A question for Bob

[Deans BMW]

Robert, can you give us your take on the current strife in Georgia and Russia.

I think that Putin is still the Boss over there.

[BobFV1]

No problem - my standard fee is USD 2500 per day or part thereof . . .

Seriously - will get back to you, as I have been working this issue a bit.

[Deans BMW]

Thanks, I thought so.

Will you take a cheque???????????????

[BobFV1]

Okay - here is 5 cents worth.

The Caucasus and Trans-Carpathian mountain areas of Southwest Russia and neighboring countries (former Soviet Republics) are areas of cultural and racial diversity that the ethnic Russian, Slavic majority from Moscow/Saint Petersburg have always had a difficult time both running and coming to grips with. It is the conflict area that the protagonist of Boris Pasternak's epic novel "Doctor Zhivago" fled to.

The Republic of Georgia is immediately to Russia's southern border in the far western part of the country. Georgians have often been looked upon as rather rough and second rate by "white Russians" - ethnic Russian "blue-bloods" like Vladimir Putin. This has deep roots. Georgians have darker, harsher physical features than Russians. Their women have dark hair and mustaches - Russian women have blonde hair and long legs. The Russian language is a complex language which is very difficult to properly speak because of the complex mix of word endings and the difficult phonetics. The Georgian language sounds like poorly spoken Russian. That's just how things evolved, but if you take a poorly educated Russian's speech and listen to it next to a well-educated Georgian's speech, it kind of sounds the same.

There is a cultural and ethnic region called Ossetia which straddles the southern border of Russia and the northern border of Georgia. It is inhabited mostly by "white Russians" - people who look like and identify with the Russian power elite in Moscow, but have deep roots in the beautiful mountainous region of Ossetia. I have known many Ossetians - they are very attractive people, very European looking - like blond Germans. This works fine for those in Ossetia north of the Russian border, but is very difficult for white Russians living in and native to the part of Ossetia south of the Russian border. "White" or "Russian" Ossetians have been marginalized for years as the Republic of Georgia has exerted more and more influence on the region. We know of many of them that have fled to Moscow rather than be persecuted by the Georgian government.

In the past year or so, the Georgian government has massed troops in South Ossetia and used military force to engage in operations which they say are aimed at eliminating Ossetian separatists. Most of these people are ethnic Russians. The Georgian forces began to claim that the ethnic Russians in South Ossetia were controlled by Russia's intelligence services. The Russians claimed that the Georgian "peacekeepers" in South Ossetia were incurring into Russian territory in North Ossetia.

Probably using the Olympics as political cover, the Russians have launced a full-scale offensive against the Georgian Army. This goes well beyond the Ossetian situation and reflects Putin's desire to change the leadership in Georgia. The first president of Georgia, Edward Scheverdnadze, was a former Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union and was very sympathetic to the Russians - they guy in power now, Mikheil Saakashvili, was educated in the USA (including at my wife's school, George Washington University), but since coming to power he has been autocratic and strongly promoted Georgian nationalism.

The Russians don't want an unpredictable, nationalist republic in the sensitive buffer zone between mother Russia and the predominantly Muslim autonomous regions and countries to the immediate south and east, such as Dagestan and Chechnya. They will take this opportunity to hit hard and try to make quick work of the Georgians. I would predict a "decapitation" within the next 10 days or so in which Saakashvili is assassinated or killed by Russian military action.

This would sort itself out if the rest of the world would stay out of it. The US is adding action to rhetoric, transporting Georgian troops back to Georgia from Iraq on US military aircraft. This is not good for US national security. Putin is not scared to take on the USA. The Russians will be successful in forcing leadership change in Georgia, and they may annex Ossetia. Will be interesting to see it play out.

[Gord]

I find it highly ironic that Stalin (who was a native Georgian) committed genocide on an unprecedented scale (Hitler had nothing on this man) to keep the Soviet Union together (and to protect his hold on power) in the wake of Lenin's death. And now Putin (he is the defacto power in Russia) is using unproven charges of Georgian genocide as an excuse to extend Russian power (and to protect his hold on power).

I believe that what we are witnessing in Georgia is the continued fall out of decolonization and the end of 19th and 20th century imperialism. The artificial borders that were created by empires (be they English, French, Dutch, Portugese, etc.), by misguided attempts of nation building (such as The Treaty of Versaille and the Balfour Declaration), and by misguided power brokering (such as that done at Yalta in 1945) are continuing to crumble.

Look for Putin to continue to label Georgians as mass murderers. Look for any Georgian who resists Russian incursions to be labelled terrorists (much like anyone who resists the western democracies' efforts to extend their influence). And look for the Europeans and the rest of the world to sell out Georgia just like Czechoslovakia in 1938.

