The Oil Drum | Georgia Conflict

307 comments on Georgia Conflict - Open Thread #4

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

theantidoomer on August 15, 2008 - 10:29am

Uh completely false, First off Georgia is NOT a NATO country and the US never guarenteed or even said they would protect them militarily. Now Ukraine is one thing, I can't say one way or another if the US would defend her, but the other countries are members of NATO, and I can guarantee you any attack on them would lead to a full scale NATO Vs. Russia War and Russia knows this.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

mkcmkc on August 15, 2008 - 12:18pm

Maybe, but I bet Georgia is feeling pretty ****ing stupid right now for sending 2000 of their soldiers to help W out on his adventure...

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

dparkins on August 15, 2008 - 12:29pm

Antidoomer,

Half of Ukraine is waiting for Russia to claim it. The crimea and Donbass want to unite with Russia but Russia is lukewarm to this because of the cost of rebuilding their economies. They have been struggling to rebuild their economy and are finally over the hump.They don't have the money to invest in this project. However I could see the crimea joining Russia soon as it is very strategic for harboring the Black sea fleet.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

bruce from chicago on August 15, 2008 - 12:42pm

Why would Russia ever militarily attack a NATO member when it could just withhold or raise the price of natural gas?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Lexington on August 16, 2008 - 4:51am

Are ya nuts?

It's true the US never explicitly provided a security guarantee to Georgia. All it did was hold up Georgia as a model for the rest of New Europe (to use Cheney's notorious phrase) to emulate, provide military advisors, and talk extensively (if vaguely) about the benefits that New Europe could realize by cozying up to the US. Do you think it's an accident that Georgia had the 2nd largest contingent in the Coalition of the Willing? Personally I'm pretty sure they expected some kind of quid pro quo for that.

And the quid pro quo was that the US would insulate them from Russian pressure. Instead what they got was TV images of the president of the United States covorting at the Olympics while Gori burned. Fact is the whole episode has sent an unmistakeable message not only to Georgia but the other former Soviet republics about what American support is really worth when push comes to shove.

Bottom line: not a hell of a lot.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

BaSE on August 16, 2008 - 6:05pm

You could almost wonder what the prize here is. Clearly the BTC is undamaged and is likely to continue that way. And what do the US corporations and banks really care about whether Georgia is unified or not? However this appears to have been the catalyst that brought about the signing of the missile shield agreement with Poland. In a short time, with missiles in place, the US will have "nuclear primacy", and Russia will have no choice but to follow US corporate and banking dictates delivered by whichever president has been installed in the oval office to cater to their needs.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

karlof1 on August 17, 2008 - 2:12am

Russia will have no choice but to follow US corporate and banking dictates...

Most US corporations are very weak; many are going bankrupt or are seeking additional capital which dilutes equity, while others having ofshored their operations aren't really US corporations any more. The Doha trade round failed, which means the uS corporate agenda failed. The banks are in even dire straits; many financial corporations are bankrupt, trillions of dollars in caital valuation no longer exisis, and the whole of the US financial system hangs by a very thin thread of foreign investment.

In other words, the powers you say are going to dictate orders to Russia are very close to not having a pot to piss in.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

sldulin on August 18, 2008 - 12:06am

Exactly right.
The events of the past 10 days have provided ample proof, if any was needed, that Russia is an ascendant power.
And the US? After 5 years of war and occupation?
Would it not seem to be prudent to Russian generals to now probe and test US force projection capabilities?
A proxy war would useful- if only both sides had reliable clients.
Absent that, the tension builds.
I thought history was over and the world was flat and now that Russia has McDonalds we needn't concern ourselves with them...remember that?
Maybe Georgia didn't have a McDonalds.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

BaSE on August 19, 2008 - 11:24am

while some businesses are failing and will fail, there seems to be no real threat to the central bank, yet. Nor have the oil majors seen a decline in profits, yet. And while I agree with you that it is coming, it could be a few years off still. And yes these are the guys that are calling the shots. Cheney brought them all into a room for secret meetings in 2000, and I imagine the recent follies are the outcome of their meetings: WTC 1,2, and 7, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and of course the continual boxing in of Russia. Anyway who do you think guides foreign policy and for what ends? It ain't you or me, except in some bazaare trickle down rational. If the world were fair Russia with all its energy would be a rising star. I think the missile shield has less to do with Iran and more to do with Russia. Do you think otherwise? If the Internaltional corporations and banks aren't calling the shots, do you think Bush and Cheney have acted independantly for the common good?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

dparkins on August 17, 2008 - 10:39am

Lexington:

You are correct in your astute analysis. However Gori did not fair as badly as MSM would have you believe:

http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29033 (Link with video)

Gori was the staging grounds for the attack on South Ossetia therefore it recieved an inordinate amount of attention in the ensuing counter-attack.

