Here’s another analysis on the Russia-Georgia shenanigans. Only this one addresses the machinations of the “hidden hands” behind this and other dastardly events.

It’s time for people to wake-up to the true nature of the world leaders that have set this thing into motion. It is far more deceptive, contrived, and sinister than most would believe. That is why I have been patiently setting a very unique trap for these snakes. Take the time to understand and then hold their feet to the fire !!!

Time to get a clue, before its too late…

Peace and Wisdom…

Or perhaps most of the posters were actual Russian commentators - readers of the Russian equivalents of Bolt and Blair. Who would ‘ave thunk?

I don’t deny that FSB would have helped things if needed. But they don’t. There are a lot of ‘patriotic’ men and women at Nashi to start the trolling, and then things went viral from there.

Hint: Said MarkL was/is an ardent supporter of the invasion of Iraq.

How gullible are you MarkL…I wouldn’t trust a thing that comes out of those media sources. One only needs to look at the American instigators & their supporting media to know this is another MANUFACTURED conflict.

Empathy is a widely misunderstood habit of mind.

If it’s simply your invention, that’s fine. But just a bit earlier you also wrote: “Russia has already warned that they regard the deployment of these missiles as an act of war a la Cuba 1962.”

I assumed you were quoting recent Russian leaders. If not, I apologise unreservedly for any offence given, by my misunderstanding your earlier post. You have checkmated me. I withdraw.

Further, I will not “have to” clarify anything, Katz. I was referring to a lengthy debate conducted on LP a long time ago; I don’t wish to bore other readers witless by re-hashing that. This is not, BTW, a concession that your expressions of ‘empathy’ for Fidel and his missile-hosting etc etc etc were things I now concede were justified.

As far as we can tell, fissioning nuclei are unaware of regional disputes, ethnic cleansing, diplomatic pressures, trade sanctions, bombast, artillery fire, rumbling tanks, patriotic fervour, bloodstained bicycles, or the price of energy.

GLOBAL DIPLOMACY UPDATE

Katz correctly points out that the US and Russia are nuclear weapons powers, armed to the teeth. Truly an elephant in the room. At times of crisis, when the nuclear sabres are rattled (hence getting lots of folks rattled), it comes as a nasty surprise to realise that not enough nations have done the hard yards to REDUCE the risks of the use of nuclear weapons with all the threats to person’s livelihoods they entail.

I’m not aware of any present Russian leaders mentioning Cuba 1962. That is my invention signifying nothing more than a piece of historical shorthand, like Munich 1938 is often invoked.

Do you seriously think I’m trying to advise the Russians? More worryingly, do you seriously think that the Russians would take any advice I might give them?

You’ll have to clarify what you mean by “wonderfully well”.

Do you mean that Russia now believes the stationing of Soviet offensive missiles on Cuban soil in 1962 was an act of war against the USA? As JFK and RFK and the US govt regarded it?

And by drawing that analogy, do the Russian leaders justify their putting extreme pressure on the Poles? Do you have a suggestion for an analogue of the 1962 US naval blockade + diplomatic pressure? Or would you prefer the Russians do their own military planning without benefit of your advice?

When we discussed Fidel and Cuba on LP many months ago, I formed the impression that you thought Fidel had done wonderfully well in 1962 by hosting the Soviet missiles. Now you write “The timetable for deployment of those missiles sets the scene for a doomsday scenario.”

I hope you’re not suggesting
“Soviet-missiles-good
Yankee-missiles-bad”

- you’re not, are you??

The US has been backed into a corner,

The US has allowed/encouraged these events to be crystallised in ways that are disadvantageous in the short term for US prestige. But the US has many resources at its disposal that can prevent the demise of Georgian sovereignty. The fact that Russia has no credible political client in Georgia undermines imperialist ambitions.

and the near abroad knows that Russia is back as a regional power.

In addition to the fact that Russia shares with the US world-ending capabilities. This is the elephant in the room that no one wants to mention.

With just a couple of divisions, Putin has browbeaten the FSU republics, made them think long and hard about joining the West, stopped NATO cold and shown the EU to be a broken reed.

Possibly true. Though I suspect that the Georgia episode was made Poland even more determined to host those anti-missile missiles. Russia has already warned that they regard the deployment of these missiles as an act of war a la Cuba 1962. The timetable for deployment of those missiles sets the scene for a doomsday scenario.

Comment: I’m not surprised at all. The backstory is going to be very interesting, but we will wait months before we know much of it (leaks will start within a couple of days).

But first, what happened?

I am afraid that the ‘Crikey’ expert’s take is well-reported by Lefty E (post 80 and Kudos are deserved) but that it is very much off beam. The best condensed version of events is from Stratfor:

In this simple chronicle, there is something quite mysterious: Why did the Georgians choose to invade South Ossetia on Thursday night? There had been a great deal of shelling by the South Ossetians of Georgian villages for the previous three nights, but while possibly more intense than usual, artillery exchanges were routine. The Georgians might not have fought well, but they committed fairly substantial forces that must have taken at the very least several days to deploy and supply. Georgia’s move was deliberate.

