A Second Hand Conjecture

Synova wrote a little post that gets halfway to where I would come down on this perennial parlor game of  the John Galt general strike. Sy recognized that to be successful, such a revolt would realistically be a miserable experience for a society, resulting in bloodshed and economic ruin. But she does not depart from Rand in assuming that the eventual outcome would be desirable. I’d advise the ancient wisdom that if the means are clearly evil in a political project, one should become immediately skeptical of the alleged justice of the ends.

We should also be skeptical of the social assumption for Galt, that there is a definable and rigid division among men into a minority of Platonic creative guardians, and an empowered majority of proletarian oppressors and their craven political servants — and that these factions could have accurate self-recognition of their social roles. I would contend that anyone who thinks of the majority of the people as disposable abstracted parasites, under a constitutional order that explicitly derives its governing powers from the majority consent of the governed, is never selling you anything that’s going to arrive in a happy place.

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Russian FM Sergei Lavrov reportedly went berserk on David Miliband in phone discussions over the Georgia war. Apparently he was raving, shouting obscenities, and ridiculing Miliband’s knowledge of history.

There’s something incredibly deranged about that government. They’ve taken the traditional Russian penchant for seeing itself under siege (real or imagined), and pressurized it to a delusional pitch.

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What’s this? Bob Barr wanted Ronpaul as his veep? Take your eyes off the Libertarian Party for a minute and you miss a lot of foolishness. Our old friend Steve Newton fills us in on the amusing drama that ensued (Ronpaul said no BTW).

Now, I had been under the impression that Barr already had a vice presidential candidate and it turns out I was right. Evidently Barr sought to dump Wayne Allyn Root for Ronpaul, or Root dumped himself in honor of Ronpaul. Apparently Root had been controversial within the party for his support of the very uncontroversial war effort in Afghanistan.

Sometimes the LP can look like a bloody civil war in Lilliput, fought over possession of a discarded matchstick.

Alas, it also seems some Ronpaulists are now accusing Barr of being a Republican double agent, sent to destroy the Libertarian Party. As if Libertarians ever needed any assistance in doing that. Where Ronpaulists go paranoia follows though, and a faction within the LP has begun an effort to get the Libertarian National Committee to un-endorse its candidates for being clandestine conservative operatives.

So very LP.

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(NASA)

Today is the 11th. The unwelcome anniversary. Everyone remembers where they were when they heard. I was awoken by a phone call on the day. “The country’s under attack!” the phone said. You wake up rather fast when that’s yelled into your ear early in the morning.

Shortly after that I was glued to my television set with a client on the phone yammering about God knows what. It hadn’t sunk into her yet what was happening. It was 9:59EST when the South Tower collapsed and she started screaming. I guess I hung up.

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Francis Fukuyama argues in the Financial Times that the United States should have traded European missile defense and/or Kosovar independence in order to pacify a resurgent Russia. This strange proposal of strategic charity work for the Kremlin, is animated by his belief in an inevitable diminution of American moral authority by course of the Iraq War, and alleged American provocations of Russia which have in his view, inaugurated a decline of American global power.
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Thomas Barnett takes a look at Gates and the different schools of thought on Pentagon spending priorities. Apparently it comes down to the Next War vs. the Long War vs. the This War vs. the Big War vs. Proxy War. Got that?

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I’m beginning to sense that anti-Palin hysteria is building toward a collective psychological meltdown of truly epic proportions on the Democratic side of our political divide. Today, Democratic consultant Dan Conley angrily pushed us a little further to the brink of that by arguing that the selection of Palin by McCain was “cynical, undemocratic and frankly, unpatriotic.” Wow.

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Belmont Club
We could be forced to entirely revamp our strategy in Afghanistan if the situation in Pakistan continues to deteriorate and the Russians intend to be uncooperative.

There are in fact serious concerns that troops in Afghanistan can be cut off should a hostile regime emerge in Pakistan.

Historically, this area has been difficult to subdue and logistics has been a big part of the problem. Even with today’s technology, supporting a large force through hostile territory would be very difficult. An air bridge could be established but that would take considerable resources. Resources I’m not sure the AF has available. However, I am not an expert in this area.

The ripple effects of losing Musharraf and Russia’s muscle flexing could be severe.

