Well... Now that Russian tanks enter South Ossetia, there's a possibility of an independent countries plus a major war between Russia and Georgia.

Any comments?

Russia and its old Soviet mentality.

Seriously. Does it really need to bully a small country and meddle into its own affair?

I take it Russia wants control again or just control?

I did look on wiki and know it's not 100% accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia

No idea what the Russians are up too.

They will dig that province up if they think that its becoming another Chechnaya

James, would South Ossetia be an another Kosovo or not?

I think there is one major difference. Kosovo is "central european", and the separation from Serbia (if thats what you are refering to ?) happened when Kosovo was already under international control, and Kosovo had a strong support from the EU and Nato.
I think the proximity to central europe helped a lot in bringing in NATO troups in 1999 to end the "humanitarian disaster"...

I don't think South Ossetia will receive the strong support Kosovo did receive...

Right, South Ossetia will not receive strong support but received support from the Russians. I'm worried that the war between three parties will extend to the rest of Georgia. When's the last time that any country annexed the country in a war?

No. The disputed territory has not been recognized by any UN member states and has historically been a part of Russia (and Georgia) for centuries.

This is a sad situation. While Russia is not nearly as powerful as it once was, I don't think Georgia stands a chance. They're being bullied, and I find it absolutely abhorrent for them to be doing this. Georgia is still a developing nation, and Russia still has weapons left over from the Cold War era. The situation looks grim at this point.

There are some reports that Georgia was initiating ethnic cleansing in S. Ossetia. I don't think this is as simple as Russia trying to reconcor Georgia. Places like the Caucusias and the Balkans are such a complex web of ethnic conflicts that things never come out to be all black and white.

Why should South ossetia not seceed?
Are there actually any reasonable objections or is it just power-mongering terriatorialism on the part of Georgia.

If they wish to be separated and have their own nation, it may be for the best. Then Russia and Jordan have no claim at all. I think the US and some European nations need to step up to the plate and start some talks with representatives from Russia, Georgia, and South Ossetia.

From what I understand, South Ossettia was autonomous anyway, even though technically a part of Georgia.

De-facto independent, but de-jure part of Georgia.

It's not internationally recognized. Even Russia wouldn't recognize it either.

There's North Ossetia next door to South Ossetia. Ethnically and culturally they are the same. This is the land of the Cossacks. With the break up of the USSR they were split between Russia and Georgia. It was not a workable arrangement. After 16 years of de facto separation Georgia has decided to force them to be part of Georgia. The United States has already involved itself in quite enough messy situations that can't be easily fixed. We should keep our noses out of this one.

Where were you in 1861 when we needed you?

I highly doubt the United States can stay out of this one. Although, I think it'll be funny when the U.S. says to Russia/Georgia, "Don't invade!" when we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.

But whatever.

I don't know too much about this issue to make any judgments on the Russians and Georgians. I should read up on it some more.

It has a lot to do with oil which is why the US is so interested.

Well, Georgia using ceasefire and offers to talk with Russia to end the war between them but the Russians still bombed Georgia, including Tbilsi International Airport.

How long will we see the fight till it ends??

IMHO, Until Russia gets what it wants, and that's world recognition as a major power and control over former territory. I've never seen this much power play SINCE reading about the Cold War and policies of the United Soviets Socialists Republic.

Seems to me that Russia is reaching back to it's red roots

Unofficial talks have taken place in Bejing. Hopefully a resolution can be reached. Diplomacy is key in stopping this war. It's going to be a massacre otherwise. Hopefully South Ossetian will eventually gain autonomy so that neither The Russian Federation nor Georgia have any claims to the territory.

I hope so too Tiger, but somehow something in my gut tells me otherwise...

Georgia still has claims to the land. I think it killed the chance of giving that breakaway region autonomy while being part of Georgia. Being autonomous means being part of the country, yet controling most of its affairs. Otherwise, independence is the way to go if they do not want to be part of Georgia.

Georgia is opposed to this because it would be an insult to their pride and would put Russia 50 miles from the capital (Tbilisi).

Apparently, the history of this is complicated. First, Georgia was part of the Russian Empire and then declared independence after the October Revolution and it split apart the Ossetia region into two. Then Soviet joined the Soviet Union and there wasn't an issue for most of the 20th century in Ossetia. When the USSR broke up, Ossetia found itself split apart again and the southern one wants to remind together with the northern one, which is still part of the Russian Federation.

But Russia is truely being a bully now. Their attacks on Georgia is beyond justified and equal to what Georgia has done to South Ossetia. Georgia never has bombed Russia, yet Russia is now bombing Georgian cities and towns. The troops are out of South Ossetia and the Russians still don't want that anymore despite early demands to leave the breakaway region? *rolls eyes*

How did most of South Ossetia became Russian citizens and not Georgian ones? Well, before 1998, anyone who were Soviet citizens can go to the nearest police station or Russian embassy to apply for the Russian citizenship. They just simply exchanged their Soviet passports for Russian ones. So Russia didn't specifically gave away passports to South Ossetians, but to everyone who were once Soviet citizens. Most of the South Ossetians decided to be Russian citizens by themselves instead of being Georgian citizens since they hope their region would be one day part of Russia.

