Georgia on my Mind...

As the pyrotechnics go off in Beijing, the pyrotechnics in Tbilisi are of far greater concern. The Russo-Georgian conflict over Ossetia goes back at least as far as 1991, and has been long coming to this dangerous point. The problem is, that while the Caucasus have always been a sort of global trip wire by virtue of geography, the current situation is made all the worse by a far more tangible tripwire: The BTC Pipeline.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is the major non-Russian route for oil leaving the Caspian Basin. When it was in the planning stages the Russians lobbied heavily for a route that would take the pipeline through Russian territory, but were stymied by the fact that it would cross Chechnya, making such a route unfeasible. As such, the pipeline has symbolized a major western incursion within what the Russians still consider their imperial backyard. In particular, the pipeline has been a major support to the Azerbaijani government's attempts to assert their own sovereignty in the region, forcing the Russians to give major military support to the Azerbaijanis major regional rival, the Republic of Armenia. If they can take control of, or severely damage the pipeline, (LBN already reports that it has been cut due to bombing) the Russians will effectively reassert their control over the region.

Finally, the BTC pipeline gave Europeans the possibility of an oil source that wasn't controlled by the Kremlin. Considering that one of Putin's key tools in maintaining an EU that was pliable to Russian concerns was applying pressure to Europe's delicate petroleum jugular vein, Russian control over, or damage to the BTC would effectively maintain the leash that the Medvedev government has placed on our European allies.

Whatever the possibilities for a widening of the conflict, (and I admit that they are both possible and startling,) this war is effectively over Russian regional control and oil, with the old Caucasus tinder of ethnicity thrown in for good measure. Keep your eyes open, this could get ugly.

antiquity... those tribes have been vying for that plain region for a very long time

The 20th century has been particularly bad there though...

down across The Bird's Nest at this very moment.

I almost wonder if the Chinese are a little pissed that the Russians have stolen some of their thunder.

June, 1914?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3752252&mesg_id=3752252

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3751753&mesg_id=3752162

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3751753&mesg_id=3751827

Depends on what Turkey does, that brings in NATO. As messy as Ossetiya is, My guess is we let Georgia twist in the wind on this one. If push comes to shove it will be for Nagorno-Karabakh between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis. The Russians back the Armenians, the Turks back the Azeris, who are also Turkish. Furthermore, we have a lot of money tied up in Azerbaijani oil. Now, Russian destruction or taking of the BTC pipeline will piss us off, but so long as the crude flows, we'll probably talk turkey.

Furthermore, we're tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Crazy or not, * has nothing to throw at the Russians but nukes, the neocons are nuts, but even they know that there's no way out of that mess.



:nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

(I hope) :scared:

to keep the oil flowing.

The west has to recognize that the Putinist's are in control of the energy flow out of the Caspian, and nothing short of WW III will change that fact.

Time to make a deal (ABM, NATO expansion, etc.).

We would do more damage to Putin by weaning ourselves off of oil than by Nuking the hell out of him, for he would crash as hard as the USSR did in 1991. The Russians see this as their last shot to restore and retain the vestiges of their former greatness, they will not give it up lightly, they saw what happened to the Chinese and Poles when they were percieved as weak. (Indeed, they benefited directly from both situations) They do not dare make the same mistake.

As you laid out, energy revenue is the fuel for Russia's drive to reassert itself on the world stage.

But my impression is that the Russian peoples perception that the West looted their country in the 90's is the glue that is holding Putinism together.


Wonder when the Iraq debacle blowback starts?

We have nothing to do but watch. While shock doctrine politics play a part here, so much of this is tied into Great Russian nationalism, and the age-old Russian asperations for glory and imperial greatness, that I feel your perception about the Putinist "glue" is closer to spot on. This is a disaster, as much as I feel for the Georgians, we need to sit this one out, History will damn us, but the alternative is our ruin.

Absolutely.

We also need to rethink the ABM issue that seems to really be tweaking them, in addition to making it clear that we have no designs on their resources nor ability to market said resources.

In other words, quit providing validation for the paranoids paranoia.

It doesn't work and is more expensive than all hell. We need to pull our troops home asap. Particularly from Iraq, and stabilize Afghanistan fast. Our forces need retooling and refitting. Our military needs to be rescued from the rot of neglect and the corruption of private security firms. It will take us years before we will be able to counter a problem like this again with anything but angry words. (Not that we should even if we could, but words mean more when there are teeth behind them.

April 2007:

"In a timely decision, Azerbaijan recently (mid-March) granted NATO the permission to use two of its military bases and an airport to 'back up its peace-keeping operation in Afghanistan' including support for NATO's 'supply route to Afghanistan'. NATO's special envoy Robert Simmons insists that the agreement has nothing to do with US plans to wage aerial bombardments on Iran.

Media sources in Baku have intimated that this timely agreement is directly related to ongoing US-Israeli-NATO war plans. Its timing coincides with US naval deployments and war games in the Persian Gulf.

The airport and two military bases are slated to be 'modernized to meet NATO standards'. Washington has confirmed in this regard that it would "support the modernization of a military airport in the framework of the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) signed between Azerbaijan and NATO.

Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan released a statement to the effect that 'Azerbaijan's territory will not be at the disposal of any country for hostile acts against neighbours '

This announcement by the Azeri Defense Ministry was in response to an off-the-cuff statement by US Undersecretary of State Matthew Bryza, at a press conference in Georgia (March 30) to the effect that 'The United States hopes for permission to use airfields in Azerbaijan for military purposes.' (emphasis added)

'A lot of planes overfly Georgia and Azerbaijan on the way to Afghanistan. Should it prove necessary, we would like to be able to use an airfield in Azerbaijan,' the US diplomat said, answering a question concerning the modernization of a military airfield in Azerbaijan with the Americans' help."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5322

There are more than twice as many Azerbaijanis in Iran than there are in Azerbaijan.

though Biden called them "ostensible" peacekeepers. Hmmm. and right now I'm hearing the NPR headlines leading with Russian troops entering the Georgian capital!

http://biden.senate.gov/press/press_releases/release/?id=5d99273b-4245-4372-bf46-7b2cdbd865fa

BIDEN Issues Statement on Recent Outbreak of Fighting in Georgia

August 7, 2008

Washington, DC – Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE) today issued this statement following the recent outbreak of violence in Georgia:

“Russia should act immediately to restore calm in the Georgian region of South Ossetia. The violence that has erupted there, apparently at the instigation of South Ossetian militants, is a grave threat to regional security. I welcome Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s call for calm and restraint, and strongly encourage South Ossetians, along with the Russian peacekeepers who ostensibly maintain order in the area, to bring an immediate end to the fighting. The world will be watching - and expects Russia to live up to its commitments.

(edit to fix thought to though)

The UN has no effective Writ in the region, and all activity has been taken under the auspices of the OCSE and the CIS, with Russia providing the manpower, for obvious reasons. Sen. Biden is a master of understatement, "ostensible" indeed!

Another diplomatic understatement.

Sure. They want a piece of this, and a piece of that, and they want to keep it in Russia.

This is one of those stories where it doesn't show up in the media until it's blown open and you have to backtrack to understand it.

They may have been there as early as 1992.

...Russian armies of occupation.

Ossetiya is Georgian territory, but it is inhabited by Ossetiyians, much like the territory of North Ossetiya which is in Russia proper. A quirk of Soviet nationalities policy put it in the territory of the Georgian S.S.R., creating an autonomous oblast or region (I don't remember which) This made Georgia fundamentally weak, like all the rest of the Caucasus states, and allows Russia to counterbalance everyone.

I suppose one reason they did it was to secure U.S. goodwill and the hope of some protection against the Russians. In March 2007 they were going to increase their Iraq forces from 850 to 2,000. Probably under US pressure as other members of the Coalition of the Not-So-Willing were pulling out.

It would be a shame if our Georgie Boy doesn't reciprocate by trying to apply some kind of pressure against the Russians, but I doubt it will happen. Heaven knows I don't want to see a conflict with Russia, but something's got to be done to limit their attacks on former republic. Surely this mess in Georgia can be negotiated peacefully at the U.N..

The Europeans will look to their major oil supplier (Russia) and think the better of it.

The Chinese, who have their own aspirations, will throw the Russian a bone, as they have no interests in the Caucasus.

The Russians will obviously veto any intervention.

The UN essentially has no writ in the region, peacekeeping and negotiation is handled throught the OSCE and security is ensured through the CIS, whose major member is, you guessed it Russia.

If the Georgians know the score, they'll throw in the towel after a moment of heroic resistance and let Ossetiya go. If not, they're screwed.

Maybe it won't be news to you; I thought it was interesting even though I didn't follow it all:

http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2008/hrg080612p.html

video archive at the top of the page.

I took a few notes during the hearing: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3430970

HEARING
before the

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Time: 2:30 P.M.
Place: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Presiding: Senator Biden
Senator Lugar's Opening Statement

Witnesses:

Panel 1:
+Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski
Counselor and Trustee
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Washington, DC

Panel 2:
+Dr. Leon Fuerth
Research Professor
The Elliot School of International Affairs
The George Washington University
Washington, DC
+Ms. Zeyno Baran
Director,
Center for Eurasian Policy
Hudson Institute
Washington, DC
+Mr. Roman Kupchinsky
Partner
AZEast Group
Mahwah, New Jersey

I wrote a paper in Grad School last semester on Nagorno-Karabakh. Not my area of expertise, but I found it fascinating.

Along with BMP's, self-propelled howitzer's, armored cars, . . .


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7548715.stm

Later, Moscow's foreign ministry told media that Russian tanks had reached the northern outskirts of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.

that is a chilling image.

RIA Novosti

06/08/2008 15:48 TBILISI, August 6 (RIA Novosti) - Georgia and the U.K. will hold joint military training exercises in September at the Vaziani base near the Georgian capital Tbilisi, the South Caucasus country's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

During the two-week exercise, dubbed Georgian Express 2008, Georgian and British military personnel will practice interoperability in peacekeeping operations, including patrolling, urban warfare and base security operations.

The Special Operations Brigade and the 43th battalion of the 4th Infantry Brigade will represent Georgia, while the U.K will send 180 servicemen from the London Regiment.

After the training course, 59 servicemen from Georgia's Special Operations Brigade will be deployed in Afghanistan and the 4th Infantry Brigade in Iraq to replace the 1st Infantry Brigade as part of U.S.-led coalition contingents in both countries, respectively.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2008/08/mil-080806-rianovosti02.htm

Wow, better look troops for Afghanistan somewhere else, the Georgians are a little busy, right now.

Was there anybody who didn't have troops there to get shot at? This place was just itching to be the Sarajevo of WWIII.