War it is. Part IV.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by siron


Yes, there are also a few Georgian peacekeeping battalions under the authority of an international control commission which was formed in 1992.

IMHO this does not imply that the authority of the state Georgia is exercised there.

But I (and probably my Chinese friend) will carefully listen to further arguments for reintegration of renegade provinces.

Well, let this be the last posting about taiwan in this thead - further discussions are to be done in a seperate such

Problem is what is to be considered the renegade province - PRC or Taiwan ?

ON TOPIC - Georgia has maybe not been in control of the whole SO, but they certainly has been there in both a peacekeeping and a soveringty capacity. By that, the claim that there has been an independentant SO state is obviouslly false.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by siron


But I (and probably my Chinese friend) will carefully listen to further arguments for reintegration of renegade provinces.

Yes...it would be good if the mainland province was reintegrated into the legitimate Chinese government in Taipei. Do you think the rebels in Beijing would be willing for that to happen?

[GePap]

Originally posted by PLATO


Yes...it would be good if the mainland province was reintegrated into the legitimate Chinese government in Taipei. Do you think the rebels in Beijing would be willing for that to happen?

When rebels win they become the legitimate government.

[GePap]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/opinion/24steel.html?ref=opinion

Op-Ed Contributor
A Superpower Is Reborn
By RONALD STEEL
Published: August 24, 2008
Los Angeles

THE psychodrama playing out in the Caucasus is not the first act of World War III, as some hyperventilating politicians and commentators would like to portray it. Rather, it is the delayed final act of the cold war. And while the Soviet Union lost that epic conflict, Russia won this curtain call in a way that ensures Washington will have to take it far more seriously in the future.

This is not just because, as some foreign-policy “realists” have argued, Moscow has enough troops and oil to force us to take into consideration its supposedly irrational fears. Rather, the conflict in Georgia showed how rational Russia’s concerns over American meddling in its traditional sphere of influence are, and that Washington had better start treating it like the great power it still is.

As the cold war ended, the Russians voluntarily, if grudgingly, gave up their cordon sanitaire in Eastern Europe, but they still view it as a necessary zone of protection. The United States brushed off the Russian complaints over the deployment of American missiles into Eastern Europe and Washington’s effort to extend NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia. But Russians have a good point that, to them, this is as if Moscow had signed up Cuba and Venezuela in a military pact and then tried to plant missiles there pointing north.

It was inevitable that the Russians, now restored to prosperity by their oil and gas resources, would push back somewhere, and the hot-headed Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, gave them an easy excuse. What has followed in Washington is a field day of self-righteous indignation as politicians on both sides of the aisle line up to proclaim their solidarity with the little guy and deplore the interference of bullies in nations that just want to be left alone.

But such grandstanding ignores an old truth of geopolitics: great powers live by different rules than do minor ones. They demand respect — and obedience — from their weak neighbors. Sometimes they are explicit about this, as was United States Secretary of State Richard Olney when, in 1895, he declared, with respect to the Monroe Doctrine, that “today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition.”

Moscow cannot be expected to show any less concern about the political orientation of the former constituent republic on its critical southern frontier. Great powers zealously guard what they benignly refer to as their “sphere of influence.” This may be a shame, but it is the way the world works, and always has. And no country has been more insistent than the United States in demanding that its interests be respected by its neighbors. Latin Americans can attest to that.

The limits of Russia’s post-cold-war retreat have apparently been reached, and the reversal of the power equation has gone too far to be sustained. Today’s leaders in Moscow are determined to protect what they perceive as their vital interests. The task for American leaders is not to pretend that these interests do not exist or can be safely ignored. Rather, it is to work out a modus vivendi based not on wishful thinking or dreams of even greater glory, but on the sober facts of power realities.

The first essential step for the leader of the Western alliance is to tone down the bombast and restore a dialogue with Russia. Our peripatetic secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, should have jetted off to Moscow, not Tbilisi. Careless talk about throwing Russia out of the Group of 8 economic powers will only backfire against the West’s own interests. The whole point of such organizations is not that they are a reward for obliging behavior, but rather that they provide a forum for dealing with common problems.

Second, we should shelve loose talk about bringing either Ukraine or Georgia into NATO — at least until we are willing to invite Russia itself. NATO is essentially still a cold-war military pact seeking a new identity that it has not yet found. Admitting these two former Soviet republics would be interpreted by Moscow as anti-Russian provocation — and rightly so. And even if it didn’t provoke a new cold war, it would create serious tensions within NATO itself.

Third, we should meet with our NATO partners to work out a common approach to the problem of ethnic separatism. We handled this badly in the Balkans by facilitating the violent dismemberment of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines, and then, over vociferous Russian objections, recognizing the rebellious Serbian province of Kosovo as a separate state. The tearing apart of nations along ethnic lines is not a problem limited to the Balkans. Strong separatist movements exist in several European states, such as Britain, Italy and Spain, and may soon tear Belgium apart. Is this a development that we want to facilitate?

At a time when this nation is bogged down in two costly and seemingly endless wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, it would not seem prudent to pick a fight with Russia over a rebellious, territorially ambitious former province. And it might be wise to recall the warning of John Quincy Adams in 1821 that by going “abroad in search of monsters to destroy” to support the territorial ambitions of others, the United States would “involve herself beyond the power of extraction in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.”

Ronald Steel is a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California.

[PLATO]

I love how The Times always details what the US should do. We should go here and we should say this, etc...

