We Are All Still Georgians
(Unrelated side note: It's the Georgia Bulldogs, not the Georgia Pitbulls)
Within the global issues that I think are important, the relationship with Russia is one of the more important ones. And I think there's been a lot of dangerous, black-and-white rhetoric about Russia over the last couple of months, especially coming from Sen. McCain but the good thing is that McCain doesn't have the power to set foreign policy at this point in time. Unfortunately, Pres. Bush can. As I've said before, if anything it's been a disadvantage having oft-described "Russian Expert" Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. Crooks & Liars posted this morning on some rhetoric and some snubbing from the administration and it's so good and important that I'm going to borrow liberally (Admiral Mullen Pleads for Cooperation with Russia):
“I believe we’ve got to have a relationship with Russia,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Los Angeles.
“I don’t believe we should discontinue engagement on the military side because that relationship is going to be very important in the future,” Mullen said.
…”We need to approach this in a measured way and do it in a way that recognizes we have mutual interests with Russia,” he told a gathering organized Town Hall Los Angeles, a nonprofit group that sponsors debates on topical issues.
Mullen’s measured remarks chimed with comments last week by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said Russia did not pose a threat on a par with the Soviet Union.
They stand in contrast to harsher rhetoric from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and particularly Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, who has said Russia would face severe consequences for its actions in Georgia.
So the Administration isn't terribly united on how it's addressing Russia and it's most unfortunate that the ones doing the talking from the senior leadership positions are the ones who are saying the wrong things. Not only are they saying the wrong things, they're doing the wrong things as well .
...Some high-level meetings have been postponed indefinitely, including a trip to Russia by John Rood, the acting undersecretary of State for arms control and international security, to discuss various security issues and to negotiate a new pact to replace the existing Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START.
And the congressionally appointed Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism has been asked to not go on its upcoming fact-finding visit to Moscow.
Who fired first in the Georgia/Russia conflict?
Outside of the administration and the McCain campaign, many US leaders are beginning to reevaluate how things started in Georgia. What could they base this on since it's so obvious that the big bully Russia picked a fight on it's tiny neighbor? NATO intelligence sources don't tend to agree with this view. Spiegel Online International has a good article looking at how things started (Did Saakashvili Lie? The West Begins to Doubt Georgian Leader):
The details that Western intelligence agencies extracted from their signal intelligence agree with NATO's assessments. According to this intelligence information, the Georgians amassed roughly 12,000 troops on the border with South Ossetia on the morning of Aug. 7. Seventy-five tanks and armored personnel carriers -- a third of the Georgian military's arsenal -- were assembled near Gori. Saakashvili's plan, apparently, was to advance to the Roki Tunnel in a 15-hour blitzkrieg and close the eye of the needle between the northern and southern Caucasus regions, effectively cutting off South Ossetia from Russia.
At 10:35 p.m. on Aug. 7, less than an hour before Russian tanks entered the Roki Tunnel, according to Saakashvili, Georgian forces began their artillery assault on Tskhinvali. The Georgians used 27 rocket launchers, including 152-millimeter guns, as well as cluster bombs. Three brigades began the nighttime assault...
...The intelligence agencies conclude that the Russian army did not begin firing until 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 8, when it launched an SS-21 short-range ballistic missile on the city of Borzhomi, southwest of Gori. The missile apparently hit military and government bunker positions. Russian warplanes began their first attacks on the Georgian army a short time later. Suddenly the airwaves came to life, as did the Russian army.
Russian troops from North Ossetia did not begin marching through the Roki Tunnel until roughly 11 a.m. This sequence of events is now seen as evidence that Moscow did not act offensively, but merely reacted. Additional SS-21s were later moved to the south. The Russians deployed 5,500 troops to Gori and 7,000 to the border between Georgia and its second separatist region, Abkhazia.
The question we have to ask ourselves is do we really want to ally ourselves with a reckless gambler like Saakashvili and risk relations with a gradually strengthening Russia? It wasn't our unilateral arms build-up under Reagan that brought about the end of the Cold War, it was the internal weakness of the Soviet state combined with our engagement with them. We gain nothing by sticking our finger in Russia's eye. We risk more than we realize if we throw our lot in with Saakashvili by inviting Georgia to join NATO. Sen. McCain's knee-jerk reaction to embrace Georgia is yet another example of him going with his gut and making the wrong choice. But at least we can say of him, as we can say of our current president, that he is decisive. When is being decisively wrong an advantage?
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