Can America confront Russia on Georgia?

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/19883.asp

Russia is determined to reclaim its lost ground at the end of the cold war. Russia is also determined to use oil as the spearhead of a new and stubborn superpower. The conflict in Georgia is symbolic and a direct challenge to America and in particular to Bush Administration including Dick Cheney.

It was interesting to see Putin and Bush sitting next to each in Beijing Olympics and chatting with each other as Georgian militia battled powerful Russian Army and Air Force. Russian Military action is not against Georgia. It is against United States of America as Georgia is the new obedient political and strategic satellite of America. snip

Putin wants American money. Madvadev wants AMerica to understand that Russian territories is not Iraq or Afghanistan. Instigating former Soviet Republics will create chaos and war. At the same time, US should not have expecred a cake walk like Iraq and Afghanistan in meddling with powerbase of a formere superpower rich in oil, gas and minerals.

Does America have the will and resource to fight a real powerful enemy? Georgia needs American military to defend itself agaisnt Russia. Russia perhaps wants AMerica to intervene so that thet can teach Americans a lesson in their own backyard.

We don't have the capability of taking on Russia. We can't even take on Iran.

We got nothing left.

Redstone

Right now, we have nothing to spare.

Gearing up to fight the Russians in Georgia would involve a draft, which would kick up extreme protest, and could not be done for at least a couple of years, notwithstanding that the idea is just a bad one overall.

We'll just have to look like the fair-weather friends that we sometimes are.

A few weeks ago we had the better part of a battalion in Georgia "training."

Not all the 101st and 82d BCTs are in Iraq or Afghanistan right now.

You never know what's up with this Administration - especially where energy is so directly involved.

substantially all of its military.

I don't think that a battalion would do it altogether.

I'm waiting to see what Turkey and Azerbaijan will do if this thing doesn't stop soon.

I agree with you on oil, though. I think that a big part of this is about the pipelines, which also interest Azerbaijan and Turkey. If the Russians took Georgia, my guess is that not much oil would flow through the BTC pipeline and that would deprive Turkey and Azer. of some nice revenue.

My guess is that Russia wants all of Ossetia to stop the pipeline and will stop there. No one cases about Abkhazia.

I wonder if the pipeline can be diverted further south.

However, if there's a will, there is often a way.

I don't think that the pipeline is in S. Ossetia, but a few miles to the south. Do you have info on that?

What's with these rumors of an "armada" moving to the Persian Gulf?

What's Cheney really up to here?

and two amphibious assault battle groups will reconnoiter off Iran. I imagine that the rendezvous will occur in the Gulf of Oman, though. The Persian Gulf would be a shooting gallery in a war.

It is unclear whether the armada will stay together, however. Usually, a carrier will stay on duty 6-8 months, then be relieved by another carrier. The first carrier stays at the duty station until the other carrier has arrived and is ready to take over.

Undoubtedly, it is an intimidation tactic against Iran.

I am not ready to call Georgia or the U.S. the attacker in the S. Ossetia mess until I know more about what had been happening in the months leading up to the shooting. Sometimes these things build up with each side goading the other on. IMHO, this may be one of them.

You are of course aware that Georgia is a major oil and gas pipeline transit state. If Russia gets ahold of the pipelines there, it will control the sale of all Caspian and Central Asian oil and gas to the west. There is some railroad transit of oil to the east, and a pipeline is under construction to China, but it won't be done any time soon. If Russia controls the oil and gas, it controls its former fellow Soviet Republics.

Four carrier battle groups, eh?

I kind of figured something would go down just before the Dem convention. Maybe this is it.

I did know that about Russia. I just don't understand why the Georgians would tweak the Russian bear now.

Anyway, thanks. And hang on.

we have zero leverage. We have nothing to threaten them with. They hold all of the cards. THANKS FOR NOTHING president Bush.

America has no stake in this fight, save for a desire to see a harmonious and peaceful world. Russia is not motivated as you seem to think, although it does have its roots in the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia is retaliating against Georgia for the treatment that Russian minorities have received from the Georgians since their independence. They would be retaliating no matter who Georgia realigned themselves with.

Putin doesn't need worthless American dollars. They HAVE oil, they don't NEED money.

The hardest thing for all these nationalities who were low on the totem pole in Soviet days to realize is that they need to break the cycle. They can't act superior now and vilify the Russians as was done to them just 20 or 30 years ago. Yes, that all happened, but there needs to be a clean break, with no superiority of one culture versus another. And American interference on one side is NOT in anyone's best interest.

behind the scenes as this is a geopolitical positioning re oil supply and influence in the region. We have interest in the pipelines there and what countries they go through and who controls them.
Europe gets a lot of oil from Russia. There is a lot going on in the big picture. THe middle east wars both gulf one and two were and are being fought for the same reason. China is investing in infrastructure in Africa and we are sticking our nose in there too as they have oil. China is doing deals with Venezuela, again oil. This type of thing will continue to happen as the big countries jockey for position to obtain the dwindling reserves in the world. Proxy wars and out right wars galore.