If this was the case, then it points to the central reality of this situation: The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United States and Europe could not respond. As for risk, they did not view the invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no counter. Economically, Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well — indeed, the Europeans need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them. Politically, as we shall see, the Americans needed the Russians more than the Russians needed the Americans. Moscow’s calculus was that this was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for months, as we have discussed, and they struck.

So the two most dysfunctional agencies in the US govt (State Dept and CIA) look to have really screwed the pooch on this one. Bad boys… perhaps they should have been looking after their nations’s interests rather than playing ‘we hate Bush too’ games. A cleanout is needed when such agencies act in this manner irrespective of who is in power. Bureaucrats MUST stay out of internal political games.

From what we can see here, it looks like the US (Pentagon and executive) responded quickly and well to the sh*t sandwich the Russians and the 2 agencies above presented to them: massive US pressure and NATO proxy pressure has been applied to the Russians. When the Baltic States, Poland and Ukraine all send very senior people indeed on ’surprise inspections’ of their embassies/consulates in Tbilisi, something really is up. The Russians appear to have been forced by this pressure to stop literally in their tracks. That’s not voluntary, but it looks like they expected it, and shifted to plan B (maybe a little early).

Just how fast the ‘new NATO’ states responded is also a sign of something; again, part of the backstory. The best guess is that the Russian cyberattack on Georgia which started about a month ago warned the Baltics (who fought a bitter cyberwar with the Russians last year) that something was up. It certainly explains why Talinn sent their first team in a couple of weeks ago.

While that cyberattack is now escalating (lots of RBN botnets getting into the fray… but no attacks on US-hosted Georgian sites yet) and the FSB agitprop boys are all over every site discussing this (go see UK Telegraph, Gruniard and Times - playing spot-the-FSB-apparatchik is fun, and instructive). HOW they torment the moonbats, who the FSB are ‘playing’ very well but to what end (other than justifying their paycheques) is not hard to see: the meme is ‘blame the west’. The Gruniard moonbats are all on board with that anyway. Obviously, the moonbats do not understand what is really going on, they think that the FSB guys are either the vast right-wing conspiracy come out of the woodwork or fellow travellers: their natural inclination is to blame the US/West/Halliburton/the neocon VRWC de jour for everything anyway, so they are breathtakingly easy to co-opt to the FSB’s memes. It is fascinating to see how fast the ‘useful idiots’ can be turned to supporting the Russian invasion. The Russians have taken the old KGB’s media manipulation to new heights. Cue a standing ovation I suppose. But at least we can see their tactics now.

If you see a strange handle extolling those memes here, you have the FSB frolicking in your sandpit.

It is a most instructive case of cyber-propaganda and agitprop to watch, the first open distributed agitprop attack I have been able to follow in such detail. Their operational techniques are being refined before your eyes. Amazing and disturbing scenes indeed.

But the kinetic attack has ceased while the next step (humiliating terms including Russian defacto annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia) - and there’s no good explanation for the timing fracture of that as yet. The Russian ‘negotiating position’ is a little too hurried, looks like they are being forced ahead of their game plan. Something apparently forced Putin to abandon his first approach to his primary aim, the destruction of the Shakashvili-led Georgian democracy. Putin is a classic autocrat, so that something had to have made him realise that game was not worth the candle, and to settle for second prize now, with a plan B to get thje main prize. So he is scrambling to reposition in order to nail Shakashvili, and Georgian democracy with him.

In essence, the Georgians played into their hands but have salvaged a their immediate short term aim (survival of Georgia) and the Russians already have their longer term secondaries (a nice spike to Putins nationalist credentials, popularity at home, a message to the ‘near abroad’ that has claws and sharp fangs, a powerful message of ‘old NATO’ (read EU) impotence, an increased measure of control over oil supplies to Europe and so forth).

BTW. Worth noting (you probably saw this on the news) was the presence of 155mm SPG in the Russian lead elements. [i]Nobody[/i] puts 155mm SPG there, behind the recon elements of an armoured advance! These are expensive, scarce, defenceless systems which you put at the 1/3 range and 2/3 range depths behind their own maximum range. They should be no closer than ~4k from the recon line. So that event was staged. Now when one looks at the map where the Russians are, it’s obvious what they are doing there and why their SPG figured so prominently in video footage. The Russians have the pipeline thru Georgia within 155 range. The message to both the Georgians and EU cannot be plainer. “Ahem. EU? You know those pipelines that got your energy to you without it passing through Russia? Well, BOHICA boys and girls! We have some bad news!”

