To understand that, just assume that the U.S. econony has tanked, and suddenly Japan, Mexico and Canada are looking at treaties with the new power – China. China then pushes Cuba to eastablish an early missle defense system to protect Venezula from attack by us. Voila, the Pacific Treaty Alliance will “put a lid on nation building/regime change tendencies of America.” The analogy is simplistic and superfluous, but the psychology isn’t. I, like you, will not waste any breath defending the Russians. But Saakashavili and his “American” lobbyists in DC are hardly saints in this either.

The Neocons are deriding our western Europe allies for not doing anything about Georgia (even though it was France, as opposed to our powerless State Dept., who got something done.) And then moderates and even progressives suddenly go monocular: “Georgia good, Putin bad. Let’s do something. Hmmm. Can’t go to war – no troops available.” So let’s stamp our feet and talk about the rebirth of the red menace which surely will have tanks returning to the Brandenburg Gate within five years. We can’t be seen as unpatriotic – we’re all Georgians now (McCain/Obama for President tm.)

Wow, it’s been almost a century since the confluence of technology, population growth, nationalism and ill-begotten treaties met when the Serbian gang that couldn’t shoot straight stumbled upon a meaningless Archduke. The world hasn’t changed much since war went global. We still look at geo-politics through the lens of “my football team fanaticism” where all the dirty plays are by the other team and the refs never give us a break. Unfortunately, this always results in a lot of people who can’t afford a ticket getting killed or maimed. Pretty effin sad.

Including the guys running the USA.

Much of this jousting is about energy, but today’s doomsday weaponry means that these disputes can no longer be resolved by force.

Everyone in the world needs access to energy. It’s time to treat energy resources as a public trust, and to adopt binding arbitration among nation-states.

(PS: the US re-took Fallujah using pretty much the same approach that Russia used to re-take Grozny.)

Also important to remember that both Georgian and Russian peacekeepers were a legitimate part of an international peacekeeping arrangement, under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). They were not freelancing or bogus.

There is bad blood on both sides, and both were exploiting the situation as much as they could. But that does not excuse a massive attack by one party, unless they can show that is was a necessary pre-emptive attack in order to defend their own borders. Anything else is very very bad, especially for a party (Gerogia) that wants to join a mutual *self-defense pact* with the US and Europe, and one that requires a *massive military response* to any attack on any of the members.

Do you want to US troops to be sent to defend a member state who started that kind of war? All the facts are not in yet, but I think the main outlines are becoming clear.

It is too bad that both the US and Russia have acted badly. But have people forgotten that we survived one Cold War. Rash gambles, foolish bluffs and ostentatious refusal to communicate were not what got us through that.

I do not understand why people have such an oddly defeatist and bitter attitude. Did risky invasions and military strife on the part of the US play an crucial role in winning the last Cold War?

I was a little too young to remember the politics. But I do remember some, and I can read. There was the exactly the same fretting and downcast conviction that the soft gullible rich and lax US and Europe could never win the Cold War. The Rooskies were hard, wiley, infinitely more cunning and patient and disciplined than the pampered goofs in the West. And of course, democracies just were not capable of the appropraite Resolve, Guts and Daring in confronting the bully. So, of course, rash and dramatic action was needed right away (before what deadline?), but, probably all was doomed.

How did that first Cold War turn out for you?

And I am a citizen of the US, and I have some influence there, and none in Russia or Georgia. So I will very loudly call US policy stupid and dangerous if I think it is, and recommend a better course for my country, and I do not care if anyone thinks that makes me pro-Russia.