By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

MOSCOW_ In the aftermath of last month's war between Russia and U.S.-backed Georgia, Kremlin-watchers in Moscow are worried that Russia and America are closer to direct confrontation than at any point since the end of the Cold War.

The rhetoric coming from the Bush administration — and presidential hopeful John McCain — suggests that tensions are still on the rise.

During the Cold War, "the sides were very careful of each other. They were careful not to come too close," said Alexander Pikayev, a prominent military analyst in Moscow who works for a government-funded research center. "The risk of direct military clashes is (now) much higher. . . . This situation is much riskier than the Cold War."

Both sympathizers and critics of Kremlin policy shared the assessment of a significantly heightened chance of conflict. They expressed hopes that cooler heads will prevail.

Vice President Dick Cheney put a spotlight on the standoff during visits to Georgia and Ukraine this week, the countries at the core of the row between Washington and Moscow. He told Georgians on Thursday that the United States will continue to back the country's NATO application — which the Kremlin vehemently opposes — and said that Moscow's intervention "cast grave doubt on Russia's intentions and on its reliability as an international partner."

Cheney traveled on Friday to Ukraine, which also is applying to NATO with strong U.S. support. There, he spoke of the "threat of tyranny, economic blackmail and military invasion or intimidation" from Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the same day that it was up to America to decide whether disagreements would get worse.

"We are not interested in bad relations with the United States," Lavrov told CNN. "It wouldn't be our choice, but if the United States does not want to cooperate with us on one or another issue, we cannot impose."

At the Republican convention Thursday, McCain mentioned Russia just after al Qaida and Iran.

"Russia's leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power," McCain said in his nomination-acceptance speech. "As president, I will work to establish good relations with Russia so we need not fear a return of the Cold War," he said. "But we can't turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people."

Democratic contender Barack Obama promised to "renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can curb Russian aggression."

Andrei Klimov, a Russian parliament member with the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, said he didn't think there would be fighting between the United States and Russia, but acknowledged that he's taken aback by how much more possible it seems now.

"If you have a lot of people on the streets with pistols, it is very dangerous," said Klimov, the deputy of the foreign affairs committee in the Duma, the lower house of parliament.

Russian analysts say there are three possible flash points, all centered on or around the Black Sea, once almost lakefront property for the Soviet empire. The sea borders three NATO members — Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania — and two applicants, Georgia and Ukraine. If the two applicants join the alliance, Russia's Black Sea coastline would be surrounded by NATO.

"Now it looks like there is a certain red line that exists in the heads of Russian leadership and they are willing to do anything to stop it from being crossed," said Nikolai Petrov, a Moscow scholar in residence with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "And this red line is Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO."

It's a crucial area for any attempts by Russia to reassert its power in former Soviet territory:

_ In Ukraine, the government of U.S.-backed President Viktor Yushchenko is splintering in a power struggle. If Yushchenko or his opponents use force, the country could split between pro-Western and pro-Russian factions, creating pressure for Washington and Moscow to take sides, if not become directly involved.

_ American warships are deploying in and near Georgian ports, carrying humanitarian aid. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has suggested that they're also bringing military aid to the defeated Georgian army. On Friday, the USS Mount Whitney, the command ship for the U.S. Navy's 6th Fleet, docked in Poti, Georgia, not far from Russian outposts on shore.

_ Russian warships have been sent to the coast of nearby Abkhazia, a breakaway province of Georgia now occupied by Russian troops and recognized as an independent state by Moscow. In the relatively close proximity in which the Russian and American ships operate there and elsewhere in the Black Sea, one misunderstanding could create an international incident.

"We remember very well the Tonkin Gulf incident" in which untrue reports of North Vietnamese ships firing on U.S. ships started the Vietnam War, said Sergei Markov, a Duma member who's also with United Russia.

Markov, who's close to the Kremlin, accused the Bush administration of playing "a very dirty and bloody game" in which it was intentionally provoking Russia to create the appearance of a new cold war to help McCain's hawkish presidential campaign and further U.S. attempts to hem in Russian power.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst in Moscow who works with the U.S.-based Jamestown Foundation, agreed that relations between the countries were dangerously tense, but blamed the Kremlin.

"Russia is probing the West, as it often did during the Cold War, (to see) how far is the West willing to go: What will happen if Russia continues to push?" Felgenhauer said. "There is a party of war within the ruling party. . . . It seems that for now the hard-liners are winning."

Aleksandr Dugin, a hard-line Russian theorist whose ideas about weakening American geopolitical standing are popular with many Kremlin leaders, said Russia was challenging U.S. domination and that confrontation may be unavoidable.

Russia's move into Georgia was "an "irreversible decision that will mean in the future a serious, profound, irreversible confrontation with the United States. . . . The stakes are so high that Moscow has placed all its (chips) on the table," he said.

Dugin said he thought the strategy was a good one.

More from McClatchy:

Russian assault unites Georgia behind Saakashvili

Russia defies West, recognizes breakaway Georgia regions

Bush-Putin summit does little to relieve U.S.-Russia strains

Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/51913.html

Medvedev told the State Council meeting that his government had acted responsibly.

"There isn’t a single country in the world that would tolerate its citizens and peacekeepers being killed. Russia was obliged to save these people”.

At the Moscow meeting, the government’s position was backed by regional leaders.

The Republic of Tatarstan’s President, Mentimir Shaimiyev, said recent events showed that ethnic conflicts cannot be solved by force.

Click here for full story

When I was at university, there used to be a game, still popular around the world today, called Diplomacy. The players each represented one of the major European nations as they existed about one hundred years ago: France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Russia and so forth; their mythical armies and fleets (no aeroplanes then) battled for territory and power on a large board representing the map of Europe and the seas around it.