The central European fallout is going to be fascinating. Meetings are already happening in Warsaw. The Polish-Baltic states-Ukrainian push for ‘new NATO’ arrangements now have an added twist plus a layer of urgency.

So Putin and Medvedev called the West’s bluff. Russia is flush with oil revenue and is a rallying point for those who want leverage in an anti-Western agenda. You’ll have noticed that for the last five years, its foreign policy has been: “Whatever the United States is for, we oppose.” Hence the FSB memes to which the moonbats are being co-opted. Watch for the ‘It was all the USA’s fault’ articles and you know that the FSB memestorm has co-opted the western media too, it’s a very nice play. Wish we were that sophisticated.

The geopolitical message is crystal clear to NATO and the ‘near abroad (the former Soviet Republics). ‘Do not even think about NATO membership, and the EU is a broken reed’. The Georgian invasion shows ‘old NATO’s’ weakness. The irony is spectacular.

If Georgia had been a NATO member, invoking Article V’s promise of mutual assistance in time of war would have destroyed the alliance, because it would be seen to be empty. Would the Germans send troops to fight Russian invaders in a NATO-allied Georgia? As it is, NATO is revealed as a Potemkin alliance.

Putin had seized a chance to reclaim prestige and weaken his adversaries. There is no downside for him now. He has shown the EU’s vaunted soft power to be actually far worse than useless because their touching belief in it led them to neglect their hard power. Putin does not give a damn about the UN, EU or any European finger wagging, moralising gasbag from Brussels,Geneva or London. After all, they lost no sleep over the destruction of Grozny, and moralising lectures do not stop Motor Rifle divisions. The US has been backed into a corner, and the near abroad knows that Russia is back as a regional power. With just a couple of divisions, Putin has browbeaten the FSU republics, made them think long and hard about joining the West, stopped NATO cold and shown the EU to be a broken reed. The only thing salvaged from the wreckage (probably by the USA acting in concert with Turkey) has been the actual existence of Georgia. For how long… well, we’ll see. And Putin will have a long game to reabsorb or at least Finlandise them.

Just splendid news - not. We have a big welcome back to the Russian Empire, something that usually ends very badly for lots of people. They never did play nice, those guys. Wonder how the ’stans are feeling tonight? The word is that they are crapping broken glass.

MarkL
Canberra

“Hope was the last of the evils out of Pandora’s jar”

Pedantic, I know, and possibly off topic but my recollection of the story is that Hope was the only thing left in Pandora’s Box. All the other evils (is “hope” an evil?) escaped before Pandora was able to close the lid.

Its form of government is much more complex than a simple theocracy and I think you need to read up on the varieties of Islam a bit more!

Perhaps you need to live in an Islamic country or two like I have.
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Iran’s government is actually not very well understood by us. (or them?) There’s the military, there’s the clerical authorities, there’s the State somehow. How these interact; who has the authority to do what is sort of baffling to us. I didn’t say it was a simple theocracy. Theocracies can be complicated too. They still suck.

Heh! You’re joking, right, Adrien?

No. What I meant was, besides being literally at war in Afghanistan for reasons not entirely unrelated to Jihadism, we have a foreign policy posture of being aligned against this ‘Jihadism’. Jihadism is portrayed in the media as the Big Evil (always helps to have one of those) and the information we get is thus distorted. As in: the first casualty of war is truth. Or in other words the bullshit is impeding our understanding. Ours and theirs.
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Our agitprop says they’re evil and they’re batshit. Their’s probably says something similar. But I do have certain doubts about a country whose justice system will hang a teenage girl because she fought off killed a rapist in self-defence. I also think that when said country is thought to be nutso by another country which practises similar arcania - might be a worry.

a Western country currently in a state of war against Islamic Jihadists

Heh! You’re joking, right, Adrien?

But Itan is a theocracy which means that its political decisions, justice apparatus foreign policy stance and the rest are mixed up with ideas of an eshatological religion which regards Armageddon as both inevitable and desirable

Its form of government is much more complex than a simple theocracy and I think you need to read up on the varieties of Islam a bit more!

In what way have they _not_ been playing the game rationally? The move to escalate their nuclear program, the apparent threats to Israel, all these things rationally ratcheting up the tension just when they needed to do that in order to impress on the Americans the exact position the Americans found themselves in. The deal between the USA and Iran is very nearly made - they are onto the fine points and small print, from all indications from both camps.

See also one of Robert McNamara’s dictums: “rationality will not save us”.

Hope was the last of the evils out of Pandora’s jar.

Someone made exactly this point on an Obama stoush at Catallaxy a few weeks back.
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Tyro - I’m not sure if we can rely on the Iranian govt to act rationally in this respect. I’m not even sure what constitutes the Iranian Govt. I’m not sure they know.

You really like the word ‘bellicose’ don’t you?

Yes, it’s a good word!

Tyro at 86, yes, good point about Iran.