It never seems to see that nobody may be listening on some subjects.

Not to mention the fact that they are giving de facto approval to the invasion of another country...not to mention a democratic one.

The more rational people read the Times, the less it seems to say...And I guess their HUGE drop in circulation is a good sign on the number of rational people who have dropped that rag.

[onodera]

I remember reading an article from The Times (a 1917 issue from their online archive) where they assure their readers that Bolsheviks will not stay in power for a long time.

[Saras]

You're talking about different Times.

Timesonline archive ftw

[onodera]

Originally posted by Saras
You're talking about different Times.

Timesonline archive ftw

I was talking about The Times. Calling the NYT The Times is like calling Komsomolskaya Pravda Pravda.

[Saras]

I know.

[Dr Strangelove]

If the South Ossetians are equvalent to the PLO shouldn't the UN recognize them?

Are Baranov, Mindzayev, Lunev, and Barankevich ethnic Ossetians? If so, wouldn't it make sense that South Ossetia would employ native sons with prior training in those positions? It's not very likely that they would have had people trained in the US, England, etc. If they did get their independence who knows, maybe someday they might be led by an Ivy League trained lawyer, just like Georgia. The way things stand right now that's not going to happen. If we continue to refuse to recognize their rights of self-determination we may even eventually turn them into terrorists of the first order. Imagine how much Georgia, Russia, NATO and the cause of world peace will be benefited by introducing to the world stage another group of crazies armed with C4 and hate.

Oh, and I think we ought to consider looking at some of the leaders of the American Revolution, Post WW1 Poland, and post-independence Israel. "gasp" A number of the Continental Army's early commanders had previously served with the Bitish. But wait! The Continental Army received guns and training from the French. Oh Noes! It was teh French plot all along! Most of Poland's early political and military leaders had previous educations or even government positions in Austro-Hungary, Russia or Germany. What's up with that?! Virtually all of Israel's early leaders were European trained. Heck, Gold Meir retained her US citizneship right up to the day she assumed the Prime Minister's seat. Looks like Hamas, the PLO and Herzbollah are all correct in claiming that Israel is nothing but a tool of the West inflicted upoon Arab civilization to sap their strength, right?

[GePap]

Originally posted by PLATO
I love how The Times always details what the US should do. We should go here and we should say this, etc...

It never seems to see that nobody may be listening on some subjects.

It's an OP-ED, not written by the NY Times editorial board. They have had "get Russia!" op-ed pieces as well, but I personally find them vapid, like that point in general.

Not to mention the fact that they are giving de facto approval to the invasion of another country...not to mention a democratic one.

See above.

The more rational people read the Times, the less it seems to say...And I guess their HUGE drop in circulation is a good sign on the number of rational people who have dropped that rag.

1. All newspapers have seen a drop in circulation and earning for years. Can you name any newspaper gaining money.

2. The NY Times remains profitable , unlike say the NY Post, which has never made money in its long career. Also, the NY Times has seen its circulation fall in line with newspapers like WaPo, and far less than others, specially by rebranding itself as a more national, not just local, paper.

3. These inane critiques against the Times get a bit boring - if they don't matter, why are conservatives so hell bent on trying to discredit them. Me thinks the right doeth protest WAYY too much about the NYTimes, meaning they obviously remain one of the most influential newspapers in the country, no matter how much *****ing its opponents make.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Georgia/idUSLO45165720080824?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

KHETAGUROVO, South Ossetia (Reuters) - Georgian troops arrived Khetagurovo on August 8 in a storm of steel and bullets, killing eight people and badly damaging the village of ethnic South Ossetians.

When they left two days later, harried by the Russian forces that crushed Tbilisi's bid to restore control over its breakaway region, locals say their took four prisoners with them and forfeited any chance of reconciliation.

Passions were still running high when Thomas Hammarberg, a European human rights official, arrived in the village on Sunday to witness the release of two Georgian tank crew as a goodwill gesture by the Ossetian authorities.

"Why are you releasing these bloody Georgians if they don't release my husband who is held hostage there?," village book keeper Rita Bestayeva shouted at Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner.

Russian soldiers held angry villagers at bay as the two Georgian servicemen -- captured when Russian troops retook the village -- were whisked away in a car in the direction of Georgia, a gesture Hammarberg said he would use his influence to push Tbilisi to reciprocate.

"I know that it is very difficult for people in this village to accept that those two prisoners have been released," he told reporters during a break in the visit, which was closely chaperoned by the Russian military.

"I respect their reactions but I am convinced that this is a way to secure that those people missing from this village come back as soon as possible," he said.

& great article Saras

[Saras]

War is hell. Just finished the BBC WW II DVD on the war in the East. **** that ****.

[Colon™]

Does Russia have the slighest clue what it's going to do from now on? Ok, they made a mockery of the west but now it has to deal with a renewed capital flight at a time of falling energy prices and it merrily confirmed the supposed precedent of Kosovo it used to fight tooth and nails due to Chechnya. Maybe the US ought to hand out passports to a few Caucasian peoples as well.
The trouble with Russia isn't so much its might as its willingness to incur greater damage as long it can inflict some to others.

[MOBIUS]

I'm assuming all you intelligent Polytubbies have debated this already, but I can't be bothered trawling through the mountains of posts to find it so...

When if Russia is serious about letting the South Ossetians govern themselves, when is it going to let North Ossetia secede from it so it can join the South and be one happy and independent Ossetia...?

Just an obvious question really, given the circumstances...