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In From the Cold wonders why Russian tactical aircraft proved so vulnerable to an air defense system they knew intimately. I’d merely say that low-and-slow Russian tactics are going to get you shot eventually, whatever the SAM is on the ground. Major Vyacheslav Markovich, one of the Russian pilots shot down, thinks the entire war is absurd, lamenting the state of Georgia-Russia relations. And I still ask why the Georgians were not supplied with Javelin anti-tank missiles in large quantity and immediately. The Russian mechanized attack wouldn’t have made it to Tskhinvali, much less to Igoeti.

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(photo: Chris Dunn)

John Bolton argues that the future of Russian imperialism in Eurasia rides on the outcome of the US presidential election. Unsurprisingly, he pitches McCain: “First reactions, before the campaigns’ pollsters and consultants get involved are always the best indicators…McCain at once grasped the larger, geostrategic significance of Russia’s attack.”

That’s evidently a sentiment shared by the American electorate.

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Alex Harrowell reminds us that NATO wasn’t always so timorous about conflict risk exposure:

[I]f we assume that Georgia, and specifically Mikhail Saakashvili’s version of it, wasn’t sufficiently responsible (adult, civilised, possibly even white?) to play, how do we explain that Germany got to join in 1955, when a whole great chunk of it was in the other side’s hands? Or Turkey and Greece, who despite being profoundly NATO-integrated regularly use their NATO-standard air defence infrastructure to play cowboys and Indians over the Aegean? One of the reasons for extending membership of NATO, and the EU, has been to reach out first; that it’s better to offer membership, and hope the requirements shape some country’s thinking, than to wait forever for perfection. If this was good enough for Germany, surely it can be good enough for Georgia.
(Fistful of Euros)

A fine and troubling point. If the division of Germany between 1945 and 1955 wasn’t an unresolved ideological version of a “frozen conflict” at perpetual flashpoint risk, then do tell me what it was.

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Russian Major General Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Borisov, in command of occupied Gori, has finally received orders to do something about the Russian allied irregulars who are rampaging in Georgia committing atrocities:

“Ossetians are killing poor Georgians, this is a problem and we are trying to deal with it”. He said his troops had been ordered to stop the abuse and arrest those responsible. Most of the atrocities occurred in Georgian enclaves in separatist South Ossetia and villages in Georgia proper outside Gori.
(The Independent)

One might hope. The atrocities that are beginning to come to light reportedly include systematic ethnic murder, the rape of children, the incineration of the elderly and other egregious crimes, evocative of the wars for Yugoslavia.

Thomas de Waal, Caucasus editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting tells Tony Halpin that the Russian army’s attitude toward such acts has thusfar been largely acquiescent:

“The Russian Army can’t be bothered to bring the paramilitaries under control. Its attitude is ‘let them have their revenge’”
(The Times)

The long puzzling capacity of the Russian government to excuse and ignore identically inhuman conduct by Slobodan Miloševic’s criminal army, is perhaps no longer so mysterious.

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CCTV video capture of Russian soldiers robbing a Gori bank at gunpoint. While plunder has a bit of an enduring tradition in the Russian army even in modern times, this is pretty extreme. I’d be abusing the event as metaphor, as no army is immune to such temptations, but it does seem that the duocrat’s war has a certain peculiar comprehensiveness to its criminality. (via: Lesterblog)

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Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves says the West must act fast:

“They should take Ukraine immediately into NATO, and what is left of Georgia,” he told Reuters by telephone, adding that a decision this year not to give the two countries a road map to membership had persuaded Russia it had free hand in the region.
(Reuters)

If only it could be done, especially for Ukraine. The crisis there is building and more strategically vital, as Victor Yushchenko has followed through on the threat to restrict Russia’s use of the Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol.

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It seems Russia is increasingly leaning toward dismembering the Republic of Georgia, something previously denied, now legitimized. The predominant characteristic of Russian policy in Georgia up to this point actually.

In the same vein, Russia is finally admitting to being in Poti and low an behold, it turns out the presence was legitimate all along, even when it wasn’t happening:

Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of Russia’s general staff, told a news conference it was legitimate for Russian peacekeepers to be in the Georgian port town of Poti for intelligence operations.

The General Staff had previously denied Russian troops were in Poti.
(Reuters)

How analysts continue to look at Russian behavior in Georgia and see cunning plans within plans is something of a mystery to me. This is a schizophrenic, factionally riven leadership that has overextended itself, and can’t decide what it wants to do in Georgia from one day to the next.

I said as much to a friend of mine yesterday (who is inclined to believe in this notion that all events involving Russia are the result of clever preplanned strategy by the Kremlin). Amusingly he said that was just what they wanted us to think and I was falling into their trap. It was all a plan you see, to look uncertain, incompetently lying, inconsistent and confused and thereby keep Georgia unstable. Sigh.