The game was known as Diplomacy because, as it is difficult to attack and to defend oneself at the same time and as a single country did not necessarily have the force by itself to overcome an opponent, the object was to arrange strategic alliances and non-aggression pacts with other players while bluffing about your true intentions.

It was, however, a time consuming game. Even in the real world, diplomacy is a task that requires a slow and steady hand. Besides, the game could only really be played effectively if discussions could be clandestine. Diplomacy by megaphone, though fashionable, is counterproductive

What used to strike me as significant, however, was the characteristics of the nation being played did not reflect, as they would in any other game, the characteristics of the player. Rather it seemed that whoever played Russia, for example, or Britain, would always end up playing that country in the same way.

What is true in a game, I suspect, holds no less true in real life. Unlike that of most of its neighbours, Russian foreign policy has not changed significantly in 300 years, despite cataclysmic changes of regime. It would be naive of us therefore if we were to pretend that Russian foreign policy is likely to change now, rooted as it is in the country's geography and history.

I am sure that President Sarkozy of France, as president of the European Council, will bear this in mind as he steps on to the Moscow tarmac on Monday accompanied by Mr Barroso and Mr Solana, to discuss with Mr Putin and President Medvedev how best we move on from the Georgian imbroglio.

For, in a sense, Europe has been caught facing two ways. Ostensibly it has broken off the current round of partnership talks with Russia, designed to set a new framework for co-operation, until the Russians withdraw their troops, now occupying parts of Georgia, to the positions they held on 7 August.

Yet it is hard to see Monday's Kremlin talks other than as a re-invigorated attempt to find a secure basis for just such a partnership. If agreement can be reached on Georgia on the basis of some mutual understanding how much easier will be be to extend the same understanding to other issues? One does wonder, however, how much is likely to be achieved in a single short day. Given the importance and intractability of the issues, more time is surely needed for something worthwhile. 'Trop de zèle,' as Talleyrand might have sighed.

But whatever the length, it is surely important that we on the European side understand Russia's legitimate fears and aspirations which, of course, extend far beyond the Caucasus. These have been well rehearsed in the press - not least in an excellent analysis by Jan Oberg in these pages last week. Of course, to understand does not necessarily mean to agree, still less to cave in.

But by understanding the Russian position - including why so many actions taken, semi-innocently, by the West are seen as provocative and threatening by Moscow - we shall be better able to reach a positive conclusion rather than a conversation that remains a dialogue of the deaf, which is what occurs when politicians posture and issue empty threats.

We in Europe need also to understand (and with a degree of humility) how our own actions, over Kosovo in particular, are seen by Russia. It is no use saying, as French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner does, that Kosovo is 'unique.' Everywhere is 'unique' in that sense, including Georgia. As a reason for transgressing international law, uniqueness is worthless.

We Europeans like to pat ourselves on the back and tell the world how we have replaced 'war' with 'law.' We pride ourselves on our adherence to the principle of a rules-based international order, but we omit to add the rider - "when this suits us," as it didn't, as it happened, in Kosovo. That the United States has an even stronger stake in this hypocritical position should not cloud our judgement.

We accepted that international law should be broken when first we bombed Kosovo and Serbia and then again when a majority of member states recognised Kosovo's illegal independence. A number of European states also joined the equally illegal and ill-fated crusade into Iraq. With such stains on our collective conscience, it ill behoves us to lecture Russia about adhering to international law; we are both tarred with the same delinquent brush.

Yet once we accept this - admit that we have no moral superiority here - we can sit down on an equal basis with Russia and talk about how it would be in the interests of both parties to see a future in which we both, really and truly, abide by international law.

Heaven knows we need a stable and effective partnership with Russia - and not just to run our own inter-bloc relations - but for the wider world as well. Europe needs Russian help in the Security Council on issues such as Iran, militant Islam, the Middle East, climate change, nuclear proliferation and so forth.

This does not mean abandoning the Caucasus, still less backing down from fierce criticism of Russia's record on human rights and democracy. But it does mean ceasing to treat Russia as though she were simply a blank space on the map.

The issues at stake are complex. They include trade, security, energy, democracy all the way from the Arctic to the Black Sea. They will take time to resolve. We must be prepared for give and take. Russia is not the old Soviet Union bent on ideological domination by force. We can deal rationally with modern Russia.

Talk of a new cold war is simply short-sighted.

We both need a rules-based world. And we both need to help each other stick by those rules. Russia is better an ally than a foe.

 
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney (L) meets Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in Kiev September 5, 2008.REUTERS/Alexander Prokopenko (UKRAINE)

Cheney says in remarks Friday that Ukrainians should be able to live "without the threat of tyranny, economic blackmail and military invasion or intimidation." He says the United States has a "deep and abiding interest" in Ukraine's security.

Cheney spoke after meeting with President Viktor Yushchenko. Cheney's visit to Ukraine and two other ex-Soviet republics signaled that the United States will continue cultivating close ties in the region.

That's even after Russia showed it was willing to use military force against countries along its border.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met with top Ukrainian leaders Friday, calling their country's relationship with the United States "very important," as Washington sought to reassure its allies in former Soviet states following Russia's war with Georgia.

Sitting down with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Cheney praised the changes he saw since he was last in Ukraine 20 years ago.

"There have been remarkable changes," he said. "My delegation and I are grateful for the hospitality. This is indeed a very important relationship between Kiev, Ukraine, and the United States."

Yushchenko, meanwhile, emphasized that he shared the United States' critical view of Russian military intervention in Georgia. Yushchenko has been among Russia's harshest critics in the aftermath of the five-day war last month.

"We value our strategic bilateral relationship highly," Yushchenko said. "On the majority of the issues, including Georgia, we have an understanding with the United States."

He added he believed the conflict over Georgia's two separatists regions could be resolved peacefully.

