Friday Editorial: The more things change
Armies plan carefully and train to fight with precision and discipline. But once the shooting starts, and the fog of war rolls in, all bets are off.
That’s important to bear in mind as President George W. Bush ponders his next move in Georgia, where the stakes are high, the military situation fluid and American options severely limited.
On Wednesday, Mr. Bush dispatched Air Force planes carrying relief supplies and a military “assessment team” to determine what additional help is feasible. A high-ranking Pentagon official told The New York Times that the mission was designed “to show Russia that we can come to the aid of a European ally and that we can do it at will, whenever and wherever we want.”
Russia’s response was swift and blunt. President Dmitri Medvedev told the leaders of two breakaway Georgian regions on Thursday that his country would act as their protector “in accordance with the U.N. Charter.”
Mr. Bush had demanded that Georgia’s sovereignty be respected. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the idea. “One can forget any talk about Georgia’s territorial integrity,” he said.
Militarily, at least, there’s isn’t much the United States can do about it.
Mr. Bush is right to stand up for the democratically elected government of Georgia. The Russian incursion is designed to intimidate not only that country, which has been forging closer ties with the West, but also other former Soviet republics such as Ukraine that have followed similar paths toward free and open societies.
And the fact that U.S. military options are limited does not mean that America can do nothing. It is unlikely that Russia can be isolated the way Iran or North Korea have been. But NATO and our European allies have plenty of ways to punish Russia for its aggression.
The United States and its allies, for example, could organize a boycott of the 2014 winter Olympic Games scheduled for the Russian city of Sochi on the Black Sea near the border of Georgia. The West also could ostracize Russia from key cooperative international economic groups.
To his credit, President Bush realized the urgency of diplomatic outreach, dispatching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Paris and Tbilisi, Georgia.
Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates met with reporters, warning that the Russian incursion could harm relations with the United States “for years to come.” But Mr. Gates also said that he sees no prospect of American military action.
It may be obvious to us in the West that the United States has no plans to intervene militarily in Georgia. But Russian military commanders in combat on the ground probably would regard it as unwise to take that for granted.
American troops have traveled to Georgia regularly over the past five years. More than 1,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers participated in joint training exercises with Georgian troops in late July. Former soldiers from Israel, a key U.S. ally, assisted.
Complicating the military situation are Russian-backed militias roaming the breakaway regions. They may act as surrogates at the direction of Russian operatives, or they may act on their own.
With fluid battle lines and sporadic fighting, the presence of U.S. troops in even limited numbers increases the risks that mistakes or miscommunication can cause an unintended and unwanted escalation.
Before she left on her diplomatic mission, Ms. Rice — an expert on the former Soviet Union — warned Russian officials that things have changed. “This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten a neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it.”
One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is the power of Russia’s conventional forces on the ground. That makes diplomacy, patience and a great deal of caution the only sensible responses for now.
AP photo.
What a joke, (figuratively speaking). Russia doesn’t need America; America needs the support of Russia, which would be foolish of America to think that they will truly ever have. Russia could care less about any strained relation with America or what America thinks about anything.
Putin is the kind of guy that will easily manipulate Obama, and use the temper of McCain against him. We are going to have to begin producing better quality statemen and stateswomen if we are going to be able to compete against such wily folk as control Russia these days.
Regarding geopolitics, whoever controls the eastern bloc nations controls a very important patch of real estate vital to maintaining hedgemony on the continents of Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Unless western civilization wakes up and gets it’s mind back in “The Great Game,” we are going to have a hard row to hoe in the upcoming decades.
It is proven that McCain has a temper, which is not good for any leader and a characteristic that should immediately disqualify one. A GREAT leader must be cool and collective, in other words, balanced and measured.
You are so correct that McCain temper will work against not only him but also, this entire country and the world. McCain will play right into the hands of our enemies who are just dying for a reason to come against the U.S. in our weakened state. The sooner Bush and his regime and most of the old politicians who strongly supported his agenda the time that they were in Washington are out of office, THE BETTER!
Bush said yesterday:
” bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.”
Now that’s like the pot calling the kettle black, such rhetoric will only insult and anger people because of his hypocrisy even insulting and angering the citizens of the U.S. Bush nor anyone in his administration should be opening their mouth to pass judgment and the sooner these people and like kind or out of office, the better, it cannot happen soon enough. These people will bring the curse upon this country to come sooner than any of us desire.
