Russia and Georgia, and wars cold and hot: the Kingdom of Earth
For those of us old enough to remember the most frigid days of the long Cold War, the recent Russian military action in Georgia has a familiar ring.
Not exactly, of course; history never repeats itself, it merely rhymes—and sometimes the rhyme is only near-rhyme. But I agree with pundits who write that this latest action of Russia (I keep wanting to write “the Soviet Union,” an urge I haven’t had in many years) is a naked power play to reassert its dominance over nearby countries that used to be its territories and/or satellites. This boldness on the part of Russia comes in part from its perception that the Western powers lack political unity and/or military will, and the knowledge that some of Europe is under thrall to its dependence on Russian natural gas.
Claims that the Russians are only responding to Georgian genocide ring hollow in the face of knowledge that if this were so, such humanitarian concerns would be a first. In addition are powerful practical arguments such as those mounted by Ralph Peters, who notes out that a military operation of this scope must have been carefully planned months in advance:
As I pointed out Saturday, even to get one armored brigade over the Caucasus Mountains required extensive preparations. Since then, Russia has sent in the equivalent of almost two divisions….The Russians also managed to arrange the instant appearance of a squadron of warships to blockade Georgia. And they launched hundreds of air strikes against preplanned targets.
Every one of these things required careful preparations…
Working through their mercenaries in South Ossetia, Russia staged brutal provocations against Georgia from late July onward. Last Thursday, Georgia’s president finally had to act to defend his own people. But when the mouse stirred, the cat pounced.
Those who believe the Soviet line about protecting the South Ossetians from genocide—articulated today in this column by Gorbachev in today’s WaPo—see condemnations of Russia as so much old-fashioned brinksmanship by Cold Warmongers. And there are also those—such as Michael Hirsch of Newsweek—who think the US should leave the Russian bear to its prey and not “provoke” it by encouraging freedom, autonomy, and NATO membership in former satellites. So much for self-determination—let’s feed the crocodile.
The situation really seems to be all about power—and that’s a pun, because the “power” involved isn’t just the military might of Russia and its willingness to use it however it might see fit without worrying overmuch (or at all) about its image in the world. It’s also about “power” as in “energy.” It is no less true today than it was back when post-WWII British Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin
said it that:
The Kingdom of Heaven runs on righteousness, but the Kingdom of Earth runs on oil.
Russia is flush with oil’s equivalent, natural gas, and knows that this gives it a special clout, particularly with a newly-docile Europe.
As for US military intervention, it wouldn’t be likely even if we were not involved in Iraq; we never did such a thing to challenge the Soviets during the Cold War, either. One of the rhymes of history that I can recall is the US response to the Soviet invasion of Hungary to squelch their revolt in 1956: not much, except to welcome a host of refugees [interpolations mine]:
Responding to the plea by [Hungarian Prime Minister] Nagy at the time of the second massive Soviet intervention on November 4, the Security Council resolution critical of Soviet actions was vetoed by the Soviet Union [as the Security Council would similarly be stopped today]. The General Assembly, by a vote of 50 in favor, 8 against and 15 abstentions, called on the Soviet Union to end its Hungarian intervention, but the newly constituted Ké¡dé¡r government rejected UN observers [so much for the power of the mighty UN’s mighty voice, then and now].
The U.S. President, Dwight Eisenhower, was aware of a detailed study of Hungarian resistance which recommended against U.S. military intervention, and of earlier policy discussions within the National Security Council which focused upon encouraging discontent in Soviet satellite nations only by economic policies and political rhetoric…During the uprising, the Radio Free Europe (RFE) Hungarian-language programs broadcast news of the political and military situation, as well as appealing to Hungarians to fight the Soviet forces, including tactical advice on resistance methods. After the Soviet suppression of the revolution, RFE was criticized for having misled the Hungarian people that NATO or United Nations would intervene if the citizens continued to resist [this also has a very familiar ring].