Thanks Drew for your suggestion , it is the first time that we are able to follow a war day by day and even hour by hour on Wiki !
BTW, "propaganda" is as important as the fight itself, and what Wiki brought is part of it.
IMO, Russia is using the fact that USA is unable to intervene because the President's election, and want to get back control on Georgia and the "western" pipelines.
Its like a "Monopoly" game. The West won in Kosovo, the East wants his revenge !

There are many underlying causes going on here between Russia and the former Soviet Client states. Further there are centuries of history here with these states from the times of the Czars. We should be very, very nervous about these current events especially now that the Russians are moving beyond South Ossetia and approaching the Georgian Capitol itself.

Listen to the silence from the nations of Europe beyong very soft warnings and denunciations. They get about 30% of their oil from Russia now. The US gets a smaller percentage, but we are affected as well.

Also, watch for Ukraine, another former Soviet state that has its own Navy and air force that can challenge (for a short time at least) russian naval and air power. Dont' forget that Russia has been beating the drum and increasing their military preparedness for the last year. Also watch Belarus and a few of the other baltic states. They're weighing in on the side of Russia, and putting pressure to keep Ukraine out of the growing conflict.

What we see here, overall, is also an example of the failure of American diplomacy over the last eight years. Our pushing of the missile defense shield has increased the pressure on Russia to flex its military might and to challenge us. What we've gotten in return for this growing threat is NOT greater than what we've created through our bungling of relations with Russia. To be honest, I am genuinely disappointed in Condi Rice about this. She is a student of Russian relations and anyone with a passing acquaintance of Russian history over the last few centuries could see that our recent actions would lead them to these types of actions.

Is this going to escalate? I don't know. Look to see what happens in Tbilisi. If the capitol is bombed, especially its airport, look for American aircraft to become involved in an air war to guarantee movement of humanitarian supplies and defensive troops. If Ukraine gets involved either with air or naval forces, look for this to expand to a direct war on two fronts for Russia with Russia and the Baltic states lining up against Ukraine while Europe and the US wring their hands and ask for it to stop so the oil will flow.

I don't like the idea of open war between the US and Russia. It seems to me that it would be one we could win but at too high a cost. I do not think it is in the best interest of the US to be involved to that extent. Humanitarian effort for the Georgians could further enrage the Russians. Russia does seem to be going back to its old habits of bullying other countries. One would think that economic collapse would be enough of a deterrent, but apparently it is not. As for Russian oil, there's an easy way to fix that problem and that is to cut off their food supply. Those are the two most precious commodities, and Russia is not exactly a good place for agriculture.

Pictures are ever so poignant:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article...sion/article.do

You shouldn't like the idea.

It would mean nuke missiles raining down upon our cities.

Saakashvili is a huge fool thinking that the West would do any act of war against Russia over this.




1000th post.

Congratulations Jack!

I don't think there would be nukes used. The Russians know it would mean annihilation for them, so they're very unlikely to punch the chicken switch. The US would be destroyed as well, and I don't see either country using nukes. However, Russia does have biological and chemical weapons. It certainly wouldn't be much of a ground war, but if that did occur, the Russians wouldn't stand a chance. Again, it would be easy to end the war quickly, because the US would cut of the Russians' food supply.

There's a greater chance of you winning the lottery then a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russian Federation. A little something called MAD is why (mutually assured destruction). No matter how hard Russia beats the drum an exchange would not only end up with the world being absolutely devastated and what would be the point?

As for the bombing runs going into Georgian territory, to me it seems like it's turning into a shock and awe type thing (if you don't know what that is, see the Desert Storm 2 footage when we invaded Baghdad).

IMHO, Russia is trying to flex it's muscles and show everyone that it's still powerful and strong.

NOTE TO ADD: According to a CNN article Russia is making moves to cities outside of the breakaway provinces

James, you do realize that is a picture of a GEORGIAN national do you not?

That's what so screwed up about this whole thing.

To those who don't know, Joseph Stalin whose likeness is used above, was the chief architect of the Soviet State and he was a Georgian.

For those of us that have followed Soviet and now Russian Affairs, I must say that a great many of us are simply confused.

It has a whole floor in the CIA building collectively going WTF???

The Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili didn't just wake up one day and decide to send troops into South Ossetia, after all the region has been defacto independent since the early 90's. Reports that South Ossetian 'militia' had been in clashes with Georgian troops for a couple of days are generally given more credibility than the Russian reports that the Georgians just attacked without provocation, besides which South Ossetia is a part of Georgia regardless of if it sees itself as not being a part of Georgia, and no UN member state recognises it, meaning the Georgian's are well within their rights to move forces anywhere they want in their country.