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89 amateur snapshots from the war in Georgia. Some are rather gruesome, so avoid this link if you’ve a weak stomach. It was good to see some US munitions and equipment in Georgian hands too.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says “the world can forget about” Georgia’s territorial integrity. Quite a remarkable statement from the former permanent representative to the United Nations. As a statement of purpose or justification in his country’s war, it is of course an explicit violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter.

Furthermore, Lavrov’s comments came at a meeting with separatist leaders from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, leading some to believe it’s increasingly likely that Russia will annex these regions. This would make the conflict officially an illegal war for the purpose of territorial conquest.

It would also represent a moment to begin considering a longer term international plan for the United States of disengagement from Russia and/or a more general alignment against her interests. Perhaps Cuba would recognize a falsely claimed Russian right to rule the territory it has conquered, but the world will not. If Russia attempts to do so, the country would have clearly self-identified as a definitional rogue state.

Despite Lavrov’s wishes, the world cannot “forget” Georgia’s territorial integrity and has not. Only Russia has done that, in violation of the mandate it is pledged to defend by membership in the United Nations. Principles it ironically appealed to very vigorously (and still does) in the service of Serbian irridentism.

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Russian units are on the move again in Georgian territory, apparently in violation of the truce agreement. One Russian soldier in a large convoy shouted an ominous flirtation to a press photographer outside Gori, hopefully in jest or lust:

“Come with us, beauty, we’re going to Tbilisi.”
(AP)

A week in a Caucasian foxhole will make any soldier promise a pretty girl the world, but it’s certainly likely elements of the Russian military leadership wouldn’t mind actualizing his advance.

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Exactly.

Now, as for Lee’s latest… Let’s just say I’ll be shocked if Saakashvili lasts the year.

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Last night Joshua argued that Saakashvili, having quite obviously failed to recapture his renegade territories, is certain to be finished one way or the other. Either overthrown by the Russian army, or by the Georgian people at the ballot box. This is a bit of an analyst consensus as you look around the web. Not so fast, says me.

It should be said that the mere fact of the Russian demand to remove him has supplied a method for his political redemption — which is why it was so important for the United States to leak the Russian foreign minister’s views on this. If Russia fails to bring him down, he can easily emerge as a defiant patriot who defeated the one Russian objective they most desired, through force of personal will.

The trouble with pressing your advantages and changing your objectives to increasingly ambitious goals, is if you get to a point where you cannot (or will not) actualize the final measure, you can create the circumstances for a political defeat. With the world aware that the Russian goal is to remove Saakashvili, if they don’t do it now, that can (and probably will) rescue him as a political leader.

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I’m doing this for my own benefit, as I’ve not followed the goings on in the Republic of Georgia, except to note when it’s in the news, not our Georgia.

April 18, 2008

Georgia sought the backing of NATO and the European Union on Friday after Russia stepped up pressure by announcing intensified ties with two separatist Georgian regions.

Georgia’s Vice Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze called Russia’s action “very, very, very dangerous.”

“It is a decisive moment,” said Georgia’s Vice Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze. “Russia has crossed the red line and Europe and the Euro-Atlantic community must react.”

April 22, 2008

Georgia has asked the U.N. Security Council to discuss Russia’s “military aggression” after saying a Russian jet shot down one of its unmanned spy planes.

“We call upon the United Nations to address this direct military aggression against Georgia and to fully exploit its own means and capabilities in order to keep the situation from further escalation,” Georgia’s U.N. Ambassador Irakli Alasania told reporters Monday.

To bolster its case, the Georgian air force released a video that it says shows a twin-tailed Russian MiG-29 shooting down a Georgian unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, over the separatist region of Abkhazia on Sunday.

April 23, 2008

Tensions have been escalating between Georgia’s pro-Western government and Russia, which is providing assistance to Abkhazia and another breakaway region, South Ossetia.

Georgian forces fought separatists in Abkhazia before the ceasefire was negotiated more than a decade ago.

Last week, Moscow formalized relations with the territories and withdrew trade sanctions while expanding “trade, economic, social, scientific and technical, information, cultural, and educational” contacts with them, Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency reported.

April 29, 2008

Russia is increasing the number of its troops near the region of Abkhazia amid simmering tensions between Russia and Georgia, the Defense Ministry announced Tuesday.

Georgians protest outside the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi on April 25, 2008.

A statement posted on the ministry’s Web site said the increase of what it called peacekeepers was in response to a Georgian troop buildup.