[Deans BMW]

Thanks Bob and Gord, very intresting and somewhat disconcerting.

[Boxerboy]

Was Georgia interested in joining Nato? If so, what would the implications be for Russia if this happened?

In fact, now that this recent disturbance has occurred, would Georgia have scared Nato off?

[JCsman]

The NATO angle is one I've been thinking about as well. Although there's more to it that that, the NATO nations, as I understand it, have pledged that an attack on one will be treated as an attack on all. That made some sense in the WWIII scenarios of the era of NATO infancy.

What if Georgia had gained full NATO member status? Are we (are Germany, Italy, etc) ready and willing - not to mention able - to directly confront the Soviets over Georgia?

And the same question on other recent additions or potential additions to the club.....

Me thinks the NATO feet of clay might well get exposed on this current path of expansion....

[A re-read makes me think I was less than clear. I should clarify, I suppose, that I certainly don't want to confront the Soviets. My comment is intended to say we should not be expanding the NATO alliance unless membership really means something....the problem in bluffing is that you might get your hand called.]

[Deans BMW]

Me thinks the NATO feet of clay might well get exposed on this current path of expansion....

Kind of like the feckless UN, I'd say.

[Gord]

The only worse and more useless than the UN was the League of Nations. The UN is a big joke and I wish my government had the gonads to pull out of it. Course it won't happen because the average Canadian seems to think that the UN's work in the Suez Crisis, Cyprus, Sinai, Biafra, Angola, and Yugoslavia was actually productive, when in fact all it did was prolong the friction and feed the hatred that is still a problem in these areas today. The UN is a shining example of multi-lateralism producing squat.

[JCsman]

The only worse and more useless than the UN was the League of Nations. The UN is a big joke and I wish my government had the gonads to pull out of it. Course it won't happen because the average Canadian seems to think that the UN's work in the Suez Crisis, Cyprus, Sinai, Biafra, Angola, and Yugoslavia was actually productive, when in fact all it did was prolong the friction and feed the hatred that is still a problem in these areas today. The UN is a shining example of multi-lateralism producing squat.

I'm sure that, in the hundreds and hundreds of UN programs, there are several that are productive (Lord, one would hope). But, Dean's term, feckless, certainly applies to the big picture security items. And a quick glance at the members who have served on the human rights side of the UN and their resolutions (pointed in a remarkably focused way) on a single country, tells me all I really needed to know. If that were not enough the reports of Blue Helmet rapist squads would tip the scales, or the.....

Of course, I'd be happy to jet down to Bali with the UN the next time they feel the need to declare the climate crisis s upon us.

Sorry, my poly-tickles are showing.

[Brakecheck]

I'm sure that, in the hundreds and hundreds of UN programs, there are several that are productive (Lord, one would hope). But, Dean's term, feckless, certainly applies to the big picture security items. And a quick glance at the members who have served on the human rights side of the UN and their resolutions (pointed in a remarkably focused way) on a single country, tells me all I really needed to know. If that were not enough the reports of Blue Helmet rapist squads would tip the scales, or the.....

Of course, I'd be happy to jet down to Bali with the UN the next time they feel the need to declare the climate crisis s upon us.

Sorry, my poly-tickles are showing.


No need to say sorry, you seem to understand the U.N. quite well.

As for me, I've been studying the situation and I'm surprised that I've found no reasons to condemn the Russians quite yet. They could have used less force... but what do I know. Unfortunately, in this area of the world you have two types of countries, the big dogs and buffers. Georgia was a buffer country for the last two hundred years. Now, Georgia is a wanna be big dog like Russia and the Ossetia region is targeted as a buffer zone, largely due to the ethnicity of its populace, and so it has gone for the last several hundred years throughout Europe. This is not a new conflict, it has been festering for many years. Russia will eventually accomplish what it wants.

[Boxerboy]

The NATO angle is one I've been thinking about as well. Although there's more to it that that, the NATO nations, as I understand it, have pledged that an attack on one will be treated as an attack on all.
Yes...that's where my thoughts were coming from also.



What if Georgia had gained full NATO member status? Are we (are Germany, Italy, etc) ready and willing - not to mention able - to directly confront the Soviets over Georgia?

...and this is what I was thinking when I wrote re: Georgia "scaring Nato off".

[Boxerboy]

I'm very uncertain about this article, which implicates Israel and Iran in the broader scheme of things.
Scary stuff if even half true. Has anyone read anything that may validate some of this? Is it too far-fetched to have validity?