The fact is that, unless we are willing to back up our rhetoric with military force or the meaningful sanctions to which Europe seems averse, talk is cheap. And if you compare Obama’s statement on the topic with that of McCain, you’ll find that both contain some meaningless cheap talk of the “the Security Council needs to condemn this” variety (at least McCain acknowledges the Russian threat of a veto; Obama does not).
But McCain’s statement is detailed and comprehensive, containing much specific information about a possible role for NATO, and emphasizing the need for the security of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. Obama’s is general and more vague, with more palaver such as how this violates the Olympic ideal, as well as the fact that he, personally, the great Obama himself, calls on Russia “to stop its bombing campaign, to stop flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and to withdraw its ground forces from Georgia.” I’m sure that means a great deal to Putin (note also the predominance of the word “I” in Obama’s statement, whereas McCain’s “I” remarks are limited to mentioning that he has met with President Saakashvili many times, and that he urges the NATO allies to revisit the decision to withhold admission to Georgia.)
During the Cold War, we never confronted the Soviets directly in armed battle; it was all power plays and surrogate wars (several of them with surrogates of China rather than the Soviets), as well as a propaganda and economic war. That war was won, but this Georgian violence is shaping up as the first salvo in a new power struggle in which Russia has assessed the West and judged it to be a surprisingly weak adversary.
As Victor Davis Hanson writes, this weakness is neither economic nor military. It is a weakness of will and perception:
The Russians rightly expect Westerners to turn on themselves, rather than Moscow ”” and they won’t be disappointed. Imagine the morally equivalent fodder for liberal lament: We were unilateral in Iraq, so we can’t say Russia can’t do the same to Georgia. (As if removing a genocidal dictator is the same as attacking a democracy). We accepted Kosovo’s independence, so why not Ossetia’s? (As if the recent history of Serbia is analogous to Georgia’s.) We are still captive to neo-con fantasies about democracy, and so encouraged Georgia’s efforts that provoked the otherwise reasonable Russians (As if the problem in Ossetia is our principled support for democracy rather than appeasement of Russian dictatorship).
From what the Russians learned of the Western reaction to Iraq, they expect their best apologists will be American politicians, pundits, professors, and essayists ”” and once more they will not be disappointed. We are a culture, after all, that after damning Iraqi democracy as too violent, broke, and disorganized, is now damning Iraqi democracy as too conniving, rich, and self-interested ”” the only common denominator being whatever we do, and whomever we help, cannot be good.
Neo-neocon,
I guess I am still stunned by the barrage of American citizens and Westerners who are excusing, rationalizing, and even spreading disinformation about what Russia is doing. I can understand that there are Russian nationals here in the U.S. – it is said they have more agents in this country now than they did during the height of the Cold War – who are doing what their master has ordered. We can deal with that, and we understand their loyalties perfectly. But it is very discouraging to see Americans carrying the water for the Russians too.
Notice that the Left has not organized any protests over the annexation of Georgia? I am not at all surprised by this, nor should anyone else. These are heady days for the Left in the U.S., with their candidate for the Presidency with a realistic shot at winning and now with the resurgence of the country whose fall they once were truly in a deep funk about. Very heady days for the Left in America.
And not only the Left, but elements of the Right excuse the Russians. The devotees of Patrick Buchanan, that bog, knuckledragging Jew-hater, swill the rationale that this is payback for Kosovo.
All over the world the Left and its totalitarian allies are on the march and it would appear that they have the momentum right now. It’s depressing.
It remains very difficult for most people, the left in particular to accept that both individuals and nations can be motivated by a need for power. Yes, the Russians have a well developed persecution complex. It colors everything they did as the USSR and continues today. But, with all the problems within Russia today, there is no end of uses oil money can be used for to improve peoples lives. They choose not to do this in favor of regaining superpower status.
The US and the West will not engage militarily with a power hungry nuclear state. However we can know how to best them as it worked before. We must grow faster than they can both militarily and economically. We must support small places they would undermine. Quickly before they all pass away we must tap the skills of the old cold warriors.
