Comments on: Russian Advances, Retreats, and Frameworks

By: Randy McDonald

Randy McDonald — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:42:27 +0000

“Russia is weak. I say we enter Georgia now and destroy their troops. If they don’t do anything, we continue to attack.”

Please don’t. All that fallout will mess up things in Canada.

By: John Bailo

John Bailo — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:42:14 +0000

This operation reminds me of the movie “Air Force One” with Harrison Ford where the President of Russia is trying to appear in control of his troops, but really is not at all. Russia is weak. I say we enter Georgia now and destroy their troops. If they don’t do anything, we continue to attack.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:37:14 +0000

Agreed, more or less. Russia does deserve respect as a regional power. But the difference that, at least in my opinion, makes Russia very different from the Soviet Union is that the Russian Federation does not profess to one day tear down all societies unlike it and remake them in their image. That makes those nuclear weapons mean something very different.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:21:36 +0000

Uhm, I might point out that Russia still has several hundred nuclear-tipped missiles that do indeed pose an existential threat to the United States if ever fired our way?

Granted, Russia’s military poses no conventional threat to the EU or anybody else armed with modern weapons. Probably only 5% of Russia’s military has been brought up to modern standards of weapons and training. The rest is half-starved draftees armed with old Soviet-era weapons that are now operable (unlike during the Yeltsin years) but still far from threatening to anybody armed with modern weapons (a T-72 going against any modern tank is scrap metal). Still, 50,000 well trained and equipped soldiers is not something to sniff at if you’re someplace like Georgia that has no soldiers with modern weaponry or advanced training. And you simply can’t ignore someone who has nuclear weapons, no matter how poorly their economy is faring outside of resource extraction, or how ill-equipped their army is.

In other words, it is certainly possible to over-estimate Russia. They are a regional power, but they are not a superpower. They have no ability to project military power beyond states neighboring their borders short of those nuclear warheads that neither they nor anybody else wants to ever see used, and it’s unclear they even have much of a desire to do so, given that they do not face any existential threat from the EU or the various trashcanistans on their southern border. That said, you can’t just ignore them as just another Trashcanistan. Anybody with nuclear warheads deserves at least some modicum of respect.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:28:25 +0000

Dan, you’re missing that many people in the U.S., including at least me, felt the recognition of Kosovo was a really bad idea for precisely that reason.

Nathan, your last link is missing.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:55:48 +0000

Why would you expect Russia to behave differently. Did Russsia achieve anything with its pleas and talk about international law? It is quite obvious that some countries respect only force.
Talk about ‘teritorial integrity’ in the case of Georgia – nobody mentions it in the case of Serbia? Georgians attacked Russian peace-keepers and citizens and got a response, did Serbia attack American or NATO citizens in Kosovo? For what reason was Iraq attacked and occupied?
Who has the moral right to criticize Russia in this case, especially after what happened in Serbia and Iraq?

By: Nathan

Nathan — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:30:09 +0000

If you mean one-sided, sure it is.

I certainly could expect Russia to behave differently. Kosovo did not determine that Russia would necessarily send troops into Georgia, especially since the years of bullshit stories of Georgian fascism and looming genocide in the Russian media predate Kosovo’s independence. And I could certainly expect Russia to behave different if the West did not build it up to be more powerful and important than it really is.

By: fnord

fnord — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:12:29 +0000

Hmm, sir, surprisingly one-eyed analysis here? Given the humiliation of Russia over the Kosovo question and Georgias open agression against Russian “peacekeepers”, how could you expect russia to behave differently? If the Serbs had attacked the US forces in Kosovo, how would the US have responded? To me, this smells of a mafya war, where Putin is showing who has the power of the oligarch-clans.