Earlier Friday, Cheney met with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. According to Tymoshenko's aides, the two leaders discussed regional security and stability, as well as efforts to diversify energy supplies.

Read the rest:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080905/ap_on_re_eu/
ukraine_us_cheney;_ylt=AjSXG45Qu.6ipEFQC2uAcS6s0NUE

The recent Russian-Georgian war and the ensuing crisis in the Kremlin’s relations with the European Union and USA have little to do with the fate of South Ossetia. The territory and the 70,000 people who live there - a third of the population of Hackney - are merely an insignificant pawn in the current bout of great power rivalry. Although we have not yet seen an attack on Iran, conflict zones and fronts of tension are expanding at a canter.

NATO is expanding eastwards at a rapid pace, and the EU similarly has a project of integrating almost all of non-Russian Europe; the Putin-Medvedev government in Russia has in recent months and years repeatedly interfered with gas and oil supplies to neighbouring Ukraine and halted internet access in Estonia; Putin has led Russia into closer alliance with China in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which will soon welcome Iran into the fold; and much as the Bush administration has pumped military aid to Georgian President Saakashvili, so too has the Russian military become the leading supplier for the Iranian Air Force.

It is far from the case, however, that the world has been drawn up into clearly defined and conflicting “camps” of regional and world dominance, less still into “imperialist” and “anti-imperialist” camps. Much as the United States government talks of spreading “democracy”, they support Islamist death squads in Iraq in an effort to impose stability by force; conversely, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who speechifies at length about “imperialism” is in fact a supporter of the wars against - and occupation of - Iraq and Afghanistan, and has imposed IMF neoliberal reforms. For his part, the “anti-imperialist” Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is an outspoken supporter of Russia and its ally Serbia, and while waxing lyrical about the sovereignty of South Ossetia he has no qualms about excusing the oppression of Kosova and Chechnya.

The only force which can consistently oppose militarism and national chauvinism is the international workers’ movement. We call for the maximum unity in organisation and in action of the working class, across borders and regardless of nation-states, to fight all of our rulers. Nowhere in the world are working people in power; no country in the world is “in transition to socialism”.

Indeed, most of those who speak at today’s meeting would call themselves “socialists” or “Marxists” - yet how many of them pose, in the here and now and in the context of the war, the development of a movement of the working class capable not only of stopping the war, but having the potential to go further and making actual revolutionary change? This would be considered insane—revolution is something for the history books and speeches to the faithful few. The idea of a communist revolution from below was long ago separated from the day-to-day, “real” politics of the traditional left. They will prefer a “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” standpoint... and thus collapse into one variant or another of support for the governments of Iran, Russia or whoever else is in dispute with the United States and Britain. Those who would “refuse to condemn” an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear installations merely have a mirror-image of this position, with no serious regard for what impact such an attack would have in retarding the workers’ movement in struggle against the Islamist regime. Let us be quite clear: any form of support or excuse-mongering for one or another government necessarily entails a let-up in the class struggle.

But maybe the class struggle is not really that central for the left. Certainly there has been far too little talk in the movement of the strike which took place four months ago demanding the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. On May 1st dockers in the United States organised in the ILWU union staged a strike shutting down all 29 West Coast ports for a whole day and - in an amazing display of international working-class action - Iraqi dockers at the ports of Khor Alzubair and Umm Qasr staged a strike in solidarity with their US counterparts.

Is such an action unimaginable in Britain today? Is the class struggle really so heightened in the USA that we could not hope to emulate it? Although there is no iron law stopping the British workers’ movement taking action against the occupation of Iraq, it is marked by a deep pessimism. Equally, advocating such action appears not to be on the agenda of the leaders of the Stop the War Coalition, namely the Socialist Workers’ Party and their allies in the Communist Party of Britain, and has barely been discussed. Trade union resolutions to give money to StWC are not effective working-class action against the war. Do we actually want effective action to “stop the war”, or just to go onto the streets and say the fighting is “not in my name” in a liberal-pacifist act of self-justification?

The endless series of protest marches, ever dwindling in numbers, show that the movement’s leaders have no imagination as well as a lack of class politics. In this regard our movement is far behind not only the many activists involved in projects like Climate Camp but also the anti-war movement in other countries. The May 1st strike staged by dockers in the USA and Iraq was reminiscent of the action of Motherwell train drivers and Italian dockers who refused to transport arms at the time of the invasion of Iraq. But that was five years ago. We need a strategy for here and now.

The school students’ walk-out at the time of the Iraq war and teachers’ strikes at a few schools were excellent, and the bigger demos were inspiring. But reminiscing about the 15th February 2003 march and these actions serves no purpose, and given the increased threats of war in the Middle East and the Caucasus, there is no place for self-congratulation... But what did the Stop the War Coalition produce in February? A book called Five years on: why we are still marching. Perhaps a better subject for enquiry would have been “Five years on: so why are we still marching?”.

At each demonstration the SWP grandees tell us that “we will keep on marching until the troops come home”... never mind the fact that the ever-smaller marches put hardly any pressure on the government and rarely make the news. This is not just censorship: of course the BBC (and most ordinary people) don’t care if 10,000 lefties turn out for a demo. That is what lefties do. It is no more noteworthy than 10,000 people going to watch Millwall play.

There needs to be a radical rethink. The left and the antiwar movement should build solidarity with Iranian workers’ struggles against the regime; they should support trade unions and our comrades in Iraq, Georgia and everywhere else; and serve as a hub of international working-class solidarity against all governments. Working-class politics is not just collecting money for foreign trade unions though: we must also begin an investigation into what tactics we use and what the workers’ movement can do to take action to end the occupation and prevent further wars, including but not limited to strikes, walkouts and occupations.

leaflet for 6th september meeting

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whose name derives from the Russian word for bear, has been showing his claws.
 