Despite the handwring of the left, the west out fought the Communist Bloc on all theaters.
I don’t think it just politicians. Most Americans do not want to take on a nuclear power over Georgia.
Terrye: that’s my point. No one is advocating taking on Russia militarily in a direct way. Nor did we do so during the Cold War. That’s what made it cold.
I keep wanting to write “the Soviet Union”
Try Russian Empire. Tsar Vladimir Putin.
The fact is that, unless we are willing to back up our rhetoric with military force or the meaningful sanctions to which Europe seems averse, talk is cheap. And if you compare Obama’s statement on the topic with that of McCain, you’ll find that both contain some meaningless cheap talk of the “the Security Council needs to condemn this” variety (at least McCain acknowledges the Russian threat of a veto; Obama does not).
I’d tell the world that Congress plays no part in this decision and they can only defund the entire military. In the meanwhile, we’re going to give Georgia tactical command of our nukes and anybody that gets nuked is going to be on their account. They have responsibility, even if ultimate loyalty of those missile systems rests with the US. That’s the ultimate form of fighting with auxiliary forces that do things you can’t do. Georgia has a reason to use it, we don’t. They are getting invaded, more or less, we aren’t. Their public will support any kind of use of force if it means defeating a larger, more numerous, and more powerful enemy.
And that means, when free of UN, Congressional, and little itty bitty commitee politics, that Russia will back down. If they don’t and want to play chicken, then we just loan Georgia “military volunteers” that are ostensibly paid by Georgia’s GDP, but are mostly subsidized by the US. No amount of money can buy the loyalty of America’s armed forces, but it’s a nice pretext and it translates to real power, for Georgia can now order our military to strike at targets, with the US President only needing to “loan” such forces out for a stated duration.
When there are no roadblocks in your way, when nobody sees anything even slowing you down, then that is real power, Neo, not just talk. If somebody thinks there is a way out with them as victory and a way of defeating and hamstringing you, they’ll still fight. Give them a safe place to retreat to and give them something terrifying to face, and they’ll run rather than fight. corner them without escape routes and they’ll just keep on fighting until they die or can run away.
Bush has always been too nice and good, for the world and us.
This is one of America’s greatest opportunities to show the world the benefits of being an American ally. When decades come in the future and we’re bleeding out on the plains and our allies have deserted us because of our own actions or the actions of our enemies, we will remember what people did in this time, here and now.
From what the Russians learned of the Western reaction to Iraq, they expect their best apologists will be American politicians, pundits, professors, and essayists
That’s why you have to cut them out of the loop, Neo, entirely. Don’t even give them a say, don’t even give them time to do a double take. Just make a fait accompli. You think Lincoln would have been as effective as he was if he went with hat in hand to beg Congress for permission to suspend Habeas Corpus?
When you ask something for what they have that they can give you, they’ll bargain you down for a long time to get the most advantage. You lose momentum and energy this way, wasted energy on pointless talk and delays.
We are a culture, after all, that after damning Iraqi democracy as too violent, broke, and disorganized, is now damning Iraqi democracy as too conniving, rich, and self-interested – the only common denominator being whatever we do, and whomever we help, cannot be good.
One of the best little answers to “American Imperialism” is convincing the Iraqi and Afghanistan governments to send volunteers, unofficially, to Georgia, via American logistics.
We have the unsubtle path, which I listed first, and now we have the more subtle and subterfuge orientated “shadow play”. But both are elements of power and manipulation and provide much efficiency in the exercise of power and perception.
Iraqi and Afghan units won’t be as effective as us, but their political restrictions won’t be as great as ours either. And the best Afghan and Iraqi units are surely something Georgia will want, given their limited population and limited Army.
They have half of their total Army in Iraq training with us and observing us do what is known in some un-PC circles as “war”.