Obama, because he is cool and collective in other words balanced and measured, people misunderstand these characteristics of Obama’s as weaknesses when in fact, it is a sign of strength, intelligence, wisdom and a great leader.
I am more than willing to give him the chance to run this country over anyone else that I could dream of.
l. First thanks for pointing out that Ms. Rice is a Russian expert. I seem to recall pundits amused that Pres. Bush had picked a Sec. of State with a Russian expertice since apparently we thought at the time that we had tamed the bear. How possibly prescient the president may have been?
2. But you forgot to mention that the reason the bear is back is because they have not only become energy independent, but also are a large exporter of oil which is reaping them enormous profits, something that the Democrats refuse to allow us to do in the U.S.
3. You also forgot to point out that Russia sits on the 5-member UN Security Council which is a complete joke just as the UN is.
P.S. I forgot to point out how right on Matson’s “cartoon” was. As someone who opposed the Iraq and Afghanistan’s wars prior to our going in, I couldn’t believe I was hearing this comment coming from Bush, Rice, and McCain. I said to my spouse, “Did they just say what I thought they said.”
And to think these people are so much smarter and better educated than I am.
I think Obama needs to go over to Russia and talk with Putin and give a speech to the Russian youth. Maybe he can shoot hoops with the Russian troops to show he is one of them. No preconditions. Yep..it has worked for generations upon generations..right D.? Let’s see..uh..it worked for Chamberlain..uh..no. It worked for Clinton and N. Korea. Uh..no.
WWR(Reagan)D? He would put troops on the ground.
If Georgia has been supporting us in the war on terror, don’t we have an obligation to protect an ally? Would we protect France, Germany, Poland?
I would suggest a combination of isolation and carrying a big stick. We have to figure that our allies are weak and won’t help us militarily but they may follow our lead by removing Russia from the G-8 and boycotting the Olympics. We should bring up a motion to bring the Ukraine into NATO and step our missile defense systems in our allied countries that border Russia. In addition, we should start military exercises around the area.
Power on the ground my butt. It took the Russians a good six months to cobble together the armor and support necessary for this adventure. They’ve been stoking the flames of Ossetian separatists and goading the Georgians for over a year in preparation. The Kremlin timed the mission to begin on the same day as the opening of the Olympics but you can bet a bottle of Stoli they had ever finger and toe crossed it would actually come off.
One of the arguments against the use of military force on the old Iraqi regime that proved completely bogus was that Saddam Hussein possessed the largest armed force in the middle east at the time. He was a complete paper tiger. The Russians are only marginally more effective. Their readiness has improved since the collapse of the communist government, but only in that they’ve gone from complete crap to crap. Their only real deterrence is their strategic missile capability and I’d be willing to bet half of them would never make it off the launch pad.
You have to hand it to them though. If the reporting by the Post Dispatch is any indication, the Russians have pulled off one of the largest military actions in Europe in the last 50 years without harming a single civilian or losing a single soldier. According to the Post, the worst that has happened is that some Georgians have been “displaced”.
Fish, what’s your solution to this? I’m not sure if you were responding to my comment or the editorial. I agree with your analysis that their drive into Georgia has been pretty weak and that they’re overall troop strength is not what they may think it is, which is why we should do some saber rattling of our own. I just saw that there are pictures of their troops looting a bank…which means that they aren’t very disciplined..which would make a strong response from us even more impressive.
In the very least, perhaps this should be a NATO response, since Georgia is all of our allies..although not in our organization?
I was responding to the editorial.
Geopolitics isn’t my area of expertise, so I can only offer the perspective of an old grunt who spent the first half of an Army career watching the Warsaw Pact collapse. The Soviets were more sizzle than steak back in the day and they really aren’t any better today. We found that out when NATO allies finally got a good look at them in the 90’s. They have a lot of hardware and some of it is rather good, but I wouldn’t want to rely on it or their personnel in a big fight. They lost several of their attack aircraft last week to missle systems they designed themselves. You’d think they’d know the countermeasures.
Putin doesn’t appear to be different than every other Russian dictator we’ve seen over the past 91 years. His power lies in his abililty to intimidate. Bullies almost always back down when confronted. Sen McCain’s statement that “we’re all Georgians” seems a bit hyperbolic, but I know exactly what he meant by it. He’s not afraid to call the Russian’s bluff and neither should Pres Bush in the few months he has left in office.