“Georgia is increasing its group of forces in close vicinity to the conflict zones,” and there have been “threats to use military force and provocations on behalf of Georgian authorities,” the statement said, according to a CNN translation.

July 4, 2008

Georgia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia offered differing accounts Friday of a shooting that highlights continued tension between them amid Georgia’s NATO ambitions.
South Ossetians stand in the street during a night of shelling in Tskhinvali.

South Ossetians stand in the street during a night of shelling in Tskhinvali.

South Ossetia said shootings Thursday night in the regional capital of Tskhinvali and surrounding areas killed two people and wounded 11 in what a South Ossetian government spokeswoman called a Georgian “military provocation,” according to a report on Russia’s state Interfax news agency.

A Georgian defense official, however, denied that Georgian troops even fired a shot, though they were fired upon, and said the incident is part of ongoing provocation by South Ossetian separatists.

August 2, 2008

Six people were killed and 13 wounded in the shelling of South Ossetia by Georgian forces, South Ossetian officials said Saturday, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.

Officials of the breakaway Georgian region said the shelling was part of a Georgian military operation, Interfax reported.

Georgia initially suggested Russian peacekeepers were to blame, drawing heated denials from the Russian Defense Ministry, which called the allegation “dirty informational provocation.”

Later, however, Mamuka Kurashvili, the commander of Georgian peacekeeping operations, told reporters that four people were wounded when several Georgian villages were fired upon from South Ossetia, and Georgia “had to return fire.”

August 7, 2008

Georgia’s president on Thursday ordered his country’s forces to cease fire in South Ossetia, the separatist region where days of sporadic clashes have raised fears of full-scale war.

President Mikhail Saakashvili announced the order in a television broadcast in which he also urged South Ossetian separatist leaders to enter talks on resolving the conflict.

He proposed that Russia could become a guarantor of wide-ranging autonomy for South Ossetia, if the region remains under Georgian control.

Russia has close ties with the separatist leadership, and Georgian officials have alleged that Moscow is provoking the recent clashes.

August 8, 2008

Intense fighting reportedly raged for a second night in the Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia on Saturday and Georgia’s interior ministry reported air attacks on three military bases and key facilities for shipping oil to the West.

Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital was bombed by warplanes during the night and that bombs fell in the area of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

He also said two other Georgian military bases were hit and that warplanes bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.

Utiashvili said there apparently were significant casualties and damage in the attacks, but that further details would not be known until the morning.

Russia dispatched an armored column into South Ossetia on Friday after Georgia, a staunch U.S. ally, launched a surprise offensive to crush separatists. Witnesses said hundreds of civilians were killed.

August 9, 2008

Russian forces launched an airstrike against a military airfield near the Tbilisi International Airport early Sunday, despite international calls for Russia to stand down from the escalating conflict, Georgian officials told CNN.

The attack near the Georgian capital city came after a day of intense fighting in the former Soviet republic, with dozens of Russian warplanes bombing civilian and military targets in Georgia on Saturday.

As many as 2,000 people had been killed in the capital of separatist Georgian province South Ossetia, according to a Russian ambassador.

“The city of Tskhinvali no longer exists. There is nothing left. It was wiped out by the Georgian military,” the Russian news agency Interfax said, quoting the Russian ambassador to Georgia, Vyacheslav Kovalenko.

August 11, 2008

As fighting continued Sunday between Russia and Georgia over the separatist province of South Ossetia, U.N. officials expressed concern about violence in another Russian-backed breakaway territory in Georgia.

Forces of Abkhazia launched air and artillery strikes on Georgian troops Sunday, intending to drive them out of a small part of Abkhazia that the Georgians controlled, The Associated Press reported.

U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Edmond Mulet said Russian personnel and weapons were part of a military buildup in Abkhazia’s capital, Sukhumi. The Georgian government said 4,000 Russian troops have landed in Abkhazia, according to the AP.

Also Sunday, bombing was reported in the Georgian city of Zugdidi, south of the Abkhaz border, “causing panic among the civilian population,” Mulet said. Information on casualties and who was responsible for the bombing wasn’t available.

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The country is officially, largely cut in two.

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Sorry for my absenteeism on this, guys, but I’ve barely had the time to write on Registan.net about the war in Georgia (seriously, go there for some really in-depth discussions about what is going on), and have simply neglected copying posts over here. I’m sorry. Since I don’t have the time to follow the play-by-play very closely thanks to work, and since in my experience that doesn’t indicate much of use anyway, I’ll summarize my writing on the conflict so far.

