Right on John Judis!

Thank you. Pitch perfect.

Sloppy partisan description of McCain's position John. The idea is to represent our interests and values, not to attempt some kind of therapeutic analysis of Russia's deeper motives for objecting to the expansion of Western values. Whose side are you on?

Judging by this analysis, it sounds like Russia is already "back on a Cold War footing" with the West.  Can we avoid this just by refusing to acknowledge it?

You tell 'em, Powell. By god, if some damn effete liberal in 1946 or 1947 had tried to figure out why Russia acted like it did in order to help America come up with a strategy for defeating Soviet expansionism while avoiding WWIII, why, we never would have ... No, wait a minute, that's exactly what happened, and in fact containment did win the Cold War because it was based on a sound understanding of Russian intentions, perceptions, and motivations, and knowing the enemy allowed us to beat him without starting a world war.

Oh well. Here I was ready to embrace your foreign policy of deliberate ignorance and stupidity, but it turns out the evidence suggests that understanding the enemy might actually help one defeat him. Who knew? Certainly not Republicans in Washington, who have managed to do for Georgia in 2008 exactly what they did for Hungary in 1956.

Rhubarbs, you have to understand that present-day Republicans are uneasy and confused, because in their minds the Democratic Party and the Soviet Union were the same thing.  If you tell them the USSR was our ally in WW2 they don't believe you (or they think, whatever, it's one more mark against FDR).

To be fair to the Republicans of 1956 (a different bunch of people), Eisenhower's administration shafted Hungary, but Truman's shafted Masaryk and Czechoslovakia in 1948.

Ah, my dear Rhubarbs,

I only get to say something worth saying if I get there before you.  Otherwise, all I can ever do is say Amen, I agree with that guy.  As I do here.  Well said, as usual.

The G-8 is a joke. It has no relevance to international financial markets, or any other market. Russia's economy is a third-world resource-based commodity price-driven one that's dominated by state bandits.

What value do Putin and his bandits provide to any economic forum, let alone a gathering of leading democracies' leaders? Advice on capital markets reform? Insights into reducing global warming?

Also interesting that Judis completely ignores the League of Democracies concept, or the huge progress made in relations with India, also Japan and China, under Bush.

It is silly to conflate attempts at understanding Russian perceptions and motives with buying their propaganda. I am confident that Putin doesn't really see Abkazia as an embattled enclave of Russian nationals, even less than Hitler saw Sudetenland as such. The place was essentially invented by a couple of Russian officers who realized when the Soviet Union collapsed that they were sitting on a gold mine of beach-front property complete with hotels and casinos, and they had the tanks. This is an episode of arch manipulation, and if you want to go along with the party line, be my guest. It's the kind of idiocy that handicaps Democrats in every election, and I fully expect Obama to end up in essentially the same place as McCain on this crisis. Enjoy your vacation on the lunatic fringe, Rhubarbs.

Obama wants to send Putin to a therapist and help him get in touch with his feelings! And then give him a hug! That's no way to stand up to the Rooskies! McCain wants to kick Putin in the putins!

The moment I read that Bush looked deep into Putin's eyes and measured his soul, I knew this guy would give the U.S. a gigantic headache eventually.

Couldnt disagree more.

We face a resurgent and agressive Russian nationalism. That's a fact. It's not, however dearly Americans like to think everything revolves around them, some kind of exclusive product of American policy towards this region. It's a native phenomenon, springing forth from the chaos and disorientation of the nineties, and purposefully promoted and engendered by the Putin regime. It's expressed both in persecution of immigrants within Russia and sabre-rattling -- and now outright invasion -- vis-a-vis neighbouring countries. And it will be with us for some time.

Many of the nearby countries that a resurgent, aggressive nationalism in Russia threatens look to the West for protection. We have encouraged them to have that trust in us for close to twenty years now. Their integration into Europe has been as much to our benefit as to theirs.

So what do we do? Do we start tip-toeing around Russian sensitivities, whispering rather than speaking out when allied countries near Russia are threatened, directly or indirectly? Do we embrace realpolitik after all, and decide to accord Russia its zone of influence, within which we may only act if Russia gives its grudging approval?

