You know, I don't think that is enough.  Building a few hesco walls certainly wouldn't keep the Russians out.  Geographically speaking Georgia will always be more so in Russias back yard than the Wests.  Unless Georgia can call upon article five of NATO - there is no guarantee that NATO would defend Georgia - and so Russia still enjoys play of the field.

Of course, if Europe can distance itself from energy reliance on Russia, then it may no longer be in our interests to bring Georgia into NATO, or risk anything over Georgias sovereignty - which in turn could lead to far longer lasting precedents.

Well, per AFP, link Merkel's put it on the table, "Georgia will become a member of NATO if it wants to -- and it does want to," she said before talks with President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi.

 

So now I guess we'd better figure out what contingencies we'll need when the Russians react to that.

 

Wasnt that about Ukraine not wanting to pay for gas which was before that given to them for almost free?

 

 

 Oh please... They never stated they intend to nuke Poland for no reason. It was specificaly said they would attack that site IF there was a war between US(NATO) and Russia. You know.. its kinda stupid not to bomb stuff that removes/limits your ability to strike back. But feel free to make up some more stuff...

 

 

You didnt invade because it would mean direct attack on soviet forces and would lead to nuclear exchange. But Bay of pigs does come to mind...

 

So did Serbia, but i guess you dont care about that, afterall Serbia wasnt your ally right? And fyi S. Ossetia and Abhkazia were pretty much never under Georgian control.

 

Georgia was manipulated into launching artilery/air strikes into S. Ossetia? lol good one. Completly ignoring the fact that Georgian president himself doesnt deny it. You have been indoctrinated well.

 

You mean like NATO didnt bomb entire Yugoslavia to expell them out of Kosovo? Diffrence is only that Russians went in with ground forces imidiatly instead of fooling around with airstrikes and are now dismantling Georgian army to prevent them from repeating such idiocy.

 

 

 

 

I would suggest that the EU start by canceling the project to build gas delivery pipelines from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea.  If completed, these pipelines would allow Russia to cut off gas flows to their border states without affecting deliveries to the rest of Europe.  The EU should then put the money saved by canceling the project into alternate energy sources (nuclear, coal, LNG, wind, solar, biomass, etc.) to reduce their dependency of Russian gas.

 

The Russians are very dependent on the export of raw materials to generate foreign currency, and natural gas is the largest money maker.  This simple one-two punch could severely damage economic growth and even has the potential to push them into a recession.

The EU already has some very strong alternative (as in non petro) energy programs in place.  eg France has significant baseload power via nuclear, some german states already have mandated 20% renewables, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands and Germany etc have strong wind energy baselines.

 

The issue is not so much baseload power "conversion" to neutralise any potential russian energy threat - but more of one to deal with vehicle and transport energy issues.

 

 the sooner that alternative transport capabilities like hydrogen based or LiON electric vehicles get developed, the sooner that they can neutralise the damocles sword of trade with the russians.

 

Germany has some already established LNG commercial vehicle technologies (Mercedes),  as are LPG (Ford) solutions, electric vehicle solutions (limited by expence of LiON battery production costs), hybrids, (eg Toyota) and even hydrogen based solutions (BMW)

 

Governments have the capacity to change the balance, but political will and intent is always a relative vulnerability in historical democracies (until they're pushed to the wall)

 

 

One should also look on the other side.  Russia is more dependant on European economy than ever before.  More than half their trade is directly with the EU, let alone for machine parts, electronics, chemical goods.  They cant run their country self dependant anymore.

 

Look at their trade:

Russian Import:

  Germany 16.3%, China 12.4%, Italy 5.5%, Ukraine 5.1%, Japan 4.9%, Belarus 4% (2006)

Russian Export:

  Germany 9.5%, Netherlands 7.5%, Turkey 6%, Italy 5.6%, Ukraine 5%, China 5%, US 4.8%, Belarus 4.6%, Switzerland 4% (2006)

 

On the other side, Russia doesnt even appear on the German top 10 export countries list.