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets with Uzbek President Islam Karimov in Tashkent. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday Moscow no longer considered Mikheil Saakashvili as Georgia's leader, calling him a "political corpse" and accusing his regime of "aggression that ended in many deaths."(AFP/Pool/Alexey Druzhinin)
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On Tuesday, he used some of his harshest rhetoric to date, calling Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili a "political corpse" and suggesting the U.S. somehow instigated the war in Georgia to bolster Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign.

Does this tough talk mean Medvedev is eclipsing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as Russia's leading political figure? Not likely.

It has been Putin who throughout the crisis has set Russia's defiant tone — a line that others in the Kremlin team, from Medvedev down to Russia's NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin, have echoed, clarified and amplified.

It was Putin, for example, who first accused the U.S. of encouraging Georgia's military assault on South Ossetia last week, claiming it was engineered by the party in power — presumably the Republicans — to help their presidential candidate.

Let’s begin simply by reviewing the last few days.

On the night of Thursday, Aug. 7, forces of the Republic of Georgia drove across the border of South Ossetia, a secessionist region of Georgia that has functioned as an independent entity since the fall of the Soviet Union. The forces drove on to the capital, Tskhinvali, which is close to the border. Georgian forces got bogged down while trying to take the city. In spite of heavy fighting, they never fully secured the city, nor the rest of South Ossetia.

On the morning of Aug. 8, Russian forces entered South Ossetia, using armored and motorized infantry forces along with air power. South Ossetia was informally aligned with Russia, and Russia acted to prevent the region’s absorption by Georgia. Given the speed with which the Russians responded — within hours of the Georgian attack — the Russians were expecting the Georgian attack and were themselves at their jumping-off points. The counterattack was carefully planned and competently executed, and over the next 48 hours, the Russians succeeded in defeating the main Georgian force and forcing a retreat. By Sunday, Aug. 10, the Russians had consolidated their position in South Ossetia.

On Monday, the Russians extended their offensive into Georgia proper, attacking on two axes. One was south from South Ossetia to the Georgian city of Gori. The other drive was from Abkhazia, another secessionist region of Georgia aligned with the Russians. This drive was designed to cut the road between the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and its ports. By this point, the Russians had bombed the military airfields at Marneuli and Vaziani and appeared to have disabled radars at the international airport in Tbilisi. These moves brought Russian forces to within 40 miles of the Georgian capital, while making outside reinforcement and resupply of Georgian forces extremely difficult should anyone wish to undertake it.

The Mystery Behind the Georgian Invasion
In this simple chronicle, there is something quite mysterious: Why did the Georgians choose to invade South Ossetia on Thursday night? There had been a great deal of shelling by the South Ossetians of Georgian villages for the previous three nights, but while possibly more intense than usual, artillery exchanges were routine. The Georgians might not have fought well, but they committed fairly substantial forces that must have taken at the very least several days to deploy and supply. Georgia’s move was deliberate.

The United States is Georgia’s closest ally. It maintained about 130 military advisers in Georgia, along with civilian advisers, contractors involved in all aspects of the Georgian government and people doing business in Georgia. It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware of Georgia’s mobilization and intentions. It is also inconceivable that the Americans were unaware that the Russians had deployed substantial forces on the South Ossetian frontier. U.S. technical intelligence, from satellite imagery and signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles, could not miss the fact that thousands of Russian troops were moving to forward positions. The Russians clearly knew the Georgians were ready to move. How could the United States not be aware of the Russians? Indeed, given the posture of Russian troops, how could intelligence analysts have missed the possibility that the Russians had laid a trap, hoping for a Georgian invasion to justify its own counterattack?

It is very difficult to imagine that the Georgians launched their attack against U.S. wishes. The Georgians rely on the United States, and they were in no position to defy it. This leaves two possibilities. The first is a massive breakdown in intelligence, in which the United States either was unaware of the existence of Russian forces, or knew of the Russian forces but — along with the Georgians — miscalculated Russia’s intentions. The second is that the United States, along with other countries, has viewed Russia through the prism of the 1990s, when the Russian military was in shambles and the Russian government was paralyzed. The United States has not seen Russia make a decisive military move beyond its borders since the Afghan war of the 1970s-1980s. The Russians had systematically avoided such moves for years. The United States had assumed that the Russians would not risk the consequences of an invasion.

If this was the case, then it points to the central reality of this situation: The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United States and Europe could not respond. As for risk, they did not view the invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no counter. Economically, Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well — indeed, the Europeans need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them. Politically, as we shall see, the Americans needed the Russians more than the Russians needed the Americans. Moscow’s calculus was that this was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for months, as we have discussed, and they struck.

The Western Encirclement of Russia
To understand Russian thinking, we need to look at two events. The first is the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. From the U.S. and European point of view, the Orange Revolution represented a triumph of democracy and Western influence. From the Russian point of view, as Moscow made clear, the Orange Revolution was a CIA-funded intrusion into the internal affairs of Ukraine, designed to draw Ukraine into NATO and add to the encirclement of Russia. U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton had promised the Russians that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union empire.

That promise had already been broken in 1998 by NATO’s expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — and again in the 2004 expansion, which absorbed not only the rest of the former Soviet satellites in what is now Central Europe, but also the three Baltic states, which had been components of the Soviet Union.

The Russians had tolerated all that, but the discussion of including Ukraine in NATO represented a fundamental threat to Russia’s national security. It would have rendered Russia indefensible and threatened to destabilize the Russian Federation itself. When the United States went so far as to suggest that Georgia be included as well, bringing NATO deeper into the Caucasus, the Russian conclusion — publicly stated — was that the United States in particular intended to encircle and break Russia.

