Ah, so you are saying that the key words here are “in this situation”?

If so, then I got ya.

MB4 on August 15, 2008 at 5:52 AM

Yes, I think it’s important to hear all the words that are said especially in situations like this because all the words have meaning.

Kasparov’s comments in the WSJ are in line with a good part of what I have been trying to get across since last Thursday. Pay particluar attention to the last few paragraphs.

My contention has been and remains that “Sha’mat!” against Putin (and the “siloviki”) must come from within Russia. Our policy would be to set the stage.

coldwarrior on August 14, 2008 at 11:37 PM

Easier said than done, methinks, especially with Europe now on the Russian teat.

/Mr Lynn

SEC. GATES: I don’t see any prospect for the use of military force by the United States in this situation. Is that clear enough? (Laughter.)

Texas Gal on August 14, 2008 at 9:14 PM

Ah, so you are saying that the key words here are “in this situation”?

If so, then I got ya.

My contention has been and remains that “Sha’mat!” against Putin (and the “siloviki”) must come from within Russia. Our policy would be to set the stage.

MrLynn on August 14, 2008 at 10:53 PM

No! Definitely not China! The price would be too great. Taiwan would be gone within a year, and Japan would be assailed mercilessly.

We must not use China at all, we must contain them – they are the real 800 pound gorilla.

. . . This is chess. Not checkers. Chess is a game. I’ve seen a few references to “the Game” in some of the posts. Appropriate. The current word, chess, is derived from an old Persian, and later Russian, word, “Shah’mat!” Which translated, means “Kill the King.”

Therein, though not necessarily literally, lies the answer.

coldwarrior on August 14, 2008 at 12:36 PM

Back to page 1 of this interesting thread (which I’m not supposed to be reading—preparing for trip), but CW has been hinting around at “not necessarily literally” for a while now.

Decapitation of an enemy, or potential enemy, is always an option. But I suspect that the resurgence of the Russian bear, fueled by nationalized oil and gas and the huge runup in prices, is not dependent upon one man. Putin may have consolidated much power, but he undoubtedly represents widespread sentiment in the hierarchy, and maybe among the common people as well. If something happened to Putin, like as not there’s another waiting in the wings.

We missed our chance, if chance it was, to pour salt on the ashes of the Soviet Union, and destroy any likelihood of its resurrection. But that has never been our way.

When Secty. Gates said we will not intervene militarily, he spoke the truth. We will not tempt a nuclear ICBM power into over-reacting, period. There may be a line we will not let the Russians cross (Ukraine? Poland?) but Georgia is surely not it.

CW’s strategy of pursuing economic ‘warfare’ is probably the only viable alternative, but how successful can that be while Russian is Europe’s main supplier of energy?

There is one wild card, and that is China. Not so long ago Richard Nixon went to China in the hopes the Chinese would become a counterweight to the Soviets. They could still (or again), and that might in turn take some of the worry out of the growing Chinese threat in the Pacific.

As for American banks and businesses, there are already laws on the books, which, if used judiciously (sp?) can be applied effectively.

Getting the G-7 in line is not impossible in the present setting.

coldwarrior on August 14, 2008 at 10:13 PM

Fine, get Congress to declare war? and we can do somthing…

But creating a totally unconstitutional power grab beyond what is already in place for the WOT???

Not worth loosing our soul and American ideals of Freedom over Bush mismanaging the situation in Georgia.

This is war.

The sooner the dunderheads in DC understand this the better off we will all be.

If there isn’t a presidential Finding on the DNI’s desk by tomorrow morning regarding economic warfare and other means short of war to tackle the Putin problem, then we may as well enjoy the ride, spend what we can, and be prepared to tell our grandchildren how it was when America and being American actually meant something.

coldwarrior on August 14, 2008 at 9:14 PM

Problem with your whole scenario is that America does not even control our OWN banks, let alone banks in foreign nations.

Without a total rewrite of the West’s economic law, government CAN’T force true economic warfare… and I for one do NOT want to give our political class that much more power.

Even if the West could decline to do business with Russia (somthing that is patently absurd given the amount of oil and Nat Gas they send to Europe), there are now enough banking assets it China and other nations that don’t like America to see them through.

Remember, their trade balance is in their favor right now, while our is just the opposite.

Would be nice if we could do it… but total economic warfare from the West is not feasible.

I doubt the Russians will “side” with the jihadists…this is one of their own homeland security issues. They leveled Chechnya, twice, and a lot of Chechen jihadis went to Iraq or Afghanistan to die there, but the at home jihadi threat in Russia is very much alive, and has grown, a lot.

Economic warfare as we shore up and train new Europe, and get old Europe off the dime, economic warfare plays to the weakest link in Putin’s Russia. We need to freeze Russian assets here in the US. Europe needs to do likewise. We need to lift ALL restrrictions on domestic oil exploration and production immediately. We need to work with our financial allies to shut down the free flow of cash to Russia. We need to forbid US or allied companies from doing business in Russia or with Russian “allies.” We need to get the G-7 fully on board for the long haul.

At the same time, we need to pay attention to our own defense needs and requirements.

We need to pump up the volume of RFE/RL and VOA.

There are other measures short of war that can be taken…really don’t want to post a litany of them…I’ve been eating up HA bandwidth like a drunken computer junkie of late.

But the point is, going to war, conventional war, is not the first best option. It should be the last best option.

Time is not on our side, however, and this needs to be driven home to America and Europe and the G-7 and all other players who are not part of the Putin planet.

MB4 on August 14, 2008 at 8:09 PM

Here’s the transcript. I watched the briefing.

The MSM is using a soundbite. You can watch the briefing on the C-SPAN online channel too.