Allies are created through mutual interest. The Left thinks yo ucan create allies via force, bribes, and what not. Leave Georgia and you prove the Left correct, since Georgia will become an ally of Russia, if only to save themselves.
When MAD existed, there was an excuse, whether good or bad, that taking on Russia directly could escalate things. But Russia’s not interested in defeating America. That’s why Russia’s taking on little itty bitty nations like Georgia.
That’s why you can give Georgia military aid and have them direct attacks, without Russia escalating things, because Russia is not interested in a global fight nor a nuclear one. They have seen what happened to people when the Americans attacked, in Afghanistan (which beat the Russ’s arse) and Iraq. The Russian Army is combat INEXPERIENCED. We have enough auxiliaries and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan allied to us that we can conduct guerrilla strikes on the RUssian military and wipe them out in combination with American Air Power and infantry mounted mobility.
Yet we are not bluffing when we say that we would escalate things, for it is not “we” that would be escalating things. We are only giving Georgia the tools they need, as our allies, to protect their territory. Who they kill, is immaterial to us. We do not control their operations. If they just happen to be able to give orders to our commanders in the field for artillery, air strikes, carriers, Marines, Army stryker/armored columns, then that’s a perk of being an American ally that is being attacked.
This puts the power in Georgia’s hands, in the hands of the people most interested in victory and the least interested in helping Russia.
If America were in control of who gets hit by those nukes and military formations, everybody and their jackal will come and try to hamstring us politically and propaganda wise.
This is about Sun Tzu and covering up your weak spots and America’s weak spots are PR and ruthlessness when we aren’t the one being directly threatened.
Congress is so slow that even if they wanted to defund the military to force the President to change his mind, Congress would take at least half a year. That’s plenty of time to win or lose a conventional war, given today’s standards of strategic speed. And given Georgia’s size.
War is played out both on the battlefield as well as in the field of people’s minds.
Neo,
I’ve been accused here recently as being alarmist on the subject, but God help us if we sit back and allow a trusted ally get overrun with just some toss-off, insipid declaration of solidarity with Georgia.
Georgia isn’t just any back woods country. It was close to being a NATO member; it has an oil pipeline we more or less built; if you look at things per capita, they have more resources in Iraq that we do— and so far, all we’ve done is wax eloquent on the plight of the Georgians and wetting the Russians with harsh language.
If this is all we do, it will be open season for America’s interests. Who would ally themselves with us knowing that we waft kisses their way while doing nothing to assist them, giving them all measure of moral support short of actually helping them.
This is a travesty. And the response of our government thus far is pathetic.
Russia invades Georgia. President Bush gets sandwiched between two beach volleyball bunnies.
Do anyone see what I see? I entreat people to look at a map of the region.
Should Russia press further south, our troops in the Iraq would be bracketed by Iran to the east, Syria to the west and a hostile Russia to the north. And if the Strait of Hormuz is plugged, our route of withdrawal is also constricted.
Am I being alarmist when Russia has just overrun Georgia, blockaded Georgian ports, attacked bases and locations where our troops are located, and attempted to destroy the oil pipeline we helped to build?
Am I also being alarmist in pointing out that Russia, who gave Iran it’s current nuclear technology along with China, just might retaliate against Israel for their sale of defensive weapon systems and intelligence capabilities to Georgia?
Well, I am alarmed and appalled at casual complacency of our media, our blogs and my acquaintances on the subject.
While many of us are entertained by Olympic athletes, Georgians are dying the Russia Bear has just made a very spectacular return to the world stage, and a chain reaction of events from this might unfold into something far more serious than an oil hiccup in the market.
Never mind what is actually going on. Whatever is weak and worthless is liberal policy. Anywhere, anytime.
Russia does have a long range plan, contrary to those who think Putin is just a reactive thug. Their aim is to either directly control most of the world’s energy or achieve it through levers and proxies, like Iran, who will be regional powers and can threaten their other neighbors. Russia knows the Achilles Heel of our modern economy, and is taking steps to crush it.