The second and lesser event was the decision by Europe and the United States to back Kosovo’s separation from Serbia. The Russians were friendly with Serbia, but the deeper issue for Russia was this: The principle of Europe since World War II was that, to prevent conflict, national borders would not be changed. If that principle were violated in Kosovo, other border shifts — including demands by various regions for independence from Russia — might follow. The Russians publicly and privately asked that Kosovo not be given formal independence, but instead continue its informal autonomy, which was the same thing in practical terms. Russia’s requests were ignored.

From the Ukrainian experience, the Russians became convinced that the United States was engaged in a plan of strategic encirclement and strangulation of Russia. From the Kosovo experience, they concluded that the United States and Europe were not prepared to consider Russian wishes even in fairly minor affairs. That was the breaking point. If Russian desires could not be accommodated even in a minor matter like this, then clearly Russia and the West were in conflict. For the Russians, as we said, the question was how to respond. Having declined to respond in Kosovo, the Russians decided to respond where they had all the cards: in South Ossetia.

Moscow had two motives, the lesser of which was as a tit-for-tat over Kosovo. If Kosovo could be declared independent under Western sponsorship, then South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions of Georgia, could be declared independent under Russian sponsorship. Any objections from the United States and Europe would simply confirm their hypocrisy. This was important for internal Russian political reasons, but the second motive was far more important.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once said that the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical disaster. This didn’t mean that he wanted to retain the Soviet state; rather, it meant that the disintegration of the Soviet Union had created a situation in which Russian national security was threatened by Western interests. As an example, consider that during the Cold War, St. Petersburg was about 1,200 miles away from a NATO country. Today it is about 60 miles away from Estonia, a NATO member. The disintegration of the Soviet Union had left Russia surrounded by a group of countries hostile to Russian interests in various degrees and heavily influenced by the United States, Europe and, in some cases, China.

Resurrecting the Russian Sphere
Putin did not want to re-establish the Soviet Union, but he did want to re-establish the Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union region. To accomplish that, he had to do two things. First, he had to re-establish the credibility of the Russian army as a fighting force, at least in the context of its region. Second, he had to establish that Western guarantees, including NATO membership, meant nothing in the face of Russian power. He did not want to confront NATO directly, but he did want to confront and defeat a power that was closely aligned with the United States, had U.S. support, aid and advisers and was widely seen as being under American protection. Georgia was the perfect choice.

By invading Georgia as Russia did (competently if not brilliantly), Putin re-established the credibility of the Russian army. But far more importantly, by doing this Putin revealed an open secret: While the United States is tied down in the Middle East, American guarantees have no value. This lesson is not for American consumption. It is something that, from the Russian point of view, the Ukrainians, the Balts and the Central Asians need to digest. Indeed, it is a lesson Putin wants to transmit to Poland and the Czech Republic as well. The United States wants to place ballistic missile defense installations in those countries, and the Russians want them to understand that allowing this to happen increases their risk, not their security.

The Russians knew the United States would denounce their attack. This actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior leaders are, the greater the contrast with their inaction, and the Russians wanted to drive home the idea that American guarantees are empty talk.

The Russians also know something else that is of vital importance: For the United States, the Middle East is far more important than the Caucasus, and Iran is particularly important. The United States wants the Russians to participate in sanctions against Iran. Even more importantly, they do not want the Russians to sell weapons to Iran, particularly the highly effective S-300 air defense system. Georgia is a marginal issue to the United States; Iran is a central issue. The Russians are in a position to pose serious problems for the United States not only in Iran, but also with weapons sales to other countries, like Syria.

Therefore, the United States has a problem — it either must reorient its strategy away from the Middle East and toward the Caucasus, or it has to seriously limit its response to Georgia to avoid a Russian counter in Iran. Even if the United States had an appetite for another war in Georgia at this time, it would have to calculate the Russian response in Iran — and possibly in Afghanistan (even though Moscow’s interests there are currently aligned with those of Washington).

In other words, the Russians have backed the Americans into a corner. The Europeans, who for the most part lack expeditionary militaries and are dependent upon Russian energy exports, have even fewer options. If nothing else happens, the Russians will have demonstrated that they have resumed their role as a regional power. Russia is not a global power by any means, but a significant regional power with lots of nuclear weapons and an economy that isn’t all too shabby at the moment. It has also compelled every state on the Russian periphery to re-evaluate its position relative to Moscow. As for Georgia, the Russians appear ready to demand the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. Militarily, that is their option. That is all they wanted to demonstrate, and they have demonstrated it.

The war in Georgia, therefore, is Russia’s public return to great power status. This is not something that just happened — it has been unfolding ever since Putin took power, and with growing intensity in the past five years. Part of it has to do with the increase of Russian power, but a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the Middle Eastern wars have left the United States off-balance and short on resources. As we have written, this conflict created a window of opportunity. The Russian goal is to use that window to assert a new reality throughout the region while the Americans are tied down elsewhere and dependent on the Russians. The war was far from a surprise; it has been building for months. But the geopolitical foundations of the war have been building since 1992. Russia has been an empire for centuries. The last 15 years or so were not the new reality, but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being rectified.

Source: Stratfor online publisher of geopolitical intelligence:

http://www.stratfor.com

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Video - 03/09/08

US tries to create an 'iron curtain' around Russia

F William Engdahl: US in decline as Russia asserts its rising power

The US provoked Russia to respond militarily and the US as the dominant power is beginning to stumble and "to look desperately for ways to hold on to that power.

President Dimitri Medvedev criticized the European Union for having a biased approach in regards to the Georgian conflict. Medvedev however stated that the EU acted in a rational manner by not implementing sanctions against the Russian Federation. F William Engdahl believes the EU response mirrors its dependence on Russian oil and gas. Engdahl goes on to further state that the US provoked Russia to respond militarily and the US as the dominant power is beginning to stumble and "to look desperately for ways to hold on to that power."
Bio

F William Engdahl is an economist and author and the writer of the best selling book "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order." Mr Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively. He is based in Germany.