I think Gates was referring to just as you asked above, he did not have military equipment on the planes with humanitarian aid. Evidently Russia has been complaining about that and accusing us of doing just that. The gaggle of reporters did laugh after he said it like it was some kind of inside joke or something. He referred to this situation. Later a reporter asked him just that question you ask and he responded. You’ll see it in the transcript or the online video.

There was a lot of information at that briefing about the details.

Q Mr. Secretary, can you just state clearly whether there’s any prospect or possibility of U.S. military force being used in this conflict?

And then a question for General Cartwright. Can you talk about the cyber aspect to this? Have you or people within the U.S. military looked into the cyber aspect to this conflict? What conclusions have you drawn about who was responsible, whether the Georgian claims are correct? And what this signals, perhaps, for the future of warfare?

SEC. GATES: I don’t see any prospect for the use of military force by the United States in this situation. Is that clear enough? (Laughter.)

MB4 – I know for a fact that U.S. destroyers are currently steaming into the Black Sea…
A U.S. destroyer is the most lethal boat on the planet…
Give it a week and the fleet will be there.
It will be interesting to see what the soviets, er, Russians do then…

Babs on August 14, 2008 at 8:18 PM

Ret. Navy here… no Fleet can sustain Ops in restricted waters against Land based Air… Even a FULL three carrier task group only carrys 150 or so planes MAX… Russia can put up many times that number if they forward stage… we are playing in their backyard…

A few destroyers (which I’ve served on) while lethal, cannot stand in the face of both Land based Air, and Surface to Surface missles…. not even counting submarine assets…

coldwarrior on August 14, 2008 at 8:20 PM

Hmmm… as a retired NCO myself, my biggest challenge was reigning in Junior Officers, especialy butterbars, who had no conception of what they were getting into.

“IF” Russia decides to side with the Jihadists, and other anti America elements in the world (such as Venezuela), it will create a sitaution that I don’t believe we have the economic or political will to win quickly… it adds to an already bad situation that we find ourself in.

Heck, we can’t even project enough power to stop Iran from getting Nukes… and you want us to confront a Nuclear Power?

Nighmare… Russia, who has suitcase Nukes (I personaly know this) hands said nukes off to rougue states and Al Q and then declares that they were “stolen”….

Russia hand Scientists over to Iran to help their program… along with a few “plans”…

Russia is NOT the main enemy of the Jihadists, and my decide that the enemy of my enemy is my allie…

And I still maintain that we picked this fight through our own actions… laudible as our intentions may have been, in a real Politik kind of world they were stupid.

MB4 – I know for a fact that U.S. destroyers are currently steaming into the Black Sea…
A U.S. destroyer is the most lethal boat on the planet…
Give it a week and the fleet will be there.
It will be interesting to see what the soviets, er, Russians do then…

Babs on August 14, 2008 at 8:18 PM

I would prefer to be less pesimistic, but it’s probably just more smoke and even if not it will probably be “a day late and a dollar short”.

“You really think we have the power, political or economic, to dictate to Russia?”

Yes. But with caveats. We have the great potential power politically, militarily and economically to take Putin down. Potential, that if not asssembled soon, and damn soon, will be lost pretty much forever.

Never in any of my posts said it was going tobe easy. And not being Geroge Tenent, I’ll never say its a slam dunk…in fact I have said quite a few times a tough row to hoe in front of us.

But the alternative? Get eaten away by a series of small wars, see allies crushed and all we can offer is words of support, then find that our dependence on foreign energy is a rapidly closing noose around our necks? Find that in one generation all that America has built and stands for is suddenly soemthing for the history books, if they are allowed to be printed. Not a legacy I want to leave my grandkids.

We knew in 1942 that we’d have to invade Europe and take out Japan…that was the gist of the intitial operations orders.

Getting to a point where we could actually begin to implement those orders didn’t come until late 1943, and 1944. Things were different then. We had time, we had resources, we were on a war footing, mobilized, and crafted allegiences as we needed them. But, it was an uphill struggle until we crossed the Rhine and a struggle right up until August 45 when we were licking our wounds and burying our dead on Okinawa. The same goals in mind.

This dithering around, playing into Putin’s strengths, while Putin plays with allies fears…not a game plan I want to take out of the book.

Common sense in America got lost in academia. We need a few good NCO’s out there with a full and complete understanding of Tsar Putin and the New Russia, with a keen eye on hitting him at his weak points and setting the stage for his removal by his own people, with impetus from us and our chosen course of action along the way.

As far back as I can remember no American President, or someone speaking for him, has ever publicly ruled out force.

Bush has said many times that military force was not ruled out in dealing with Iran, even though it’s looking less and less likely and maybe well he has never intended to.

Actually stating that military force is ruled out, which presumable it has been, is worse, much worse that ruling it out in private.

This would seem to me, at this time anyway, to be Bush giving Putin the green light to continue raping Georgia.

MB4 -
I don’t know what your history is

Babs on August 14, 2008 at 8:01 PM

Mainframe IT.

I disagree. Their downfall was mostly predicated by their confiscation of information. The Soviet Union fell at the advent of the personal computer. The Soviets just couldn’t keep up with the western world while continuing to restrict information.

Babs on August 14, 2008 at 7:12 PM

The personal computer? The Soviet Union fell before there was even much use of personal computers.

As to the rest of your comments, I can’t disagree with much of them.

Maybe he just didn’t want to have to put 800 different patches on all his uniforms.

My son has one more year of NROTC, then on to flight school.

You know, those guys who still have nukes?

Romeo13 on August 14, 2008 at 7:16 PM

We still have nukes too and our missiles will probably all work if it came to that (theirs, not so much), which I don’t think that it will. If we are so paralyzed because they have nukes we might as well ask them if the want Georgia, USA too.