We seem not to have a counter plan and we don’t seem to take bold moves that change the game board’s possibilities. Putin gambled well here and he won. If we don’t do something about this, we are in big trouble. The world already knows that we don’t back our allies.
I was a 20 year old SP4 at Fort Lee, VA back in March-April of 1975 watching the film footage on t.v. of the Soviet made tanks rolling into Saigon. While my friend’s Vietnamese wife wept for fear of what would happen to her family and friends. It was a bitter thing to watch one’s country not back an ally. And it greatly damaged American prestige abroad. We didn’t overcome this until Ronald Reagan.
Not helping Georgia is going to have far reaching, negative consequences for this country.
We didn’t overcome this until Ronald Reagan.
Part of the reason why we failed so spectacularly in Iraq was due to the Army’s total absence of COIN knowledge or belief in fighting COIN.
This was because the Army lost in Vietnam and never wanted to look back on such a horrible defeat ever.
So no, we did not overcome this during or after Reagan. We are only starting to recover with Iraq.
In the end, it’s always convenient when weaker people in foreign lands are doing the dying for your average self-absorbed Westerner.
Some powerful words here, thats for sure.
Though the man on the street view is that no one cares much about it, and unlike many here, cant seem to grasp it.
the plan to ‘loan’ troops seems appealing but it makes the world nastier when, say, china conscripts her extra 30 million men and starts loaning them to people like chavez.
ultimately though, the only thing that can be done is to be invited into armenia, and azerbaijan, leaving a good armed component on the turkey boarder.
that could keep Russia from moving all the way to the boarder for a while. inching up being better than charging at it.
i would guess that right now there is some really heavy behing closed doors words going back and forth. the kind of threats that cant be said in public or referred to. the kind that never were said.
if they are sufficient i would guess that russia will get to keep ossetia and the other location and will just suddenly withdraw.
she will not go empty handed. she never does.
even when losing she will gain a bit, or else its not worth trying. we do sudoku, they do chess.
technically, the game was over the night that it started. unless the US is willing to commit troops directly against russia, then russia can keep her new addition. though i suspect that she will restructure the state, steal technology (we are probably still rushing out), put in a new kgb man to replace the old kgb man, then withdraw pretending to be the good guy.
given that the pacifists will not fight till fighting is too late to change things, the US is kind of stuck.
it doesnt matter if you have the biggest gun and the other guy has a stick. if your not willing to use the gun, he will be willing to use the stick.
“In affairs so dangerous as war, false ideas proceeding from kindness of heart are precisely the worst…The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms.” Clauswitz
why did they do this? because as i have said the situation is about the corridor through which they can freely pass things that maintain destabilization in the middle east and africa.
i said that anything that threatened that would make them go all the way to the wall. the minute that there was a lot of noise as to iran, the big door through the line of states that dont allow such passage, everything heated up all over the world even more than at that time. bombings, attempted bombings, assasinations, the list goes on. so that there was no clear focus.
with the elections coming up and it looking like iran will not be put out of commission before the next leader, the corridor was much safer. however there was the issue of georgia!! georgia besides having the attractive pipeline we wooed them with, also blockades the majority border, gives a buffer to turkey taking her out of the loop, and most of all, a place to monitor the bottle neck of lower russia to azerbaijan.
if any country should quake right now if they are not on good terms, its azerbaijan. which is why above i said to put troops there which would make them furious in blocking the situation. however i dont think that its doable politically.
right now the US is in the unenviable position of having its nuts in a vice in which it really cant do anything till the other side decides to stop playing around.
there is no good outcomes except for military action and we will not do that (as i see the weather). even a military solution would depend on how serious they wanted to get when they started losing. would they use a tactical nuke? they did move in new missile launchers that can mount that and other things too.
ultimately most of us will only be passengers stuck on whatever wacky ride they are going to put us through. if we are lucky, nothing will come of it, if not, then it might end up being one horrible ride.
