Quote:
Originally Posted by regular.joe
No one wanted Georgia to be admitted to NATO precisely because we are not blind. We knew exactly what would have happened. Georgia would have gone after their break away provinces of South Ossetia, and Abkazia, and expected all their new allies to back them up. We are not that dumb diplomatically. It's been going on since Stalin gave these provinces to Georgia in the early 1900's, intensified in 1991 and carries on today.
The west is big on making Russia out to be the big bad guy in this. They are by no means innocent, neither is Georgia, neither are the South Ossetians. The very nature and way that people think who are born and raised in this part of the world, the way they think about ethnicity is foreign to us in the melting pot of America. Again we are judging the actions of a foreign nation by our own measures and we will come up short, and fail to fully engage out of ignorance.
In my opinion Georgia fucked this one up. We would do the same thing if in Russia's shoes.
The truth is between Pravda and CNN somewhere.
|
You may be correct on your assessment of Georgia's intentions with NATO membership, but I think that there really would be no obligation on the part of NATO to come to their aid if Georgia was the aggressor, and in this case they may have. All they did was open up a grand opportunity on the part of Russia to do what they have wanted to do for a long time, and that is reverse the bleeding of the break away republics from continuing to defect to the West and the EU. And in the case of Russia, they may also pay a large price for the incursion. Poland quickly agreed to allow a US anti-missile base in Poland. Others may follow suit as well, looking at it as a fast track to get closer to the West and EU and further from the domination and reversal to cold war era of the USSR. We are obviously entering a new cold war. All the more reason to quickly normalize relations with Cuba and cut off a similar move by the Russians in our own back yard.