What are the precedents for success for such an approach? Russian historical resentment, and its sense of territorial entitlement when it comes to the erstwhile Russian empire, are deeply rooted. They wont be massaged away. The Russians wont suddenly become amenable to reasonable discourse about an independent-minded, Western-oriented Georgia if only we don't offend their sensitivities too brusquely. The historical precedent (and I'm trying very hard not to trigger Godwin's law here) suggests that rather than appeasing a resentful world power by according it its say over its backyards, doing so just conveys them the message that it can feel free to go about its way there.

The West doesn't just face an aggressively resurgent Russia; it also faces a clear appeal by some of the states nearest to it, from Estonia to Georgia, to not leave them out in a gray zone (again). To buttress their security, whether it is by accepting them as NATO members, or, for that matter. building a pipeline that makes them less wholly dependent on Russia.

Rather than once again retreating to a safe distance, and betraying the countries in between by accepting a Russian veto power about what happens there, Western Europe and its US allies should set clear markers now. It should realise the threat potentially emerging over the next decade and act accordingly: withdraw from the mess in Iraq and focusing on guaranteeing the protection of our East European allies. There's no reason to open new approaches to countries that are now Russia-friendly, like those in Central Asia, but those countries that have sought our alliance, like Georgia and Ukraine, should be extended it.

Preventing a potential, future Russian push to fully re-establish its empire, starting with Georgia, does not begin with retreating and giving them some space, a kind of zone where it holds veto power over whether countries get to join NATO or the EU etc, and hoping that this will prove enough to appease it. That's naive. It starts with making a clear commitment to those former Soviet states who do not want Russia's renewed lordship, that we will protect them.

Thank you, jobeek. The parochialism and ignorance of  so many of mah fellow Americans on these boards is disturbing.

There's a big world out there beyond YouTube, Olbermann, tnr.com. Pay attention to it. Putin's effort  to use pipelines as Andropov used missiles is a major challenge for us and our European allies. Best to get our minds around this, without all the dumb and irrelevant blue-on-red, Sharks vs Jets snarkfest.

This overreach on Putin's part will have the effect of uniting Europe against Russia. Foolish man. All he had to do was keep Europe at odds with each other, keeping Germany in his pocket and playing off west (Fr, Ger, Italy) against east (Pol, Balts, Ukr). Now he's achieved what no amount of anti-Russian rhetoric could ever have achieved.

Shades of 1947-1948, when the US Congress and the nation generally was hostile to the Dems' plan to spend massively to get W Europe back on its feet and the Czech coup and Stalin's saber-rattling convinced a skeptical Congress to vote for the Marshall Plan and the remilitarization of Germany.

molodets, Volodya

jobeek2 said:

"Preventing a potential, future Russian push to fully re-establish its empire, starting with Georgia, does not begin with retreating and giving them some space, a kind of zone where it holds veto power over whether countries get to join NATO or the EU etc, and hoping that this will prove enough to appease it. That's naive. It starts with making a clear commitment to those former Soviet states who do not want Russia's renewed lordship, that we will protect them.'

This is utter fantasy.  We have absolutely no means of "protecting" Georgia short of nuclear war.  We have no economic leverage.  We have nothing other than bombast.  This is part of the weird Republican and neo-con delusion that other nations have only the amount of power that we allow them to have so all we need do in any situation is decide that we have the will to prevent whatever is happening from happening.  In fact, within some sphere, economically powerful nations such as China has become thanks to us and Russia is again, with substantial armed forces, have power that we are powerless to do anything about.  In the longer term, our only means of restraining Russia from re-establishing its empire if it wants to do that is first to re-establish solidarity with Europe and then to enmesh Russia in mutual enterprises that it will not think worth jeopardizing merely so that it can lay claim to Latvia.  The United States is the most powerful single nation on earth, but far from being more powerful than all the nations on earth or more powerful than everyone else in every place on earth.  The sooner we start crafting a foreign policy that is based on a realistic assessment of our own reach, the better.  Or else things are going to get much worse as we enlarge the vacuum we have already created with our cowboy movie fantasies.  We squandered 20 years during which we might have brought Russia firmly into the west.

Essentially, what jobeek2 said, seconded by tep. Roi, you have a valid point that there is little we or European Union/Nato/whatever can do directly, i.e. militarily. Diplomatically, other than its veto power at the UN (what do those letters UN mean anymore, really?), Russia can be locked out of many rooms. But the part I doubt will be fulfilled is for EU/NATO stiffen their spines  and tell Putin to f**k himself if he thinks he's going to take any more of, e.g., Ukraine, etc. Aid to Georgian resistance fighters should be a top priority of the new admin, and redraw the map with doorstops at every turn.