Ymarsakar,
The U.S. Armed forces did not lose in Vietnam. I have had to correct this mis perception more times than I can count over the years. It’s so unfair and false that people just accept it as fact, without doing the hard work of actually reading about the campaigns, battles, and accomplishments of the units over there. And this mis perception feeds into templates for understanding the history of our foreign policy that may not do justice to the good intentions that were behind our support of the Saigon government.
We didn’t cut and run because we failed. By late 1972 North Vietnam was pretty much down for the count. That is why they slinked back to the table in Paris. Support for the Republic of Vietnam was withdrawn because of the outcome of the 1974 elections. At that point, the Left in the U.S. had been lapping at its high water mark, and enough Congressmen and Senators were under pressure from their constituencies to write off Vietnam.
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Fred,
That is absolutely correct. The Left snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The US won every major engagement with the North Vietnamese, even won that famed Tet Invasion. With Tet the US was initially surprised, but we turned it around and smashed their entire army. This is not to mention the Linebacker 1 and 2 campaigns that Nixon ordered.
The United States did not lost Vietnam. We lost the politics here in the states, and we’re still living the effects of that political defeat. The men and women in Congress today and in our state legislatures are the very people who were the radicals in the 1960’s and 70’s. Basically, the radical’s who took over the Democratic national convention in the 1960’s are the very people in power in our federal government today (see Hillary Clinton and Nixon Impeachment).
My fear is that they will do it again. By all accounts we’re winning decisively in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As to the Russia invasion, we’re reacting to Russia very similarly to how we reacted to the Soviet Union. I wonder if we’re going to make the same mistakes yet again?
Brilliant piece, neo. I keep wanting to call them the Soviet Union, too. I keep typing that and then just writing…er, Russia because really, what’s the difference these days?
Thanks for the links to the candidate’s speeches. The Chosen One has outdone himself. We certainly know where to give credit should the Russians really sign up for the peace deal!
Thomas,
Putin demonstrated something that everyone is paying attention to: the United States of America does not have the will or the power to back a friend and ally. Now, some it is unfair, because we don’t have egress to that remote region. Logistically, it’s a nightmare. I feel badly for the Georgians. They staked it all on us being an ally and we let them down, but someone should have told them that their geographic location is exceedingly problematic.
This action was intended for these purposes:
1. Stop the oil pipe line, which is intended for Europe’s benefit. That amplifies the power that Gazprom has over Europe. A lot of German and European politicians who went to work for Gazprom should be frog marched up the gallows for this. Reagan warned these people during the eighties that this would be a bad move.
2. Reel in its former republics. Show them that the U.S. will do nothing to help them. The rest will fall in line.
3. Show Western Europe who holds the leash from their dog collar.
4. Perhaps help Iran, because Russia will now have air bases closer to Iran to help support the Mullahs when we come to bust up the Iranian nuclear weapons’ development sites.
Heres the good news.
Political correctness, multiculturalism, identity politics and entitlemania can be cured by the harsh reality that is surely coming our way.
the plan to ‘loan’ troops seems appealing but it makes the world nastier when, say, china conscripts her extra 30 million men and starts loaning them to people like chavez.
The UN already pays out for mercenary army loans from Africa to do their rapine and pillaging, so there’s not much difference or escalation there. And China would never take a subordinate position to a client state, they would just take them over, like Taiwan. Too nationalistic to just send people to die cause of somebody else’s liberties or interests, even if the money was good.
They don’t really care if their troops do die, but it’s better, in their view, to occupy rather than loan.
The U.S. Armed forces did not lose in Vietnam.
Yes, they did. A loss is a loss and all the excuses in the world will never make Saigon go back up again. You can’t really say “oh, he died but he still won cause his country was looted by the Communists but the Americans and their allies at least gave a good college try”. There is either victory or defeat in war. There are no inbetweens, except for those interesting cease fire situations like with Iraq after the Gulf War and S vs N Korea that seem to be perpetual and never ending.
