Russia has moved additional combat troops into South Ossetia.

 

It will be interesting to see how Georgian troops perform, considering all of the training assistance the US have provided to the Georgians.

 

This is a two-pronged move: First, to secure oil pipelines are under Russian threat/control, and to bully Georgia into refusing to host the US ABM radar.

if this war turns out to be anything like the chechen wars, russia can expect thousands and thousands of of its soldiers to be killed in the coming months.

 

and civilians in the south ossetian capital of tskhinvali can expect massive casualties from russian bombing just like the civilians in Grozny experienced.

This can only end up as a negative foreign entanglement for the US. It also doesn't help that the West is moving in on Russia's sphere of influence.

 

 

 

I seriously doubt Russia will invade Tbilisi. But they will defend Abkhasia and South Ossettia at all costs. As the citizens of these breakaway republics were given Russian passports, this act of Georgian aggression is now directed against Russian citizens. I wonder how ordinary Georgians feel about all this? Russia has stated there will be trouble if the West allows Kosovo to become independant. The inability of the UN to come up with a resolution to this crisis has led to this situation.

 

In this particular instance, all Russia has to do is show restraint, while at the same time protecting the respublics. Saakashvilli is facing problems at home with his own opposition. This war will make or break him. Every day that the capitals of these respublics are not under Georgian control, is a day closer to his early retirement. He had a chance to defeat Russia by playing Georgia as a victim. But it is Georgia that's being aggressive. Western opinion over Georgia is already divided, and the longer this war goes on, the worse for him it's gonna get. Unless the Russians do something really stupid, he's lost already.

 

I predict the following scenario: a revolution at home will send Saakashvilli flying off the president's chair, and Georgia will accept a hastily drawn out Russian ceasefire while the UN scrambles international peacekeepers into the area. But hey, I'm an optimist. I'm against people dying in general.

I guess the question is how the USA will react, Georgia has stated that it will withdraw its 2,000 troops from afghanistan, which has clearly shown its support of the USA. The USA can clearly not commit conventional forces to Georgia, however, it has been working away at the UN. Will it commit special forces to Georgia? Or just a bit of moral support?

I guess the question is how the USA will react, Georgia has stated that it will withdraw its 2,000 troops from afghanistan, which has clearly shown its support of the USA. The USA can clearly not commit conventional forces to Georgia, however, it has been working away at the UN. Will it commit special forces to Georgia? Or just a bit of moral support?

"Georgia's president said his country was withdrawing half its contingent of 2,000 troops from Iraq to help deal with the crisis."

 

hXXp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7550354.stm

 

What can the US do? Sending special forces is risky, because if they get discovered/captured there'll be an international outcry. Rice has been in touch with Saakashvilli constantly apparently. A ceasefire right now would probably be best for everyone. According to some reports, Georgian troops have all but been pushed out of Czhinvali.  It looks like the surprise attack failed. For Saakasivlii it would be best to pull out now and pretend it never happened (random act of aggression from some trigger-happy soldiers, nothing to do with me, sort of thing).

Czhinvali is fully under control of the Russian 58th Army, Georgian forces have been pushed out, according to commander of Land forces of the Russian Federation Vladimir Boldyrev. According to him, they've already begun evacuation of injured Russian peacekeepers and civilians to hospitals in Russia.

hXXp://news.ng.ru/2008/08/09/1218268954.html

 

Georgia is pulling out all of its 2000-man strong Iran contingent, in connection with the situation in South Ossetia.

hXXp://www.strana.ru/doc.html?id=106475&cid=1

I'm Georgian I live in Tbilisi, everthing thar was written here isn't true. Russian SU 25 and Su 24 are bombing our peacefull citiec Poti port, which is in 300 kms from Osetia region. Poti is the sea port what a hell want's russia from our citizens? All airports is bombed, many people is killd and Russian Tv stations don't show the real situation. We people are hear and we see what is realy happening, World Please Help us

 

sorry me for my English

Unfortunately the rest of the free world is in a similar position to when Hungary had its revolution and it was crushed by the Soviets.  What do you want us (I'm Australian, but it's the same situation for Americans) to actually do?  Risk nuclear war with Russia to protect an area that was part of the Soviet Union a short while ago?  The cost of war is too high.

 

It is only if you manage to keep the Russians out for long enough so that we can get you behind NATO's shield that we would be in a position to help.  Basically we are comfortable drawing a line in the sand (NATO's borders) and say "if you step over this, we will retaliate, no matter what price", and Russia restrains itself.

 

What would you do if you were us?

 

It would be wonderful if we lived in a world with no Russia, or a Russia that looked more like say India.  But we don't live in that world.  We're trying to create that world, but it's a long process, taking *centuries*.  You may need to sacrifice that territory (as Finland had to do in WWII), so that you can at least retain your human rights in the area that hasn't been annexed by Russia.

 

Maybe in another century or two the Russians will realise what a pack of arseholes their ancestors were at least between when the communists took over and up until now (and continuing).  Maybe they'll return territory to Finland, Estonia and Georgia and Moldova.  Don't hold your breath though.  And quite frankly it's enough that Russia simply understands what they've done, even if they don't return the territory, so that at least we can trust them going into the future.

 

I wouldn't trust the nationalist, racist, non-humanist, subjugating Russians as far as I could throw them at the moment.

 

I wish I had a magic button that could zap away all of Russia's military equipment and supply Georgia with US air support, but I don't have a magic button.  And it's a very difficult, and very slow process to achieve the same result without a magic button.

 

There is something you could do to speed up the process and help yourself, but it is very complicated, and you are unlikely to be willing to do it anyway.  However, on the offchance that you are willing to try anything, and this *really is* "anything", you can email me at mutazilah at gmail.com

 

Here we go with the media and propoganda war....

 

Also Kerravon your attitude is just as bad as the Russians, as far as they see it they are protecting South Ossetia from Georgian aggression, though as usual they have perveted that reason with the sheer military force they are using. But if we keep taking the attitude of viewing the Russians as nothing more than agressive brabarians then any chances of ture cooperation will never arise, and thus eliminating problems like this in the future, this continued rift is not the West's falut, far from it, but we sure aren't helping.