It is difficult to see Russia as the aggressors here. I am no more an expert on South Ossetia than anyone else here, but with recent events I am scrambling to catch up and it would appear at first glance that it is Georgia that chose to escalate the confrontation there. The region has been under dispute for years, but during that time it has been mostly autonomous and reasonably peaceful. It was Georgia that attempted to assert it's authority over the region blitzkrieg style, timing it's bum's rush to coincide with the opening of the Olympic games. I can see no justification for that aggression, it would appear to be a simple power grab on their part. OTOH Russia's response was fairly heavy-handed, though if it had not been it is likely that Georgia would have achieved their objective within a day of initiating hostilities.

It seems to me that the best short term solution is a return to the status quo that existed a week ago, with the region being autonomous but under dispute, and diplomacy employed to determine it's future. Frankly I think it is up to the people who live in South Ossetia to determine who will rule them, and they view themselves as Russians, not Georgians.

Our bonehead president is partially to blame for this mess. He's been shilling for Georgia's inclusion in NATO. Given Georgia's history of instability since its independence in 1991 it's a dumb idea that only serves to irritate Russia. Worse, Bush has been crowing about putting missile silos in Georgia which has really pissed off Russia.

This isn't the comically weak post-Soviet era Russia led by a drunken Yeltsin. While Russia is far from regaining super-power parity with the US, it has a robustly expanding economy bolstered by oil and natural gas profits. This has allowed Russia to pump up their military muscle a notch.

America's tied up in Iraq so we can't intervene there. Putin knows this. Worse, even if we weren't in Iraq, there's no oil or equivalent profit motive to make Bushies care about the fate of the Georgians.

The rest of NATO won't do anything because they're addicted to Russian natural gas. Putin has used it for political extortion in the past and won't hesitate to do it again.

Russia's ultimate goals are a bit unclear. But you can be sure Putin isn't sweating our lightweight president's response.

Ours and all others. These people won't be happy unitl they begin a new WW.

As usual we don't have any real idea of what's going on. So we are left to wonder.

I doubt if there will ever be world peace , this is just another pipe dream.

This paper tiger has worn out it's teeth.

...that is if U.S. uses military force as a means to enforce such a confrontation

our President. Look what we've got now.

Yes we have the resources...Question is do you have a bomb shelter?

The United States is one of the five recognized nuclear powers under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ("NPT"). It maintains a current arsenal of around 9,960 intact warheads, of which 5,735 are considered active or operational, and of these only a certain number are deployed at any given time. These break down into 5,021 "strategic" warheads, 1,050 of which are deployed on land-based missile systems (all on Minuteman ICBMs), 1,955 on bombers (B-52 and B-2), and 2,016 on submarines (Ohio class), according to a 2006 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council.<14> Of 500 "tactical" "nonstrategic" weapons, around 100 are Tomahawk cruise missiles and 400 are B61 bombs. A few hundred of the B61 bombs are located at seven bases in six European NATO countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom), the only such weapons in forward deployment.<15><16>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_States#Current_status

Russia was estimated to have around 6681 active strategic nuclear warheads in its arsenal<1>. Russia also has a large but unknown number of tactical nuclear weapons <1>. Strategic nuclear forces of Russia include <1>:

Land based Strategic Rocket Forces: 489 missiles carrying up to 1,788 warheads; they employ immobile (silos), like SS-18 Satan, and mobile delivery systems, like SS-27 Topol M.
Sea based Strategic Fleet: 12 submarines carrying up to 609 warheads; they employ delivery systems like SS-N-30 Bulava.
Strategic Aviation: 237 bombers(16 Tu-160,63 Tu-95,and 158 Tu-22m) carrying up to 884 Cruise missiles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Russia

and


Russia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention on January 13, 1993 and ratified it on November 5, 1997. Russia declared an arsenal of 40,000 tons of chemical weapons in 1997.

Russia met its treaty obligations by destroying 1% of its chemical agents by the Chemical Weapons Convention's 2002 deadline <2> but requested technical and financial assistance and extensions on the deadlines of 2004 and 2007 due to the environmental challenges of chemical disposal. This extension procedure spelled out in the treaty has been utilized by other countries, including the United States.

Russia has built three chemical weapons destruction plants: at Gorny, at Kambarka, and at the Maradykovsky complex. Four more facilities are still under construction at other locations. Lieutenant General Valery Kapashin reaffirmed in 2007 that Russia would fulfill its obligations under the CWC to destroy all of its chemical weapon stockpiles by 2012<7>; however, U.S. analyses have claimed that neither Russia nor the U.S. will finish operations by that date.<8> Russia's program is financed by Russian funding as well as money from the U.S. and other countries.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Russia#Chemical_weapons

plays itself out in Georgia. Russia is clearly thumbing their nose at us, yet Bush hardly notices. Putin has no problem with his buddy, either, he knows the Boy King is just a figurehead.

If Putin and Cheney were to get together, then you'd see some real shit going down.

Yeah, right.