Dan

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

dparkins on August 17, 2008 - 10:53am

Lexington,

another disturbing aspect is the pre-text under which the USA began militarizing Georgia:

There is, however, one small kernel of truth in what is otherwise a rather self-serving argument: In 2002, when the U.S. began providing military assistance and training to Georgia, both the Washington and Tblisi claimed there was evidence of Al Qaeda hiding out in Georgia's Pankisi region (similarly, there were articles, like this one in Time, titled "Inside Al-Qaeda's Georgia Refuge"). Those early claims appear to have evaporated, however. In 2006, the Dallas Morning News ran an article repeating what many have come to believe in the years since: there never really was credible evidence of Al Qaeda in Georgia. The article quote a Tbilisi-based analyst saying: "I personally would not link al-Qaeda with Pankisi in any way whatsoever."

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/russia-tallies.html

Dan

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Cslater8 on August 17, 2008 - 12:01am

Antidoomer, you're joking right? A full scale NATO vs. Russia war?

Do you really think NATO countries would risk a war with Russia over those ex-Russian satelite countries? I don't think so. They're just not worth it.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

totoneila on August 17, 2008 - 12:32am

Hello Cslater8,

See my [N]itrogen posting at the bottom of this thread. I would hope that NATO & the US would gladly sit in the dark, if required, to avert full-on war with Russia. TSHTF when you can't get sufficient NPK to grow minimal food...

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Dragonfly41 on August 17, 2008 - 7:51am

This would be quite saddening to me since I have many friends in Lithuania and know the struggle they went through to become independent in the 1990's. Of course the former satellite countries with natural resources or strategic energy infrastructure should be the ones that Russia pays the most attention to first. Lithuania's main asset (correct me anyone if I'm wrong) is their easy access to the Baltic Sea and some nuclear power plants.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

dparkins on August 17, 2008 - 9:43am

Dragonfly,

Ignalina is the Lithuanian muclear plant. It's shutdown is scheduled to be completed next year. Latvia,Lithuania and Poland signed a memorandum of agreement to build a new plant. However due to lack of financing and bitter disagreements among the states it is not progressing well:

http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSL0189399920080207?pageNum...

Lithuania is acting on such recommendations. With Poland, Latvia and Estonia it has discussed a new nuclear plant with capacity of between 3,200 and 3,400 megawatts at a cost of 22 billion Lithuanian litas ($9.24 billion).

But talks have got bogged down as Poland wants a third of the output and made agreement conditional upon connecting the plant to its grid. Shevaldin said the planned launch date of 2015 could be delayed at least two years, but Latvian government officials have said 2020 might be more realistic.

Russia has decided to build a Nuclear power plant in Kaliningrad and plans to sell the excess capacity to Lat,Lith and PL.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080421/105520282.html

From wiki:

Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant is a two-unit RBMK-1500 nuclear power station in Visaginas, Lithuania. It is named after a larger nearby town Ignalina. Unit #1 was closed in December 2004, as a condition of Lithuania's entry into the European Union; the plant is similar to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in its lack of a robust containment structure. The remaining unit, as of 2006, supplied about 70% of Lithuania's electrical demand.[1] Unit #2 is tentatively scheduled for closure in 2009. Proposals have been made to construct another nuclear power plant in Lithuania

Information on the port of Klaipeda:

http://www.portofklaipeda.lt/en.php

Dan

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

dparkins on August 17, 2008 - 10:07am

Antidoomer,

here is some polling information regarding the situation.

"If a referendum on unification of the former Soviet republics into a new alliance would be held today, would you vote in favour of the alliance or against it?"

Rus UKR BEL
In favour 51 45 36
Against 22 25 32
other/not sure 27 30 32

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/14064

My own Note: 45% percent of Ukrainian people want Unification with Russia. However this encompasses all Ukraine. The percent among the Eastern part would problably approach 80-90%. Firther more this poll was taken in wake of gas pricing disputes with both Ukraine and Belarus.

"However in spite of most citizens regretting the Soviet Union dissolution the quantity of those who is ready today to vote for a unification of former union republics into a new union during a hypothetical referendum are less than those who “regret”. At that if in Russia almost a half of population (51%) voted for a new union, in Ukraine a little bit less (45%), in Belarus unification spirit is significantly weaker, here only a third of population (36%) would support unification. In Armenia 49% would vote for unification, 41% would vote against it (more than in other countries)."

Dan

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

dparkins on August 17, 2008 - 10:09am

Antidoomer:

Some info On Ukraine's NATO "aspirations" as the MSM likes to call it:

In regards to Ukraine joining NATO:
The poll revealed that 54.9% of respondents would vote against joining the military alliance if a referendum were to be held tomorrow, and that 22.3% would back joining NATO.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20080506/106712138.html

Why our are the leaders of Ukraine and the USA trying to drag Ukraine into NATO against the will of their people? Is this how democratic countries behave.

Dan

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

307 comments on Georgia Conflict - Open Thread #4

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

“Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.”

—George Eliot