Source: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20682.htm

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A Major War: Not Just Rumors

By Srdja Trifkovic

Global Research, September 3, 2008
chroniclesmagazine.org

The crisis in relations between the United States and Russia over Georgia heralds a particularly dangerous period in world affairs: the era of asymmetrical multipolarity. A major war between two or more major powers is more likely in this configuration than in any other model of global balance known to history. The most stable system is bipolarity based on the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which was prevalent from the 1950s until the end of the Cold War. The awareness of both superpowers that they would inflict severe and unavoidable reciprocal damage on each other or their allies in a nuclear war was coupled with the acceptance that each had a sphere of dominance or vital interest that should not be infringed upon.

With Brest-Litovsk and the Barbarossa in mind, Stalin "intended to turn the countries conquered by Soviet armies into buffer zones to protect Russia" (Kissinger). The Western equivalent, also essentially defensive, was defined by the Truman Doctrine (1947) Proxy wars were fought in the grey zone all over the Third World, most notably in the Middle East, but they were kept localized even when a superpower was directly involved (Vietnam, Afghanistan). This model was the product of unique circumstances without an adequate historical precedent, however, which are unlikely to be repeated in the foreseeable future.

The most stable model of international relations that is both historically recurrent and structurally repeatable in the future is the balance of power system in which no single great power is either physically able or politically willing to seek hegemony. This model was prevalent from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) until Napoleon, from Waterloo until around 1900, and from Versailles until 1933. It demands a relative equilibrium between the key powers (usually five to seven) that hold each other in check and function within a recognized set of rules that has come to be known as "international law." Wars between great powers do occur, but they are limited in scope and intensity because the warring parties tacitly accept the fundamental legitimacy and continued existence of their opponent(s).

If one of the powers becomes markedly stronger than others and if its decision-making elite internalizes an ideology that demands or at least justifies hegemony, the inherently unstable system of asymmetrical multipolarity will develop. In all three known instances—Napoleonic France after 1799, the Kaiserreich from around 1900, and the Third Reich after 1933—the challenge could not be resolved without a major war.

The government of the United States is now acting in a manner structurally reminiscent of those three powers. Having proclaimed itself the leader of an imaginary "international community," it goes further than any previous would-be hegemon in treating the entire world as the American sphere of interest. As I pointed out two weeks ago, the formal codification came in the National Security Strategy of September 2002, which presented the specter of open-ended political, military, and economic domination of the world by the United States acting unilaterally against "rogue states" and "potentially hostile powers" and in pursuit of an end to "destructive national rivalries." To that end, the administration pledged "to keep military strength beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace."

Any attempt by a single power to keep its military strength beyond challenge is inherently destabilizing, and results—sooner or later—in the emergence of an effective counter-coalition. Napoleon finally faced one at the Völkerschlacht at Leipzig in 1813. "There is no balance of power in Europe but me and my twenty-four army corps," the Kaiser famously boasted in 1901. Within years he was also building a high seas fleet. By 1907, Wilhelmine Germany engendered a counter-coalition that prompted even traditional rivals like Britain and Russia to join forces (the latter to be replaced by the United States in 1917). And as for the most recent Griff nach der Weltmacht, by the second week of December 1941 Germany was irrevocably doomed to another defeat.

An early yet certain symptom of destabilizing asymmetry in action is the would-be hegemon's tendency to claim an ever-widening sphere of influence or interference at the expense of his rivals. In the run-up to 1914 this was heralded by the Kruger Telegram (1896) and exemplified by the German bid to build the railway from Berlin to Baghdad (1903) and by the First Moroccan Crisis (1905). Neither Napoleon nor Hitler knew any «natural» limits, but their ambition was essentially confined to Europe. With the United States today the novelty is that this ambition is extended—literally—to the whole world. Not only the Western Hemisphere, not just the «Old Europe,» Japan, or Israel, but also Taiwan, Korea, and such unlikely places as Georgia, Estonia, Kosovo, or Bosnia, are considered vitally important. The globe itself is now effectively claimed as America's sphere of influence, Russia's Caucasian, European and Central Asian back yards most emphatically included.

Four weeks ago the game itself became alarmingly asymmetrical. For America it is still ideological, but for Russia it has become existential. Russia is now acting as a conservative, pre-1914 European power in seeking to protect its "near abroad." America is acting like a global revolutionary power, whose "near abroad" is literally everywhere.

It is therefore futile for Russia to try to "manage" the crisis in a pre-1914 manner and hope for some elusive softening on the other side, because the calculus in Washington is not rational. The counter-strategy of unpredictability, exemplified by Medvedev's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, is an eminently rational response, however. It may yet force the remnant of sanity inside the Beltway to try and exercise some adult supervision over the bipartisan "foreign policy community" of smokers in the arsenal.

Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10053

Despre retragerea moratoriului asupra dialogului în problema transnistreană a anunţat şi Igor Smirnov, care anterior anunţase că unica cale de rezolvare a conflictului este recunoaşterea independenţei Transnistriei de către autorităţile de la Chişinău.

Tiraspolul a introdus moratoriu asupra dialogului cu autorităţile moldoveneşti, argumentând acest pas prin "refuzului Republicii Moldova de a condamna agresiunea Georgiei asupra Oseţiei de Sud".