Man, people who write Putin off as a tin-horn don't know Russia or its (successful) leaders. Pity.

John Judis: you forgot to mention that McCain called for NATO to "begin discussions on both the deployment of an international peacekeeping force to South Ossetia." Does that mean that McCain actually thinks that the Russians will accede to a security council resolution they'll veto, and then allow "peacekeepers" in to supplant their own "peacekeepers"? Or is he planning World War III?

To my sceptical and disappointed eye, Obama is not looking so good on this one. He started with a position on Russia and Georgia that was closer to Bush's than was McCain's, and then he rapidly shifted to a position closer to McCain's. Meanwhile, there is something about the remoteness, the casual clothing, and the poor production values in the video of Obama coming out of Hawaii that makes Crowley's comments about the image dangers to Obama of a Hawaiian vacation seem pretty prescient.

So there is historical memory in America! In fact, the American discussion of the Russian war on Georgia

Just that much more bluster, tomeg.  We are economically weak.  We cannot exclude Russia from anything anymore than we can afford to sanction Iran in the only way that would matter -- embargoing its oil.  When we threw the doors open to full Russian and Chinese participation in the world trade system without measurable progress toward democratic governance on their parts, while simultaneously giving Russia the finger at every opportunity, we screwed the pooch.  When we invaded Iraq in defiance of the UNSC, we, by trashing the system of international law that we ourselves had created to impose some restraint on other powers, made any broad condemnation of Russia impossible.  When we told our allies in Western Europe to go fuck themselves, we finished the job of rendering ourselves impotent.  We lead nothing and no one.  We are discredited in the world by our own behavior and revealed as a power whose rhetoric has vastly over-reached its actual power -- a paper tiger.  Thank you to all those neo-cons who have pissed away American power in the sands of Iraq for nothing.

eos - come on in, the water's fine. Obama may someday make a fine president. Maybe in 2016. Not this year.

It is flatly ridiculous to suggest that rolling over for Saddam Hussein's reign of terror and outright defiance of the Security Council has somehow prevented us from forcing Russia to un-do it's invasion of Georgia.

That's "NOT rolling over..." of course. Typo-rama.

As usual, roi, wrong again.  Let's say we had not invaded Iraq.  Georgia would be no closer to us, and no farther away from Russia, than it is today.  The fact is that the Russians, flush with oil money, have been planning this little adventure for some time.  Once again, Iraq has nothing to do with this.

All the moral authority in the world could not stop this military adventure.  besides, we've done things before like the Bay of Pigs and ovrthrowing Mossadegh, and did not lose our "moral authority."

Impotent?  Yeah, that explains why everybody is lining up to take us on.  Why China has invaded Taiwan, for instance.  Somehow I don't think American power is quite gone.  The allies are already rallying around.  And we need to work with the Ukies, starting now, and the Balts.

There will be a price for the Russians to pay, just not this week.

Please, butchie, you don't seriously think that I believe that, but for Iraq, we would be sending troops to Georgia?  Nonsense.

The point, dear butchie, is that influence over others in world affairs is not primarily a matter of military power.  The neo-con delusion is that, if we "project power" all over the bloody place, friends and enemies alike will follow our lead.  It is a delusion.  As the example of China ought to make plain, influence is based on many other things.  Military power is important, but by no means sufficient and ought to be the scaffold, the bottom-line, upon which the real tissue of influence is constructed -- not the first resort.

So, my dear, the point that you and your neo-con buds will NEVER understand, because you are smitten with the very idea of cowboy military power, is that we have very little influence on world affairs these days because we have systematically abandoned even the effort at influence other than by military power.  We have, for example, made zero effort in the last 20 years to construct the sort of inter-dependent relationship with Russia that would restrain such adventures in Georgia given the reality that there is absolutely no conceivable circumstance under which we would send our arms up against Russia to defend Georgia even if we moved NATO headquarters there.  There is such a thing as geo-political reality, much as the notion does not set well with you.  Meanwhile, China restrains us through its commercial relations with us, despite our military power.  How about that?

Do you really think that the measure of our success is the countries that are not "lining up to take us on?"  Who is lining up to take on China?  Or Russia?  Or even France for that matter?

I just got done with a conference call with Jeff Gedman, President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and David Kakabaze, head of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Georgian Service. The call - about Russia's landgrab in Georgia - was...