For starters, this was a surprise to no one. Weeks before Saakashvili struck Tskhinvali, the South Ossetians were simultaneously shelling Georgian positions while using Russian transports to evacuate thousands of women and children for “summer camp” in North Ossetia right when Russia was massing troops across the border. Coupled with the years of Russian provocations in Abkhazia, including downing of Georgian drones by Russian aircraft, and the repeated military strikes by Russian helicopters on Georgian territory, it should surprise no one that Saakashvili finally reacted.

That being said, Saakashvili obviously miscalculated the extent to which he was being baited by Russia, and his normal brinksmanship sort of telegraphed that he would take decisive action at some point.

At the same time, the ultimate result of this fight will not be the annexation of Georgia by Russia, nor will it be an immediately dramatic reordering of the energy policies of the region. Russia will not touch the BTC pipeline, nor will it occupy Tblisi. They just want Saakashvili gone—the equivalent is how we used to view Fidel Castro… and if the opportunity presented itself we would have tried (and did several times) to kick him out of office without formally occupying the territory.

It is also important to note that Russia’s financial markets are not doing well right now. They have been steadily sinking since outright hostilities broke out, and they can be expected to sink further the longer conflict continues. So don’t expect anything long term from the Russian military—war is not as profitable for them as it is for us. If they do drag this war out much longer, they lose big time—financially, militarily, and internationally. Which they might do, because one should never underestimate Russian hubris.

Believe it or not, Russia actually is responsive to global opinion. Just not in the way we like to think. A key part of Russia’s geopolitical strategy is to breed European dependence on Russia energy, a goal they have largely achieved. At the same time, that isn’t permanent, and if Russia pushes too far Europe could panic, actually bother to come up with a unified energy policy, and diversify its supplies. Russia does not want that. But they do want to dictate terms along their southern flank.

Russia also has a compelling interest in preventing Georgian ascension into NATO. It has been interesting to see how much diplomatic activity has been in Brussels, rather than Tblisi, Tskhinvali, or Moscow. They are keenly aware of their audience here, and given the fact that they’ve made their point—NATO’s stipulation that Georgia solve its “frozen conflicts” is clearly still valid—they have little reason to occupy the capital and provoke a global response.

Questions remain. Did NATO’s stipulation, along with years of American support, funding, and supply, create the conditions for this war? Right now, it looks like it did (so what culpability does the West have?). Does this war conclusively prove that Russia is politically rotten, and that Medvedev is worse than a paper tiger since it’s all been about Putin? Quite possibly. Does this mean that Caspian energy will no longer flow according to Western interests? Almost definitely. Can this mean, since Russia stands a serious chance of overstepping its bounds and provoking a counter-movement from the international community, that the U.S. might in all of this emerge the actual winner? A remote possibility.

More ominously, what happens to Georgia? Saakashvili is finished, but there is no one to replace him. As the electoral crisis last year demonstrated, even when he voluntarily resigns and holds fair and open elections, he remains the only real leader the Georgians have. Alas, he is finished now. What, or more importantly who, comes next? It will almost certainly be one of the many opposition leaders, all of whom share varying degrees of warmth toward Russia. The winner of that political fight—which will be metaphorically if not physically bloody—will determine the ultimate result of this war. So in that sense, Russia is taking just as big a gamble here as Saakashvili did.

But basically, it is all very fluid, and there are too many variables to conclusively discuss what the war will really mean. Which is a cop-out in a way, but it is all one should feel comfortable saying.

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Russian West-Georgia attack expands. UN meets to fret again.

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It’s looking increasingly as if the alarmists were right and Russia intends to drop all pretense. Georgian troops are pulling back to Mtskheta to defend the approach to the capital, if Russia pushes to conquer and subjugate the entire country.

To call this country an outright menace to democracy and world peace, is to speak too kindly of it.

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As if the physical invasion of territory isn’t enough, it looks like it was preceded by a cyber-attack.

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Russia has invaded Western Georgia (proper) and captured Senaki, far from Abkhazia. It’s being billed by a Russian official as a preventive move against Georgian troop concentration. This being yet another new rationale invented on the fly to justify further incursion and murder. Remember when this was about South Ossetia peacekeeping?

For trivia, the military base at Senaki was where the 1998 mutiny against Eduard Shevardnadze was organized. Yesterday Wu Wei was amusingly speculating that he’d be dusted off by the Kremlin as Georgia’s eventual pro-Moscow puppet.