What is the point of arguing that the military didn’t lose on the battlefield, they just lost cause they got hijacked in their logistics? Whether you lose your army to battle casualties, tactical out flanking, strategic miscalculations, loss of morale, mutiny, loss of LOGISTICs, or loss of national will, a loss is a loss and the US Army knew this and that’s why they avoided learning from Vietnam. Nobody wants to be the last guy to die for a forlorn and lost cause. Although some peeps still went at it in the Phoenix Program.
And this mis perception feeds into templates for understanding the history of our foreign policy that may not do justice to the good intentions that were behind our support of the Saigon government.
What you should be worried about are the people that think we didn’t need to win or lose in Vietnam, that it was just an inconvenient choice to make to go away and let the Vietnamese be happy go lucky.
You don’t know my level of comprehension on military affairs, so you have to stop assuming things just because you’ve heard things like it before.
The Left beat America fair and square in Vietnam. Even if fair and square meant assassination and execution of civilians. But that’s what happens in war if you lose. That’s why it is horrible and why losing is not a good thing, and it ain’t no luxury choice either.
They staked it all on us being an ally and we let them down, but someone should have told them that their geographic location is exceedingly problematic.
Whether you win a war or not does not depend upon whatever short term tactical or strategic victories you may have won with a blitzkrieg on Georgia.
Their geography doesn’t come into play here on the grand strategic level. The US can pipe in almost anything, even in hostile countries like Afghanistan with no logistics, except the ones moving through Taliban controlled areas like Pakistan. With the support of Georgian locals, logistics is not really a problem. It just takes time. But if you don’t do it and make it known to the Russians that they better bring more tanks and infantry down to fight, Georgia will lose by default for they will have no time left.
I have never stopped calling them SU.
There’s a question that’s begging to be asked: Where was the CIA? Such an immense amount of Russian military planning should have been detected by the CIA; this is the type of intelligence that is the CIA’s primary reason for existence, yet it is obvious that the Administration and Congress were caught by complete surprise at the Russian blitzkrieg through Georgia. I guess the CIA was too busy furthering its own murky political agenda to bother.
The CIA has been wrong about almost everything. They’ve never been correct about any nation’s nuclear development. From Russia, through China up to North Korea and Iran the CIA has been wrong. In fact the CIA has NEVER been right about ANY foreign nuclear development estimate.
Ymarsakar,
O.K.
How did North Vietnam defeat the United States military in South Vietnam? Name a battle or campaign where they won?
I realize you’ve broadened the category of war to include the political. Fair enough. I accept that criterion. Politically, the Communists destroyed us where we were most vulnerable: the Home Front. This was a combined effort by Soviet agents of disinformation and North Vietnamese agents. Yes, we lost it.
But it is just flat out wrong to say that the United States MILITARY lost in South Vietnam. You can say the U.S. political leadership lost. That the U.S. public lost. But don’t saddle the defeat on the units and the men who beat the crap out of the Communists there. It isn’t accurate and it isn’t fair.
And I don’t give a good goddamn if you object to my arrogance on this matter. I know men who fought in that war and they know what we accomplished. Were you in uniform? Did you fight in any of the campaigns or battles? I know I did not, but at least I had the curiosity to go in search of what really happened. I got the same crap, standard pap about the war in college from my professors, who themselves mostly had a bias against our efforts there. Yes, the U.S. Army I was a part of 1973-76 was a demoralized one, but that was due to political factors more than anything else. Not one nco or officer I knew believed the Communists whipped them. They were stabbed in the back, sometimes by the very people who controlled the narrative about that war back home.
How did North Vietnam defeat the United States military in South Vietnam? Name a battle or campaign where they won?
They won the war. They controlled South Vietnam. They decided the policy and the politics of the entire country.
A war is lost, regardless of how many campaigns or battles you win. A war is lost when it is lost, when people refuse to fight, cave in, or are obliterated.
