There’s been a lot happening related to Russia’s invasion of Georgia, so consider this a bit of an information link-dump.
First, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy went to Georgia to work on brokering a ceasefire. Sarkozy also sits in the Presi…

I think Putin misunderestimated Bush.

Texas Gal on August 12, 2008 at 10:27 PM

I hope you did that on purpose. It made me chuckle.

But when you look at Georgia, with two inland seas on the east and west and Russia to the north..it is plain to see that Russia could easily overwhelm the country.

My second point, though, still holds — if Russia wants to play with the real world, it has to adopt a modern theory of value — one that doesn’t fixate on the materials involved or the effort expended, and thus one that cannot be effectively stolen.

As to

Texas Gal on August 13, 2008 at 3:08 AM

— of course he’s pissed. Everyone’s pissed. We’ve been inviting Russia to a place at the table, and they’ve decided to behave like thugs at the banquet. Territory and resources are important, sure — but trust and culture are more so.

Modern goods are produced for pennies from sand (integrated circuits) and ooze (plastics), and our lowest pauper lives better than the kings of old. Electronic rivers of value flow around the world to such an extent that fortunes can be won or lost by dipping in at one time or another — no actual contact with physical goods necessary.

If you’re spending $200/month for your cable and cellphone bills, it’s an annoyance when the price of your food goes up by $20. That’s the modern world. In parts of the less-developed world, the same increase means that people die. Most of the value in our lives comes from community. Most of the value in their lives comes from basic survival.

After the breakup of the USSR, we treated the Russians as part of our community — a junior member, as befits a country with a GDP the size of Portugal’s, but we invited them within the G-8, into our markets, coordinated NATO exercises, etc.

And now they roll tanks. How could you not be pissed? Not only are they irritatingly bellicose, but they’re also squandering all the links and trusts you’ve taken years to create and extend. They might as well embrace shariah and roll themselves back to the 7th century.

If oil is king, or steel is king, or gold is king, or timber is king — then invasions make sense, territory makes sense, and possession is 9/10 of the law. If intellectual property, rule of law, and trust are supreme — then it doesn’t matter if you telecommute, quality production cannot be compelled, and cessation of trade can be a terrible weapon indeed.

I suspect the reason that the shooting stopped — if it has — is that the US put a list of Politburo account numbers and amounts in front of Putin and said, “these are going to be seized for Georgian reparations tomorrow noon if there isn’t a cease-fire. And if you jack around the oil and gas prices, we’ll just pay you with the same money and take it away again.”

cthulhu on August 13, 2008 at 2:17 AM

cthulhu.. I suggest you take a chill pill. All you have to do is go back and look.. really look .. at Bush’s demeanor in his comments to the American people and you ought to be able to clearly see just how pissed off he is. IF YOU CAN’T .. then you haven’t been paying attention for the last almost 8 years!

Take your conspiracy theory over to the tinfoil hat convention!

We know that Russia’s planned this out for a while. That railroad wasn’t rebuilt overnight, nor were the ships in the area by coincidence, and the troops and tanks weren’t loitering at a nearby rest stop when the call came in. What if the US knew this? What could be done about it? Preemptive blame games? Saber-rattling?

What if the US told Georgia — “look, it’s going down…3Q08 sometime…and we’ve got ROE that says we can’t shoot first. So it’s going to be bad or it’s going to be worse. If you can do a ‘ready, steady, go’ and close the Roki tunnel, you’ll likely only have air strikes; but if they make it through the tunnel with tanks, you’ll have skirmishes and arty as well. So, pick a time with care and see if you can run through the Russian advance guard in South Ossetia and get the tunnel. If not, fall back and make yourself scarce before your troops get caught in the meatgrinder.”

Fundamentally, the Russians’ biggest problem is that the nature of wealth is changing. It’s developed a half-life. Before, you could raid a country and grab its goods and haul them away — gold, furniture, artwork; now, modern consumerist societies’ goods are transitory — “oh, wow, you seized a bunch of Win98 computers, IKEA flatpacks, and 3rd-generation ipods loaded with songs from 2004…how impressive.” We got a glimpse of the difficulty that a “bandit and raider” mentality would have with modern life when Saddam’s armies went through Kuwaiti banks looking for stacks of gold.

So all the oil and gas shipments that are currently making Russia wealthy are traded for dollars that are either further traded for transitory goods or invested in Western enterprises….because, for the most part, the Russian economy is based on extraction. If you then attack the West, your investments get seized, your software maintenance plans get canceled, and your closet of fashionable accessories slowly go out of fashion.

The same problem, incidentally, is facing OPEC — and all indications show that it’s pretty much only Dubai that “gets it” and will prosper in the long term.

I suspect the reason that the shooting stopped — if it has — is that the US put a list of Politburo account numbers and amounts in front of Putin and said, “these are going to be seized for Georgian reparations tomorrow noon if there isn’t a cease-fire. And if you jack around the oil and gas prices, we’ll just pay you with the same money and take it away again.”

From Beyond the Beyond – Cyberwar unsurprisingly rages in Georgia.

The official Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia blog. Importantly, there is a running timeline of what’s happened so far.

Official website of Lech Kaczynski, President of Poland. Scroll down and look on the right side for a Georgia dedicated column.

I still wish it had been in the cards for us to stop their bombers or something.

Dr. Manhattan on August 13, 2008 at 12:33 AM

Their bombers have stopped, right? We helped with that a lot. But it’s better that the other former Soviet dominated nations get the credit for having stopped the rape of Georgia.

Evil bastards kill people. It’s horrible, but nobody can stop evil before it happens.

To be honest, I thought Russia would stop when Saakashvili was gone, Georgia conquered in all but name, and every other former Soviet republic cowed into submission. This gives some breathing room and time to retool and refit for the next round (and make no mistake, there WILL be a next round).

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Bottom line…sorry funkychichen…I believe there was some AIRBORNE diplomacy…
No commander would allow or agree to sending transport aircraft into a hostile theater without a few single seaters…
and maybe… just maybe they hung out for awhile…oh yea!

jerrytbg on August 13, 2008 at 12:20 AM

Didn’t need it. The C-17s carried all the diplomacy that was required at this point.

Unless you mean all the comm help we gave to these allies so they could coordinate their excellent response.

I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, to be fair, but now I am on board with Russia orchestrating the whole situation – including under the table provocations in the two provinces.

I wish we had given Georgia more support.

I think Putin misunderestimated Bush.

Texas Gal on August 12, 2008 at 10:27 PM

Yeah…………….. our fleet was sent quietly months ago to the region from all over the world, a couple carrier battle groups to boot. The fact that it didn’t make it in the New York Times makes me believe in the accuracy of our intelligence of their build up before the strike……………….. Oh, by the way, they are armed, with battle hardened troops. I sure hope we don’t have to use them………

Love the giant American flag being waved there

William Amos on August 12, 2008 at 7:12 PM

I noticed it too!

Fourth, you know those upcoming joint NATO-Russia military exercise, they could get interesting…………

Based on that report, 7%, I don’t expect that those are going to happen.

I think Putin misunderestimated Bush.

Bush knows he’s got only 4 months left and the possibility of Obama as (God help us) Leader of the Free World will not be able to provide the strength that America needs to continue to be the champion of democracy around the globe.

This is why Sarkozy was enlisted to negotiate the deal. If Obama is elected, Sarkozy will by default become the Leader of the Free World. There will be a shift in world power. It was so evident at that press conference. Obama will be the student and Sarkozy the master.

And the Eastern European countries do understand that this is their moment to take control of their future just in case America does choose to become the paper tiger in November.