• Rusia: el presidente ruso, Medvédev, está dispuesto a restablecer por completo las relaciones con EEUU y le recuerda que revise sus relaciones con Georgia. Es decir, que se olviden de rearmarlos y de mandar material militar moderno. No obstante, el Kremlin reaccionará al escudo antimisiles que se instalará en Polonia.
• Corea del Norte: según la Fox, ha comenzado a reconstruir el reactor de plutonio que desmanteló hace unos meses, según su presidente, Pyongyang, porque EEUU no les ha excluido de la lista de países cooperantes con el terrorismo. Hace unos días se negó a desvelar el número de ojivas nucleares que posee y ahora reactiva su plan nuclear, si no estuviera tan cerca de China y de Rusia no creo que se atreviera a llevar a cabo estas operaciones.
• Estonia: ¿recuerdan las repúblicas socialistas? Pues en Estonia dos aldeas proclaman el restablecimiento del poder soviético y están recolectando firmas sobre la independencia que entregarán a Rusia para mantener relaciones de amistad y ayuda mutua. Por cierto, ya han formado un Gobierno soviético y han formado "milicias populares" para defender al nuevo "Estado" (aunque no lo podrán llamar así hasta que no tenga el reconocimiento internacional; lo mismo ocurre con Palestina, que al no contar con el reconocimiento internacional no se considera como un Estado).
• Ucrania: según el presidente de Ucrania, Víctor Yúschenko, El Bloque de Yulia Timoshenko (parte de la coalición gobernante), el Partido de las Regiones y el Partido Comunista dieron un golpe de Estado. Tras el incidente al coalición que se encuentra en el poder se va a disolver y si en 30 días no surge un nuevo bloque que llegue a la mayoría se disolverá el Parlamento y volverán a convocarse elecciones (serían las terceras en tres años).
• Estados Unidos: ha mandado otro buque de guerra al Mar Negro, el Pathfinder, capaz de llevar a cabo misiones de espionaje. Tras la salida de otros buques y la llegada de éste, son cinco los que barcos de la OTAN que se encuentran en el Mar Negro, 2 de EEUU, 1 de España, 1 de Alemania y 1 de Polonia.

Ieri sera, ascoltando in tv l'intervista al presidente russo Medvedev fatta dal nostro Johnny Riotta, ho avuto come l'impressione di vedere un film già visto.
Mentre la controfigura del Conte Vlad diceva alle telecamere di tutto il mondo che  se i missili dello scudo spaziale voluto dagli Stati Uniti verranno dispiegati e se i radar verranno accesi, allora saremo costretti a rispondere", mi è sembrato di ripercorrere la storia degli incontri tra Washington e Mosca durante la crisi dei missili a Cuba, nel 1962.
Allora, davanti al presidente di quella che era l'Unione Sovietica (Nikita Chruščëv), non c'era un giornalista italiano con la faccia da scemo, ma un grande presidente: John Kennedy.
Anche in quel caso, il comandante in capo russo dell'epoca, mostrò uguale spavalderia, quasi menefreghismo, davanti alla orrenda prospettiva di una guerra atomica.
Kennedy stesso ne rimase impressionato. Probabilmente sconvolto. Tanto che Chruščëv sogghignando, si rammaricò per i poveri cittadini americani che avevano un debole come presidente.
Nel '62 però, il "film" finì bene. Dopo giorni di tensione in cui il mondo sembrò sull'orlo del baratro, Chruščëv decise di fare marcia indietro e ritirare le batterie di missili da Cuba. Marcia indietro? Gli Usa furono costretti a smantellare le loro basi missilistiche in Turchia, cosa che fecero 6 mesi più tardi ufficialmente perché vecchie e inutili.
La stessa trama, con vicinanze territoriali invertite, si ripronone oggi nella crisi georgiana. La stessa arrogante fermezza invece riempie il petto dei presidenti russi (due: Medvedev e soprattutto il Conte Vlad).
E l'epilogo stavola è tutt'altro che scontato...

"President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes," Medvedev told Italy's Rai television.

Fighting between Russia and Georgia began on 7th August after the Georgian military tried to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia by force. Russian forces launched a counter-attack and the conflict ended with the ejection of Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia has since recognised the independence of both regions, though no other country has.

More on this story from the BBC >>

Meanwhile, Russia's status as the biggest oil and gas supplier to Europe means that economic and political sanctions will not be imposed in the immediate future.

Lavrov, left, said Russia did not discriminate against Turkey in trade relations [AFP]

Russia has praised the European Union for taking a "responsible approach" to its conflict with Georgia by declining to impose sanctions on Moscow.

But Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said the EU had failed to understand Moscow's reasons for moving into Georgia and recognising the separitist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"In my view, the outcome is double-edged," Medvedev said at his summer residence on the Black Sea.

"This is sad, but not fatal because things change in this world. Another situation, in my opinion, is more positive.

"Despite certain divisions among the EU states on the issue, a reasonable, realistic point of view prevailed because some of the states were calling for some mythical sanctions."

He later said that he does not consider Mikhail Saakashvili to be Georgia's president, in an interview with a Russian television channel.

"For us, the present Georgian regime has collapsed. President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes. He is a political corpse," Medvedev said.

EU leaders met in Brussels on Monday to discuss Russia and Georgia and threatened to postpone talks with Moscow on a new partnership pact if it did not withdraw its troops to pre-conflict positions in Georgia by mid-September.

The leaders were unable to reach a consensus on the sanctions that some members, including Britain and the Baltic states, had been pushing for, highlighting the bloc's divisions over how best to deal with its largest energy supplier.

Cheney visit

Ahead of a visit by Dick Cheney, the US vice president, to US allies in the region, a Kremlin aide said he expected Washington would also opt against imposing sanctions.

Cheney, due to leave on Tuesday for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine, has been an outspoken critic of Russia, saying last month its push into Georgia could "not go unanswered".

Sergei Prikhodko, chief foreign policy advisor to Medvedev, told reporters:"We hope that a positive agenda in relations with the United States will prevail."

Cheney has been an outspoken critic of Russia since the war broke out [EPA]

The statements contained none of the strident remarks made by Kremlin officials in the run-up to the EU summit.

It also appeared designed to signal Moscow's readiness to take a conciliatory stance with western countries if they also avoid confrontation.