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Evidently immune to the historical irony, Israel halted arms shipments to Georgia months ago due to fears of a Russian attack. As an IDF veteran interprets that:

“When we found ourselves in a similar situation, we expected the world to act differently.”
(Haaretz)

And the world did act differently, or at least the United States…and at far greater political risk and economic consequence than Israel would sustain now.

Armaments are a problem for Georgia. She must have a method in ample supply to neutralize Russian armor.

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Joshua hasn’t disappeared, he just isn’t gracing us with his opinions on the conflict in the Caucasus, but you can find them at Registan.net, here and here.

Heh, Insty links to him, but describes it as peevish (Josh? Peevish? Also, by linking to him kind of undercuts Josh’s complaint.) Great surprise, but Joshua makes a few good points about Russia having pushed the action using mischief in Ossetia to set off Georgia.

Outside of being unfairly peevish about people searching for information, and providing some links of use (as has Lee) I would caution Josh on this:

the plain old wrong (Russia wants to annex Georgia)

Maybe not, but I am not so sure given the behavior of Russia since Josh wrote his last post on this.

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McQ, Dale and I discuss the Russian campaign against Georgia over South Ossetia.

Generally I feel that our support should belong to Georgia. However, Georgia has severely miscalculated in this matter, and frankly our options are limited. At best, we get a negotiated settlement with Russia that retains Georgian sovereignty with the loss of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The US and NATO allowed to save face with some show of protecting Georgian airspace after the fact, with Russia suffering a black eye in international opinion. Maybe.

I am not sure I agree with Lee that we may get Nato peacekeepers in South Ossetia and this turns out negatively in the short term for Russia, but we can hope.

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When it seemed like escalation was the modal reality, outcomes looked bleak for Georgia. Dynamics change. Thus Georgia’s ceasefire in South Ossetia cannot be a bad thing under the circumstances. By putting up an initial fight, they drew the attention of the world and now in can come the international community, which is as firmly opposed to Russia’s behavior on an issue since the Afghanistan invasion in 1979.

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Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd witnessed a heated discussion between Bush and Putin over Georgia.

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Tom Tildrum, commenting on Ilya Somin’s notice that the press favors the Edwards affair over the Russo-Georgian War: “The Russians may have launched their offensive after learning of the Edwards news, in order to minimize world attention.”

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One can always count on the New York Times for publishing pernicious editorial advice on foreign policy.

To duty, Helene Cooper is eager for the US to seize the opportunity of the South Ossetia invasion to…throw Georgia under the bus and forge a closer relationship with Russia. Clearly makes sense under the circumstances right? Why wouldn’t we want to ally with an increasingly nondemocratic state that is now engaged in aggressive territorial expansion through the military conquest of her neighbors.

But if that sounds too crazy for you (that is, if you’re human), she offers an alternative policy from George Friedman, chief executive of Stratfor. He advises that the United States should just “shut up” and ignore the invasion of a close ally.

With such advice careers are made, and we can only wonder why.

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So who is in control of Tskhinvali right now? Russia says Russia, Georgia says Georgia, and the separatists? Take your pick:

Eduard Kokoity, self-styled president of the separatist region, said a “second attempt” by Georgian forces to retake the town had been beaten back.

But, as he spoke, Boris Chochiyev, deputy head of the South Ossetian government, told reporters that Tskhinvali was now in the hands of Georgian forces. “The city has been lost. We have been betrayed”
(Reuters)

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Slowly the gears turn, but Washington and Tbilisi’s positions inch further into concord by the minute. The infamous “unnamed senior US official,” behind all important news events of the last century has spoken:

A senior U.S. official says Russia has attacked areas of the former Soviet state that are far away from the separatist province of South Ossetia where the fighting has centered. The Bush administration also says the Russian military is striking civilian areas.

The official said Saturday that Moscow’s military response is disproportionate to the threat and Russia has stymied attempts at mediation aimed at arranging a cease-fire.
(AP)

That’s the embryo of a case that will go to Europe. Russia is in imminent danger of overreaching as badly as Georgia did.

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Doug Merrill reports things looked pretty normal, only they weren’t.

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Wu Wei believes Russia is now targeting the Nabucco gas pipeline in Georgia…while the Russian NATO envoy argues that strategic objectives are restricted to a South Ossetia protection and warns NATO to stay out. And now Iran gets into the ceasefire call game.

