar Elmoger1345 2008-08-11 17:21 |
| #15 big jim: I can't believe that Oil and Gold aren't going through the F-ing roof this morning. The pirates on Wall street must really have their eye on the next big swindle to miss an opportunity like this. Demand is down. Stratospheric commodity prices have lowered demand. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2008-08-11 15:22 |
| #14 Robert Gates, now DoD secretary, was a Russian expert, too. |
| Posted by: mrp 2008-08-11 14:01 |
| #13 I still have my "ASA Lives" coin. And yes, many of us were let go. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-08-11 13:51 |
| #12 if we're going to give Russia a pass cause of their help in Iran, shouldnt they actually, you know, help us on Iran? Have they? Does Friedman think they have, or that they will? Does the nameless DoS official? If they ARE trying to get us to go along and make a deal with them, their rhetoric has been rather on the odd side. As have their actions in going BEYOND S Ossetia, and shoving what they are doing in our noses. Maybe it would be better to let Iran have nukes, and let the Russians stand surety for them - IE if Iran uses nuke, Moscow gets bombed. |
| Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 11:19 |
| #11 Not a swindle. What did you THINK was gonna happen to the price of oil, since we've exported the industry to the likes of the House of Saud and Tsar Pooty? |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-08-11 11:10 |
| #10 I can't believe that Oil and Gold aren't going through the F-ing roof this morning. The pirates on Wall street must really have their eye on the next big swindle to miss an opportunity like this. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-08-11 10:33 |
| #9 One senior administration official, when told of that quote, laughed. "Well, maybe we're learning to shut up now," Any chance you're start shuting up on "Palestine"? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2008-08-11 10:19 |
| #8 Secretary of State Rice was a Russia expert, although I imagine she's not been keeping personal track of Russian troop movements in its near abroad lately. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-08-11 10:04 |
| #7 Persona non grata. There aren't many of them left. The focus shifted away from Russia. Yah, among other things we disbanded the ASA because the Cold War Was Over! and we wouldn't need experts in Russian or in such cold war concepts as Traffic Analysis ever again. It was time for the Peace Dividend! |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-08-11 09:54 |
| #6 Once again, where were are our Russian experts? Persona non grata. There aren't many of them left. The focus shifted away from Russia. As for the State Department, I suspect the few that are there are still sulking. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-08-11 09:26 |
| #5 In Georgia Clash, a Lesson on U.S. Need for Russia Should read.... a "Need to keep an closer eye on Putin and Russia." Once again, where were are our Russian experts? Who was monitoring the RU order of battle in the border areas? Where is the predictive analysis from the intelligence community (IC). What happened to the coms links btwn the IC and the State Department. When the shooting stops I hope somebody on our end publishes some lessons learned on this one and our leadership comes up with a new way to deal with an ever present threat. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-08-11 07:45 |
| #4 McZerobrain is a fuckwit that apparently knows nothing, and proves it daily here. McDickhead I am getting completely tired of your stupid idotic racist bigoted harted fiulled diateribes here evfery time you post. You always have something hateful and race-based to say about Saudis, et al. And 99.9% of the time its not germane tothe topic, and its nto soruce, not credible and not true. You are a lying pice of bigoted shit. You've shown it in your posts and I'm calling you out everywhere you go here. You are my personal punk. I'm going to verbally whip your ass everywhere your putrid posts show up here. "Georgians are free to worship Stalin" Thats a fucking LIE boy (one among the multitudes you spew here) - either retract it and apologize or I'll continue to hound you, you bigoted ignorant asshole. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-08-11 01:46 |
| #3 McZoid, the last time I checked, you're the one overlooking fifteen years or so of the "ex" Soviets supplying nuclear technology to the government of Iran. China, aside from its problems in Xinjiang, has also been a major conduit for nuclear technology to Pakistan; guess where their nuclear bomb designs came from. Now the question that comes to mind to me is, are you really that stupid and willfully blind, or do you think we are? Are you a useful idiot or do you read this site and see nothing but potential useful idiots? |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-08-11 01:40 |
| #2 TOPIX/SPACEWAR > America is presently losing the WAR OF THE ICEBREAKERS [US ranked 5th, Russ = #1] as per ARCTIC RESEARCH & DISCOVERY??? * INSTAPUNDIT > ZBIGNIEW BREZINSKI [Ziggy] - describes the Russo-Georgian Conflict in South Ossetia as akin to Uncle Joe Stalin's war wid FINLAND. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-08-11 01:30 |
| #1 We don't need another Cold War, with surrogate battles throughout the world. We need to take a second look at the word "freedom." The Saudis are free to behead starving thieves. Pashtos are free to peddle heroin. Georgians are free to worship Stalin. Kosovans are free to control the Euro drug trade. Turkey is free to suppress teaching of evolution. Mexico is free to control elections and put elected officials and bureaucrats above the law. Iran is free to call for the annihilation of the US. Somalia is free to indulge sea piracy. Maybe US, China and Russia should create a tripartite security apparatus, in regard to Euro moral depravity and Third World tribalist warlordism. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-08-11 01:21 |