There is enough blame to go around. Most of the world hardly trusts Russia's positon on anything.

Как Вас дела. Как Вас зовут? Откуда Вы?

I'm just an ordinary Chinese. I visit the Cellar to improve my english in a more light-hearted way.:)

online translation page gave me a hand to understand your post. :greenface why did you use russian. You think I'm a russian?
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Joinning anti-missile defence shield may be a dangerous gamble for Poland. I don't see any nessecity in 10-20 years.
It's more and more like a new cold war. :(

Most of the world hardly trusts the U.S. position on anything, either. :haha:

The Russia-Georgia conflict ends Thomas Friedman's theory that no two nations with a McDonald's have ever gone to war. (original thinker)

No doubt. That is the point. If you don't trust the US why the hell would you choose to trust the Russian view? The reality is that you have to use NUMEROUS news sources to shape your opinion about anything these days. And the old adage of military intelligence still stands, "The first report is always suspect."

But aren't you assuming aliasyzy didn't do that, didn't look at the reports from east & west, then form an opinion?

As far as I can tell, Georgia has been trying to suppress the dissident Russians that want to be part of their traditional/historical mother country, by fucking with them pretty hard.

Meanwhile, Russia has tried to protect these people, under the guise of "peacekeepers", for the last 20 years. So when Georgia attacked South Ossetia, the Russians said, shock & awe, as bears are wont to do.

OK, your earlier link got into the possible thinking behind these actions, but just looking at what actually happened, I'd have to agree with aliasyzy, that Georgia screwed up.

We may never know what went on behind closed doors in the run up to this crap, maybe Saakashvili was set up, like Saddam when he invaded Kuwait, but doesn't make it the Russians fault.
We'll probably find out it was New Zealand's fault. :haha:

:lol2:

There were a lot of neocons in the region just this July. Both Condi and Rove had talks with Mr. Saakashvili during this visit. And even McCains foreign policy adviser was there...he is a lobbyist for Georgia.

Well there you have it!

"It's Bush's Fault!"

:rolleyes:

The backfire continues...


Ukraine offers satellite defence co-operation with Europe and US
Ukraine inflamed mounting East-West tensions yesterday by offering up a Soviet-built satellite facility as part of the European missile defence system.

Ukraine said it was ready to give both Europe and America access to its missile warning systems after Russia earlier annulled a 1992 cooperation agreement involving two satellite tracking stations. Previously, the stations were part of Russia's early-warning system for missiles coming from Europe.

"The fact that Ukraine is no longer a party to the 1992 agreement allows it to launch active cooperation with European countries to integrate its information," a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.

It follows a declaration earlier this week from Ukraine's pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko, that the Russian naval lease of the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sebastopol would be scrapped if any vessels joined the conflict in Georgia.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...pe-and-US.html

Some analysis on the situation
 

I have read a lot of different sources on this and here is a basic outline. Everything I have listed is what I believe to be true but I am not 100% certain because of potential media inaccuracies, biases, and lack of ability to get the needed information.

Some underlying facts:

• South Ossetia has tried to break away from Georgia since the early 90's
• Russian and South Ossetia's ties are very strong
• Georgia wants to join NATO
• Russia does not want Georgia to join NATO
• NATO and Russia are involved in power struggle
• No real economic importance in South Ossetia
• There is a pipeline that goes through Georgia
• NATO wants pro-NATO countries in control of the pipeline
• Russia would benefit from taking control of the pipeline
• The US needs Russia support for other issues

The real four possibilities I see for the start of this are:

• Russia
• South Ossetia separatists
• Georgia
• NATO (US)

Keeping all four possibilities open, this longtime ethnic conflict seemed to explode when Georgian troops started attacking SO separatists and Russian "peacekeepers". Then in response, Russia invaded SO, pushing the Georgian army out, and then kept going into Georgia. I am pretty sure that Russians have stopped their advance but I am not sure.

In Poland, the US made an agreement with Poland to place an anti-missile defense during the conflict.


Parts I do not know that would be helpful:

• length of time it took Russia to react
• NATOs knowledge of Georgia's invasion
• Whether Georgia withdrew troops from Iraq before invasion
• Whether US knew/helped with Georgia's troop withdrawals from Iraq

Looking though all this I cannot find any clear cut evidence of what actually happened. I do not believe this is US or NATO backed invasion. NATO and the US have nothing to gain from SO and need Russia with some other issues. They have control of the pipeline and knowing the risk that Russia would retaliate and threaten this pipeline would force NATO countries to react, something they do not want to do seeing how they did not support Georgia when Russia invaded. There are potential conspiracy theories that NATO encouraged Georgia to test out Russian reactions for other future events but I don't see anything to really back up this claim.

I see a perfect possibility that this is just Georgia wanting to control SO and bit more than they could chew. They either did not know that Russia would retaliate or expected NATO backup. The only "success" the Georgian's had were to look weak and as the victim in the western media.

Another possibility is that this the work of SO separatists without Russian involvement that exploded out of control. They may have known that even though the Russians didn't instigate the attacks, they would have the SO's back if Georgia attacked. The timing with the Olympics is fishy, Georgia, Russia, or NATO would use that more strategically then SO, but could be a coincidence or very good planning by the SO separatists.

The last possibility would be Russian caused. I have real doubts that Russia was only SO's knight in shining armor because they went farther into Georgia then needed but that could just be Russia making a show out of Georgia to prevent any other attacks on pro-Russian ground. I am 50/50 on whether Russia could have instigated the conflict because Russia's retaliation seemed to be more symbolic then actually political. Russia does not have much to gain from this besides protecting its "territory". There is the pipeline but Russia knows full well that taking control of the pipeline would start a massive shit storm.



I don't know if this small conflict will start to anything bigger, a second cold war, or is just another small power struggle and ethnic conflict but the Polish agreement is very interesting. This very strongly hints that these missile defense systems are geared towards Russia and not Iran and that Poland sees Russia as a threat.



Hopefully this will not escalate out of control and people will remember the real victims are the numerous SO and Georgian citizens that have died in the fighting.


Edit- Merc's last article goes very well with Poland's.

length of time it took Russia to react - days.

NATOs knowledge of Georgia's invasion - no country masses troops on a border, esp a country like Russia, without the US or Nato watching from the sky. I believe they knew the moment troops started to move toward the border.

Whether Georgia withdrew troops from Iraq before invasion - No. The US fly the 2000 or so troops back from Iraq.

Whether US knew/helped with Georgia's troop withdrawals from Iraq - See above.

NATO wants pro-NATO countries in control of the pipeline - Not to sure about this. Georgia wants to control it. Not so much Nato as the EU. Russia has cut off the main source of power to EU countries and pre-ComBlock nations, or threatened to do so, in an effort to get them to do what they wanted them to do. Any country who controls the natural resources of power controls everything. Russia has learned the lesson of OPEC style power and control.

Nice work laying it out PH45/Regjoe/Merc and all. Many layers on this one. A lot of us are old enough to think of Russia as the default bad guy. That is dangerous.

Yea, me too. But I have had this nagging feeling since Putin came into the picture, as an ex-KBG Chief, that something more nefarious was brewing. Much of the evidence over the last years have confirmed that notion. I think we are entering a new Cold War phase whether we want one or not. I think if Putin would have stepped down at the end of his term my thoughts would be different, instead they were reinforced.