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Daniel Nexon gets an email from an anonymous Russia hand speculating on the grim possible outcomes for Georgia:

This is not going to end well for Georgia. Russia has expanded its targets beyond the vicinity of South Ossetia, hitting not only military but also economic and communications targets throughout Georgia. It is unlikely, though, that Russia intends to set up a puppet government as they did in Chechnya–the local population is far too hostile, and I doubt that they have any reliable local elites that they can turn to. More likely, we will see a clear demand for independence for both Abkhazia and South Ossetia (though I suspect that shortly after obtaining independence, S. Ossetia would petition to rejoin the motherland, which Russia would, of course, graciously grant.

Rough agreement from me. Although I don’t know if we could consider the population of Chechnya friendly to Russian ownership, nor after extended warfare consider the Russophile local elites mostly living.

And suppose for a moment that Georgia doesn’t stop fighting? Russia’s supply lines –excuse me, supply line– to South Ossetia is precarious to put it mildly. Saakashvili wants a ceasefire, but Russia always has a problem with pressing advantages.

With winter ahead, a fighting defense will necessitate expansion of the geographic corridor of occupation. And in pushing back Georgian attacks, it’s very easy to escalate into conquering the entire country (even without the possible coastal attack). If the Russians do that, they certainly aren’t going to leave a hostile government in power (which is the only kind that could get elected at this point). The “puppet state” scenario seems very much in the cards as things stand (if this plays out militarily).

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In an unnerving development, the New York Times is reporting that Russia may be preparing for an amphibious assault on Georgia’s Black Sea coastline.

Alexander Lomaya, Secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council:

“Russia has clearly decided to redraw the borders of the Eastern Europe map of the post-cold war situation,” Mr. Lomaya said. “If the world is not able to stop Russia here, then Russian tanks and Russian paratroopers can appear in every European capital.”
(New York Times)

Exaggeration in stress, but it’s not untrue that this is the decisive moment where it is decided whether Russia will be restrained from her “sphere of influence” reclamation project.

Act, Washington. Act.

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At least 160,000 deaths in the suppression of Chechen independence by Russia. Just a reminder for when someone tries to set Russia up as the great defender of South Ossetia’s right of national self-determination. There’s a diplomatic argument for that, but it isn’t one that can be made by Russia and especially not by a Russian imperial invasion force.

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Tsitsernakaberd (photo: Adam Lederer)

Just when bewilderment at the spectacle of Steve Cohen going absolutely berserk on an Armenian film crew had started to subside (they were trailing him over his opposition to recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide), I read that an Armenian socnet war is on the make.

Due to the perception that Obama is stronger on the issue of recognition (even though he endorsed Cohen), ethnic Armenians have apparently become strong supporters of Obama over the genocide issue, while Turks are lining up behind John McCain in default opposition.

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(image: Marcelus G. Zalotti)

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Jordan Page (who is a kind of Ronpaulist Joan Baez) reflects on the “Revolution March,” a July 12th Ron Paul protest rally in Washington DC, in part organized by Adam Kokesh (who of late believes the Washington police are involved in a clandestine conspiracy against him).

Now, I grew up in the libertarian movement such as it was. Although I no longer consider myself a libertarian out of respect for the philosophy, I think I knew it well. My libertarianism was of the rightish sort, but fundamentally a movement for liberty through reason. A movement of the great economists and political philosophers of the Austrian School and the University of Chicago. The movement of Mises and Friedman. But this paranoid, revolutionary rubbish presented by Page as libertarianism, is utterly unrecognizable to me.

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(photo: Charles Roffey – Charles & Fred)

Someone once said that in Damascus you truly can get a little bit pregnant. It’s a good aphorism, because if you asked the foreign minister of almost any state in the Middle East or the Mediterranean what his government’s policy relationship was with Syria, he would automatically furrow his brow and call it “complicated.” You always seem to be about half-way somewhere with Syria. Lately that appears to be true even for Tzipi Livni. If so for Israel, doubly so for Lebanon.

Surveying it, Jihad Yazigi describes the situation that exists between the two countries as customarily “complicated”, but the dimension of complication he’s seeing is something relatively new. Where before thirty years of Syrian military occupation (and often not very covert political subversion) might be the most obvious locus, Yazigi is today talking about labor and direct investment in Syria by Lebanese:

Syria would probably not be liberalizing its economy and going through a revival of its services sector without the thousands of Lebanese managers that are running Syrian firms. Lebanese managerial know-how is being exported throughout the Arab world and Syria will continue to need it if it wants to further the opening up of its economy.
(The Syria Report)

That’s a very new economic relationship, as historically it is Syrian labor that has traveled to liberal and cosmopolitan Beirut. It is Syrian enterprise that has worked to create a paternalistic relationship between the two countries with one-way investment, generally government directed.