There are quite a few defence analysts that believe Russia used the South Ossetian militia to attack the Georgian military, provoking them to move into South Ossetia, in order to give the Russian's a pretext to invade. This theory has a lot of supporting evidence, like the fact the Russian's had plans in place to invade and that they were able to move so many troops as quickly as they did. The Russian army is not nearly as capable as they were during the cold war, even though they are back investing heavily into new equipment, there are many soldiers who don't have enough food to eat and many armoured units sit iddle without fuel. The simple fact is they can't move 20,000 troops overnight like the US can, unless they had already been mobilised and positioned.

Regardless of how the war started, the Russian's will push it as far as they want unless the international community intervenes. The Georgian forces may be far smaller in number and without a proper standing navy or air force, but their army is well trained (better than regular Russian infantry units, due to American training), the Georgian army will dig in and try to fend them off of Tbilisi. I see the only way the Georgians can force the Russian's out is to make it too costly for them to continue hostilities, the best way they could achieve this is with a huge shipment of anti aircraft missiles, the Georgian's have shot down a Tu-22M and at least 3 other aircraft already, if they remove the Russian's ability to bomb them, followed by their air superiority they might stand a fighting chance of grinding the conflict into one the Russian's no longer wish to participate in.

That's my 2 cents.

I fully agree with you. Russia doesnt accept the western policy of Georgia and want to stop it. In the same time, Putin want to show the come back of russian military strength to his own people and to other countries involved in Caucasus. He knows that no other countries (USA included) are strong enough to intervene in this region.
An interesting aspect of this conflict is that the pipelines are still in operation without any trouble !
Saakashvili made a big mistake in his appreciation of the support he could receive from the West.

That is why I said it's foolish of Saakashvili to think the West would defend him by military means.


The Soviet Union was quite self-sustaining until its last decade when state bureaucraty left many food spoilt. There are plenty of farmlands out in European Russia to support 140 million people and it's capable of exporting agircultural products.

And there are other countries that Russia imports from than the USA.

I'm so confused, Is the south ossetian militia now fighting Georgians and Russian or just the Russians now?

I don't think there be any Nukes used. Hopefully it won't last long.

South Ossetians, Russians, Abzhakians vs. Georgians.

Congrats Frosty!

However, I think that the Russians will do anything except war to force Georgia to switch alliances from the West to Russia. I don't know, but if continued, maybe we will see a coup by Georgian people to replace Saakashvili, I don't know...

Well, I think this war is not simply a Russian matter between the former soviet possessions either. From What I have seen there is one other side that has not been looked at too much, which may surprise and complicate any plan for Russia's desire to control the pipelines. I think the EU may show its teeth either openly or with a smile during this conflict as a true Great Power or Super Power in waiting. i would never underestimate the combined forces of Europe against Russia, nor would President Medvedev.

The oil connection and the strategic connection between Georgia and the West is tied more with Europe than just the US. If any military support or diplomatic support for Georgia may come, it would be Europe. The European Cease-fire right now may have more behind the scenes than we really know.

According to an article in the New York Times (i'll post the link as soon as I find it again) it seems that the Russian's launched a cyber-campaign (various DDOS attacks and such) against Georgia, mainly against government websites and such. This was three weeks before the actual ground campaign if I read right, so to me it seems like there was a precursor to the whole event.

Cyber warfare is cheap and inexpensive, and sometimes even the best security can't help.

Edit to add:
Here's the link New York Times Article

Europe's dependency on Russian oil is certainly likely to be an important factor. However, I think that the major states of the EU such as Germany and France are much more inclined to placate Russia in order to protect their oil supplies. We have already seen this when the opposed the US proposal to give Georgia immediate NATO membership. What they are worried about is their teeth chattering in the cold winter.

Georgia agrees to Russian-French plan to settle conflict << CNN link to story

In other words, dont be so paranoid in the future if the Russians do something. This may be easy to say now, but this never was a major conflict and even if it had escalated.. Russia isnt the bear in the woods anymore. Perhaps the cub.

Even a cub has teeth... Sometimes it's best to assume all possibilities when it comes to Russia.

I agree Russia is still a force to be reckoned with; just make sure the mountain lion in the west is ready to pounce on the cub if it misbehaves, hehe!

The best counter-balance to Russian power is European power as it has been for three hundred years since Peter The Great began the Russian expansion. The US as strong as it is must face the facts that it alone may not have the strength to counter all the international threats. Europe is the best choice for a counter weight against Russia and it serves as a critical junction between the middle-east as well.

So Let The Great Game start again! * (I know more than a few of you are history fans and know what I am referring to?)

I think military action on the part of Europe is both unlikely and too soon. Diplomacy has not yet been exhausted so let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. As for US involvement if there is military action against Russia, I think the US could support the EU military forces.

The cold war ended almost two decades ago. People (particularly Americans, or so Ive seen) are too paranoid about Russia. Russia is no longer 'the enemy', and people need to remove their mindset from the cold war.

Re: the picture of Bush and Putin:

Vlad the Impaler meets George the Inhaler.