Russia sent its forces against its southern neighbour in a brief war last month after Georgia tried to recapture by force its pro-Moscow, separatist region of South Ossetia.

It has drawn Western condemnation by pushing beyond the disputed area, bombing and deploying troops deep inside Georgia proper and recognising the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia said it was forced to intervene to prevent what it has called a genocide of the separatist regions by Tbilisi, and says it is honouring a French-brokered ceasefire deal.

The former Soviet republic of Georgia is strategically important to the West because it hosts oil and gas pipelines that bypass Russia.

]]> http://veevskay.wordpress.com/?p=21 Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:30:52 +0000 veevskay http://veevskay.wordpress.com/?p=21 So Saakashvili has become a "political corpse" now...or so says Medvedev.  Yes, he probably made a mistake in how he decided to take back South Ossetia, I can't speak to that, as I am not familiar with the region whatsoever, but what hasn't surprised me is the European reaction...or lack there of.  They finally got together, and they huffed, and they puffed, and after all that, their response was so tame, even Putin praised them for their "common sense"!  This proves to the Russians how well they have the Europeans by the balls.

Oh how the tables have turned on the Europeans, who for so long sat on their high horse when the Americans meddled so incompetently in the Middle East, trying to secure their own energy supplies...but now, when they are faced with their own dilemma involving the supplier of up to a 1/3 of all their oil supply, how to they respond? They put out a press release and put on hold a few talks.  Bravo! That will show them not to mess with Europe!

- Kay

On 2 September, it was announced that while the EU remains extremely unhappy with Russia, they would not push sanctions against Moscow for its recent romp in Georgia. It has been suggested, I believe correctly, that this muted condemnation is a reflection of how dependent Europe is on Russia's gas and oil. Just recall the panic that set in earlier this year when the spat between Ukraine and Russia briefly led to a cut in the supply of gas for Ukraine. So, really, one has to ask oneself what is the point of expressing outrage over Russia's actions if the EU leaders are also cutting the rug out from under themselves?

Meanwhile, this perceived Russian victory only adds to its notion that what it did was right and that it has even more power than it perhaps thought it did. It was able to invade Georgia to push Georgians out of South Ossetia, then proceeded to push into Gori and close off the seaport of Poti. The West, meanwhile, does nothing but condemn the aggression and mull over the possibility of expelling Russia from the G-8.

So did the West, then, get nothing out of this? It's hard to say. A Washington Post article stated that in exchange for pressing for sanctions, the EU leaders would accept President Medvedev's word that Russian troops would "pull its troops back to positions they held before their five-day rout of the Georgian army last month". This sounds promising except when one considers remarks by Secretary Rice near the end of the conflict when she expressed regret that President Medvedev had yet to fulfill his promises of a pullout from Georgia proper. Is this new statement of a pullout worth any more weight this time around? Only time will tell, but I wouldn't hold one's breath.

Going back to the notion of a Cold War redux, it's important to remember that Georgia is only one piece in this increasingly complicated puzzle. One also has to take into account Russia's concern (to put it blandly) over the political direction Ukraine is taking. One should also note Russia's agitation over NATO expansion. And perhaps the biggest and most key piece of all is the placing of missiles in the Czech Republic and/or Poland, which has Russia up in arms. From the Russian perspective, it's easier to understand their increasingly belligerent tone in light of these factors. Put together, this could very well lead to even worse relations between Russia and the West, but that's for the future to decide. Right now, the game is to bark the loudest to come out on top. And right now, Russia is winning.

Editor's Note: Incidentally, there is an interesting article I found in Daily News Egypt written by Shlomo Ben-Ami entitled "Who Wants Cold War II?" In it, he examines key reasons why both the West and Russia don't want (read: can't handle) a new Cold War - something the leaders on all sides might want to look at in making sure when they spew their rhetoric they do so understanding the potential consequences of their words.

On the subject of Anglo-Russian business partnerships, we should adopt a much tougher vetting procedure for former servants of the Crown offered money to sell their services to Mr Putin's friends. It's not as if they don't have good public sector pensions (thanks, by the way). I am sorry to have to tell you that Sir Francis Richards, the former head of GCHQ, was recently allowed to join the advisory board of a telecoms company owned by Mikhail Fridman – one of the very oligarchs who have just created such havoc for BP's oil business in Russia. You can tell the current head of our secret communications centre that Sir Francis is the last GCHQ boss who will be allowed to work for Mr Fridman, or any other Russian billionaire

We are, as you know, sceptical about Germany's willingness to cause genuine discomfort to Mr Putin's regime. Nevertheless, Chancellor Merkel is much more open to such a course than her predecessor Gerhard Schröder: he is now the chairman of the Nord Stream gas pipeline project designed to pump Gazprom's products subsea directly to Germany, thus reducing Russia's dependence on Poland and Ukraine for transit. We are told that Chancellor Merkel would enjoy making Mr Schröder's life less pleasurable, and would welcome your support in supplying any regulatory or environmental reasons – even genuine ones – as to why the Nord Stream gas project should be blocked.

Now for the most sensitive matter of all – what our American friends call the 'short and curlies department'. Our colleagues in the Metropolitan Police have plenty of evidence that the FSB was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. As you know, this was the first time since the death of Georgi Markov that one of Her Majesty's subjects has been murdered in this country by a foreign intelligence service. You will also know that the Russian Government has refused even to consider extraditing the chief suspect to face trial in the UK.

We therefore suggest that a public inquest is held into the assassination of Mr Litvinenko. We were impressed with the way that Lord Justice Scott Baker conducted the recent inquest into the deaths of Diana Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed. He could be most usefully reemployed: you will recall that he kept the Diana inquest going for many months, with the media given complete access to all documentation, and that we were asked to agree that even MI6 officers should be compelled to give evidence in public.