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We see this kind of thing in the press all the time:

U.S. and Afghan troops have abandoned a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan where militants killed nine American soldiers earlier this week, officials said Wednesday.

Compounding the military setback, insurgents quickly seized the village of Wanat in Nuristan province after driving out the handful of police left behind to defend government offices there, Afghan officials said.

Factually true, and oh so very misleading. For the real story of these nine men and the fantastic job they and their comrades did I suggest letting McQ enlighten you.

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UPDATE: Welcome QandO readers. Please look around after you’ve finished with this post, but McQ says you have to go back over to QandO when you’re done … but I won’t tell if you won’t.
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The recent Supreme Court case involving Guantanomo Bay (GITMO) detainees and writs of habeas corpus promises to be one of the most significant opinions for decades to come. Not because it grants foreign citizens the right to challenge their detention in U.S. civil courts (although that’s huge), nor because the decision will lead to possible terrorists being set free in the U.S. (which is almost inevitable), but because it sets a new standard for the power of the Supreme Court. However, no matter the angle from which one approaches the case, constitutional scholars will likely not tire of discussing its implications and applications for quite some time. This post will concentrate on just one of those angles (with others hopefully to follow). (more…)

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This is the most recent of a series of posts on Registan.net where I explore some of the fundamentals of conflict within the tribal areas of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. At the end of this post is a link to the rest of them.

Nightwatch argues that May was the most violent month in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion:

NightWatch almost has completed its monthly assessments of combat for both April and May. In the data sample drawn from unclassified reporting sources that NightWatch uses, April featured 199 violent incidents in 86 districts, making it the most lethal April in the six year conflict. May featured 214 incidents of violence in over 100 districts, also a new six-year total for May and the highest single monthly total. Despite official efforts to spotlight improvement, the spring offensive thus far is worse than last year’s spring offensive. The security situation has deteriorated again.

At no prior time has the Taliban managed to stage attacks in over 100 of the 398 districts. The previous highs were 86 in April 2008 and 83 in May 2007. Fighting has been heavy in Garmser District in Helmand Province but it has been significantly higher in Zormat District in Paktia Province; Andar District in Ghazni Province and Asadabad District in Konar, all across from the tribal areas of northern and central Pakistan. If Taliban fighters are heading to Pakistan, they are going back to base to rest and to get more ammunition and supplies.

Now, it is notable that the worst fighting has actually not been in the south, but in Paktya, Ghazni, and Kunar, all of which are provinces operating under the new success metrics breathlessly regurgitated by our lazy propagandists. Kunar in particular was the site of David Kilcullen’s now-seminal piece on the magical IED-stopping power of roads; Asadabad in particular is the site of one of the PRTs making the most talked-about progress in terms of construction and violence reduction.

Are we being sold a bill of goods? Are the areas bordering the FATA in far worse shape than we were lead to believe, and is the South in comparative good health?

It is not as simple to answer as it may seem. There are three metrics to look at: actual numbers, comparative numbers, and perceived numbers. For our purposes—i.e. for the purpose of some sort of permanent defeat of the Taliban and associated militias—the real numbers don’t matter. The comparative numbers might, if there was an effective IO campaign in place—not selling roads as bomb shields, but selling the astonishing success of the brand new national telecommunications network, or the very real benefits of steadily improving developmental indicators. But since there is not, the comparative numbers could be interesting, but haven’t really gone anywhere.

What of the perception? Again, this is a difficult question to unravel: security is rarely at the top of a typical Afghan’s priority. Most want food, or an end to the pervasive and devastating impact of official corruption.

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(photo: Mani Babbar)

After 9/11 widened Al Qaeda’s ambitious war against most of the world, Osama bin Laden described his own axis-o-evil as being composed of “Crusaders, Zionists and Hindus.” But at some point, without anyone much noticing, that seems to have changed for Hindus.

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(photo: Department of Defense)

The Obama campaign has categorically rejected John McCain’s proposal for a joint trip to Iraq, calling it a “publicity stunt.” Publicity stunt it most certainly is, but why is it automatically assumed that the publicity would only benefit McCain? Because he proposed it? Or because the facts on the ground are thought to validate his views? Nettlesome matters that McCain would be wise to emphasize in the wake of the rejection.

While Obama’s supporters are snarling at what they consider to be a pattern politics of either immaturity or sage condescension (they’re apparently a bit vexed by the event), the campaign may have missed a tremendous opportunity here.

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