[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Southern Cross

One thing I'd like to clear up: I strongly believe that what was one of Russia's more primary motives for overwhelming the Republic of Georgia, when the window of opportunity opened up, was more simply to punish the Georgians for seeking NATO membership while at the same time sending a message to other former Soviet Union satellites that are now independent to not make the same mistake(s) as Georgia did.

While these reasons probably play their part, there's also the larger context of Russia's geopolitical position of the last decade and a half. Over this period, the West, NATO in particular, seemed to make all sorts of moves that either or subverted Russian interests. In particular, NATO's continued growth to nations that border Russia (Georgia being the prime example, but there are others as well) while simultaneously excluding Russia as a potential member is viewed as a major threat. Now, Russia finds itself in a situation where the West is literally powerless to affect the outcome, and it's possible that it's taking full advantage of this.

There's also probably a degree of genuine desire to punish Georgia for its blatant attack as well. As a side note, if the casualty estimates are correct, far more people died from Georgian attacks than under Russian ones. For all of Russia's deserved reputation for military brutality, they've inflicted few civilian casualties so far.

Originally Posted by Southern Cross

On the issue of resources I'm pretty sure that Russia has more than enough (not even including its ties to other major producers of natural resources), so it would not be valid to virtually exploit the smaller Georgian army and its people.

It's probably not an issue of Russia needing more resources - it's already the world's largest natural gas exporter, and second largest in oil exports. What cutting the Georgian pipeline accomplishes is forcing all of the oil transported from the Caspian to be routed through Russia. This would greatly increase Russia's control of oil to Europe (they already account for about 70% and 30% of natural gas and oil imports respectively).

Originally Posted by Southern Cross

From a completely strategic perspective, the Russians played brilliantly by providing the South Ossetians Russian citizenship/passports in advance. Politically, with Georgia's initial attack on South Ossetia, Russian intervention was almost guaranteed and to an extent, "justified" for having "truly" made a number of the region's people "Russians" through their means. It was just a matter of what kind of intervention they would deal and in what form/shape.

That was probably not really intended for such justification. When a country breaks up, it's almost inevitable that some of the citizens prefer staying in the original country, and that's largely the case for South Ossetia.

Originally Posted by Southern Cross

Either the Georgian higher-ups completely undermined the Russian reaction or the Russians did an extremely good gob of being deceitful with their intentions to get the Georgians to launch their initial attack that invoked such an overwhelming response.

The first is absolutely true; moreover, Georgian president Saakashvili probably expected the West (and the US in particular) to help him out, despite the sheer insanity of such an expectation. The status of the Russian troops that moved into South Ossetia argues against it being a some sort of great scheme on their part - they are largely equipped with much older equipment than they could have been given.

Originally Posted by Southern Cross

If the Russians don't stop at Gori, it could very well be the end of the Republic of Georgia as we know it. The real losers to come out of this, however, will be the people displaced/with their lives torn apart. I guess it's inevitable when it comes to these kinds of things, but the mere fact that it came to this to begin with is quite unfortunate. Hopefully they may get past it and develop even further once this conflict ends.

There's a lot of confusing reports coming from the region right now, particularly on the part of the Georgians. The latest is that the Russians claimed that they haven't entered Gori yet, and this is corroborated by the latest Georgian statement that their troops had vacated Gori of their own accord rather than being driven out. It looks like Russian attacks have hampered Georgian communications enough that the capital no longer has a good idea of what's happening at the front line.

For the most part, Russia seems commited to not attacking the capital or occupying any regions of Georgia outside of Abkazia and South Ossetia on any permanent basis, but time will tell if that's true or not. The first test will be whether Russia captures Gori or not.

This BBC analysis is a very good summary of some of the more prominent points surrounding this war: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7553390.stm.

Originally Posted by Southern Cross

I'm not sure why these U.S.-NATO - Russian tensions still exist today. I don't think either side would have anything to gain from completely obliterating the other. I really hope it's not as simple as a matter of pride/dwelling on the past because I would forever despise such people who would be like that and still call themselves politicians.

Western diplomacy has handled Russia very poorly over the last decade and a half. Now, Russia feels that it's managed to regain much of its former power despite Western intentions, and that's a recipe for trouble. I think that very little can be gained by trying to confront Russia over its policies (indeed, this isn't even an option for Europe). Instead, the West has to make some sort of attempt to act with Russia's interests in mind or else there'll be lots of further trouble of this nature in the future.

Originally Posted by Southern Cross

In any case, on a side, military note, the Russians haven't been actively using any of their Flankers in this conflict. At most we've been hearing about the shooting down of Su-25s (Frogfoots; relatively old) and other TU- bomber models. But yeah, whatever Russia does after the fall of Gori will pretty much determine the future of the Georgian people.

That's probably because Georgia had very little in the way of an air force to begin with, and all of the aircraft are probably gone by now. Older bombers are fully capable of performing in an environment with absolutely no enemy aircraft.

Originally Posted by karasuma

I don't see why Russia need to listen to anyone. US cannot afford to do anything at this moment. Flat out, no money.

That isn't even really the issue. Against a Russia with a strong position, there was nothing that the US or any other country can do against them regardless of other commitments.

Originally Posted by karasuma

Bottomline, once again, loser will be UN. Does UN matter anymore?

The UN was never meant to deal with troubles of this nature where one of the belligerents was a permanent member of the Security Council. Besides, it's not at all certain yet that most of the fault lies with Russia. Where the UN plays a role is that it allows for a forum for the relevant parties to discuss matters, and it may well be key to maintaining the peace after the war is over.