8-30-8

As the attention of the America public is focused on the American election, with the Democratic Convention having just ended, and the announcement today of McCain's female running mate, and the Republican Convention next week, the public has missed something. Something not missed by Europeans, even mainstream European news media have given broad coverage to the story.

Just a minor story, really, no need to turn your attention away from the political puff that is American electoral politics. Just something about Russia (you know the big country with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and advanced delivery systems) and a clear WAR WARNING TO NATO.

In what is the most serious international crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis almost caused World War III forty-five years ago, Russia has issued a War Warning to NATO and America. "If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia," said the Russian Ambassador to NATO, Mr. Dmitry Rogozin. Further, Russia is making it clear that military assistance to Georgia will be considered an act of war. Ambassador Rogozin likened the current crisis to the fevered diplomatic atmosphere in Europe just before the start of the First World War. World War I was said to start when "the lights went out in the chancelleries of Europe" and diplomatic measures failed.

A top Russian military figure, the President of the Academy of Geopolitical Studies (in Moscow) Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said "We are close to a serious conflict". With regard to the Georgia-South Ossetian conflict, General Ivashov said that one of the principal goals of NATO's "geopolitical operation" was to neutralize Russia as a global player in the run-up to a war with Iran.

The British publication, 'This is London', calls the Russian position, as articulated by Ambassador Rogozin, an "extraordinary warning to the West".

Another leading London newspaper, 'The Mail', said "Tensions between Russia and the West were ratcheted even higher today after Moscow warned that the American naval build-up in the Black Sea could be seen as a 'declaration of war'."

While I am not heading for the nuclear bomb shelter, I do think that this is serious. One of the main fears has been what the crazy neo-con Administration of George Bush and Dick Cheney would do in its final months in power. Would they begin yet a third war, this time with an Iran armed with advanced biological weapons of mass destruction capable of killing maybe a third of the human race? The answer to that is still up in the air, but it appears that the overall answer is much worse than anyone thought.

The Bush Administration funded a buildup of the Georgian Army and recently sent about a thousand US Marines to train the Georgian troops. Israel and the United States sold a large amount of military technology and hardware to Georgia. Israeli companies, headed by reserve Israeli generals, brought in excess of a thousand Israeli mercenaries into Georgia and two senior, recently retired Israeli generals provided senior command "consulting" to the Georgian General Staff. All of this turned very ugly, when on 8/8/08 the Georgian forces attacked lightly armed Russian peace keepers along with many innocent Russian civilians using volley fire from massed tubeless artillery. Over 1,400 men, women, and children were killed in their own homes without warning, in the opening minutes (with over 2,000 killed in the five day war). In response to this, Russia sent in her troops and most Georgian troops retreated (some "retreated" so fast that they threw away their uniforms, guns, and equipment as they ran home).

The Russians, by most accounts, behaved well and stopped short of the Georgian capital. However, to hear the neo-con political leaders in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom tell it, the Russians attacked a defenseless nation that had done nothing to provoke the attack. Increasingly the neo-con owned mainstream news media is spinning the story into one of Russian aggression, making the Russians out to be the bad guys and ignoring the murder of thousands of civilians by the Georgian/Israeli forces.

Russian's deputy military chief, Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, has warned that NATO has already exhausted the number of naval forces it can have in the Black Sea under the Montreux Convention (an international treaty dating to 1936 that governs the number, type, and tonnage of warships allowed to pass the Turkish Straits ~ the Bosporus and the Dardanells ~ into the Black Sea) and warned Western nations against sending more ships. The Montreux Convention allows the NATO ships to stay no longer than 21 days and limits the total number to nine warships (the current number).

If the Convention treaty is violated by NATO it will be a technical state of war. Russia has warned Turkey that she will be held responsible if additional warships are allowed into the Black Sea; already Turkey has prevented some US naval ships from entering. The total tonnage limit on naval ships is 45,000 tons. The US sought to send the USNS Comfort and the USNS Mercy, hospital ships whose tonnages both exceeded 69,000 tons each, through the Turkish Straits but Turkey would not allow it. As the hospital ships are not really needed, this was simply an attempt by the Bush Administration to violate the Montreux Convention and to get by with it by insisting that no rational nation could object to hospital ships. General Nogovitsyn has pointed out that US Navy ships in the Black Sea have nuclear armed cruise missiles capable of striking at most of European Russia including St. Petersburg and that these ships are considered "a serious threat to our security".

The Russians suspect that the US Navy is delivering arms to Georgia under the cover of civilian aid. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said, "Normally battleships do not deliver aid and this is battleship diplomacy, this does not make the situation more stable".

