Lady Dragonfly: I've seen quite a few conspiracy theories about Israel/US involvement, I'm not buying it beyond the obvious extent: US involvement and arming of Georgia was an attempt of the US to gain leverage over Russia by having an armed deployement zone on its border, just like the pipeline was an attempt at economic leverage.
Speaking of goading people into war, I don't know what that is if not provocation. A serious blunder in international politics by the US, and maybe when the outcries die down the media will start realising how the West messed up once again.
Xandax wrote:And now Russia have threaten Poland with military retaliation, due to the missile defense issue, where Poland changed stance after this conflict
Aye, no surprise there. Poland knew they'd be put under pressure when accepting the missile defense thing. And no small wonder, Russia simply does not want a missile shield on its border. And who's to blame 'em? Considering the viable alternatives, the US has no excuse for pushing through this plan
Xandax wrote:No I do think Russia should help defend S.O if Georigan troops attack.
But I do not think they should have escalated the conflict, and have invaded and started occupation of Georgian territories because then they are no longer peace keeping force, but performing an act of war becoming an invading army - and they should not portray themselves as noble defenders, when their hands are so bloody in the entire conflict.
Cool, then we're in basic agreement.
Though I should footnote that the peace agreement between Russia and Georgia contained a clause allowing Russia to station soldiers in Georgia if they felt it was necessary for pacification reasons. Russia being in Georgia does not violate the peace agreement, but their holding and looting of towns and roads does.
Xandax wrote:Sweden appears to break off military cooperation with Russia over this incident. Wonder how far this'll roll on.
I don't think it matters. This has already been an enormous victory for Russia, both in military pacification of the Caucasus (again) and international politics. This has been a huge embarrassment for both the US, the EU and NATO, and they're trying to cover it up with strong condemnation, hastening on the missile defence treaty or meaningless things like Sweden breaking off military cooperation with Russia.
Not that Russia has any reason to be happy over any of that, but they're not impressed by it either. The West completely failed to do anything about Russia policing its own back yard while sternly disagreeing with it and has set a dangerous precedent by doing so. Besides, there's an inconsistency of the West towards South Ossetian self determination compared to the West's attitude towards Kosovo plus the West's odd attitude of condemning civilian deaths caused by Russia, while Western politics is ignoring that Georgia opened the war by spread-bombing
Tskhinvali and caused a big whop of unnecessary civilian deaths in the first few days). The Kosovo-South Ossetia comparison is basically one of "no you are"-equal blame, but both these cases are raising a lot of ill will in Russia, making it easier for their politicians to sell both this war and consolidation against the West. Considering how the first Chechen crisis was so unpopular that it almost toppled Jeltsin, the fact that this war can so easily be turned to consolidation is a serious loss to Western lovers of democratic ideals.
If you're interested, here's a good
scorecard showing how this is a victory for Russia in every sense of the word.
Another thoughtful one - though obviously a bit outdated.
Simply put: short of blocking a new EU-RF agreement or kicking Russia out of the WTO, there's nothing the West can do "in response to" Russia's actions in Georgia that will make a dent of an impression, or change this from simply reading "score: Russia".
The only thing Russia lost is
the media war, but with Georgia being the democratic pet project it is they never had much of a chance on winning that one. That is a shame, because it means that understanding of this conflict is blocked by skewed media coverage, and it may mean that Saakashvili will remain in power, which would be pretty bad for the Georgians. However, it's nothing but a childish blame game, a bit of PR, and it does not change the impact this has on the arena of international politics.
EDIT: this
NATO response is interesting. Putting relations on hold until Russia withdraws is pretty standard fare, but I find it interesting that they're going to push through advance cooperations with Georgia. Probably not full membership (duh), but it's still a strike against Russia. Pretty smart from an international politics viewpoint, but a bit stupid on the internal politics of NATO-side as Georgia is still as unstable as it was before now, and advanced cooperation between NATO and an unstable state is always a bad idea.