Russian Admiral Eduard Balin (former commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet) was quoted by Russian news media as saying, "Despite the apparent strength of the NATO naval group in the Black Sea....a single salvo from the Moskva missile cruiser and two or thee missile boats would be enough to annihilate the entire group. Within twenty minutes the waters would be clear." The Moskva is the world's only currently serving 'heavy battle cruiser' and the most powerful non-carrier surface ship in the world.

British neo-con leader, Prime Minister Gordon Brown will attend an unprecedented emergency summit of leaders of the EU's 27 member states this coming Monday, in Brussels, to discuss the EU's response to Russia's actions. Sanctions are expected to be on the agenda to punish Russia for its "aggression". Fears are being expressed in Europe that Russia may restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe over the next few days, in response to the threat of EU sanctions and NATO actions in the Black Sea. This would be a dramatic escalation of the Georgian crisis and would play hell with global oil markets.

In a related story, Lebanese television and other sources are reporting that the Israeli government has reached a "strategic decision on Iran". That Israel will strike Iran, eventually (alone if necessary). The Jerusalem Post says that the Israeli government is moving forward with plans for the purchase of special aircraft and working on receiving US government approval to use US controlled Iraqi airspace for an attack on Iran.

It is interesting that more and more publications, from the right, center and left (including pro-neo-con and anti-neo-con), are speaking of World War III. An interesting article by Stratfor (generally pro-Israel and pro-neo-con) and reprinted by finchannel.com (a strongly pro-neo-con publication) speaks of Turkey's Options in the coming Third World War.

What the crazy evil Bush/Cheney Administration has done is to move the world close to World War III by bringing the Russians into the neo-con ever growing nightmare of war; 8/8/08 was the Russian 9/11 brought to you by the same people who gave America its 9/11, Britain its 7/7, etc.

There are various theories as to why the United States (or more specifically why the neo-cons who control the US government) would want to push Russia into a global war; just as there are various theories why tiny Israel would want to involve itself in a battle against a massive nuclear power like Russia, who could turn Iran and Syria into nuclear armed states overnight if it chose to.

Many say that the neo-cons are simply crazy and that their maneuvers have failed. Others would say that the neo-cons are simply pawns in a larger Grand Strategy game that the global banking families have been playing for a couple of centuries and that a Third World War is required to establish the New World Order/global government that they intend to establish and establish soon. If the latter is the case, a little thing like advanced 21st Century warfare will get in the way. There is simply NO WAY that mankind can survive a Third World War, except for Divine intervention. The levels of destructive firepower and technology are simply too great.

[Biff's R]

Boxerboy, that story put my bull sh!t meter on full alert.

[Boxerboy]

Boxerboy, that story put my bull sh!t meter on full alert.
It did mine too, but it's a funny world we live in, and I was keen to read a reasoned rebuttal or otherwise.
After 9/11 surprises are hard to come by.

[Capt. Blackadder]

Boxerboy, the author of that story (http://europebusines.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-08-30T01%3A10%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=7) is a guy who calls himself Lord Stirling. I've been following his blog for a few weeks, since the Georgia-Russia conflict started. I haven't verified the veracity of his claims, but he certainly writes some thought-provoking blog entries.

[Boxerboy]

Interesting page.. does he have any claim to knowledge or is he a card carrying member of the "monster raving looney party" or some such thing?

[Deans BMW]

I think that whenever Bob chimes back in, he could provide some streight poop on the situation.

I am concerned in anycase.

[Capt. Blackadder]

I'm not sure yet. He does raise some very interesting topics which other alternative news outlets are also covering, but receive scant if any coverage in the mainstream media. The story (http://europebusines.blogspot.com/search/label/Massive%20US%20Naval%20Armada%20Heads%20to%20Iran) about a massive US/British/French/Canadian naval armada gathering near the Persian Gulf is one such example.

[Gord]

I agree Dean that we need to be concerned, but perhaps for very different reasons.

The West (notice I am not saying the U.S. here, but all of our western governments!) are being 100% hypocritical in our reaction to the problems in South Ossetia. How is it that we can launch air campaigns against a sovereign state (Serbia) to stop ethnic cleansing, interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign government by supporting the partition and independence of Kosovo, and invade sovereign states in the middle and far east, but then turn around and tell Russia that she has no right to support an enclave of native Russians that clearly do not want to be part of Georgia?

I had started out supporting Georgia, but the more I dig into what has precipitated the fighting in that region, the less sympathy I have for the Georgians. And then to listen to the strident, pompous denunciations from our governments of Russian aggression that is no different than our own aggression elsewhere in the world put me over the edge. If there is one thing I hate, it is hypocrisy. And the West is doling out buckets full of it at the moment.

I can't help but think that If the Caucuses weren't rich in oil, this whole incident would have been simply a blip in the news.