Arguing the specific tactical battles or what not, what does that actually accomplish? It didn’t make the Army more liable to learn from Abrams’ successful Vietnamization strategy which the Democrats, like Ted Splash Kennedy, killed. (like he killed somebody else) It didn’t make Iraq any easier to start off with because America won some battles and bombed the heck out of the North Vietnamese and Vietcong way back when.
I realize you’ve broadened the category of war to include the political.
No, war is war. War ain’t just about whatever battles or campaigns you want to specifically single out and claim a victory. That ain’t the same as a war won or lost. Redefining things so that the US can win a war that they lost, is meaningless.
When you give up and your enemies are still fighting and you just cut the throat of your proxy allies fighting your mutual enemies… you think that’s a victory? A stalemate? No. It is a loss and it will remain a loss regardless of how you try to cover it up by redefining war to mean some kind of intimate connection between certain elements.
It doesn’t matter how you lost Vietnam, what matters is that you lost Vietnam, period. It could be cause of political, logistical, morale wise, starvation, disease, whatever. You lost the war. Period. It’s a hard thing for people to accept, the Germans didn’t accept it after WWI for example, but it is the truth. And people should stop running away from the truth, cause they can’t handle the present or the future like that.
But it is just flat out wrong to say that the United States MILITARY lost in South Vietnam.
The US Army believes it even if you don’t. Top echelon command philosophy went that way, even if the grunts didn’t want to accept it. Why do you think they never adopted the successful Vietnamization strategy in Iraq, to start with.
When your nation loses a war, your military loses it as well. And it does not particularly matter if I say “the US lost the war or Congress lost the war” compared to “The US Army lost the war”.
When you abandoned your allies on the field and also betrayed the civilians needing to evacuate via that last little helicopter ride at the Fall of Saigon, do you really think any true member of the United States armed forces could say that they just had a “stale mate” or a “victory”? No, they lost. They lost their friends. They lost their comrades. They lost some of the best people they had ever known or fought with. And that is no victory or stale mate. Not when you got nothing but a huge national disaster out of it.
But don’t saddle the defeat on the units and the men who beat the crap out of the Communists there. It isn’t accurate and it isn’t fair.
If you read back on my actual comment, you would see that I was making a causality connection. Something happened, thereby causing the US military to do X in Iraq. Where in this did I assign blame? As I told you before, stop attributing things to me just because you’ve seen it elsewhere from others.
Then again, war ain’t war. Victors get to decide what the history says. And the victors were the Communists who hacked off the arms of people who the US vaccinated against diseases. And they got to decide who “won” or “lost”. War is very fair in this fashion. Since anybody can win and anybody can decide things like that once they have won.
WHen you lose, regardless of whether your fight was noble or not to begin with, you are left with a lost cause fought by people beholden to the victor’s writing of history. It’s not just, but being strong doesn’t require being just at the same time.
That’s why people need to win wars first, before they can talk about justice.
but at least I had the curiosity to go in search of what really happened.
you’re getting emotional. You can’t drop it, cause you’re saddled with this need to deny things that the US lost the war, and that includes the US military. I did not say the US military lost whatever battle like Tet, that’s an actual factual statement. Just like the factual statement that when your nation loses a war, you as a soldier or you as part of the US military, also loses the war. Why? Cause your buddies died for nothing. No, they died to entertain people like Kennedy. Yes, that’s what they died for. To give the North Vietnamese something to be proud of as they talk about how they beat that American POW back in the olden days. That is what they died for.
Recognize this fact and accept it, or don’t and keep yourself calm.
Not one nco or officer I knew believed the Communists whipped them.
I want to hear you say an actual NCO or officer said that they did not lose the war in Vietnam, with no buts attached. I want to see you say that they believe they stalemated the enemy in Vietnam for the war or that they won the war.
I do not believe you will ever find somebody that would say so, except John Kerry cause he was on the winning side, of course.
neo
we never did such a thing to challenge the Soviets during the Cold War, either.
What about Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden neo?
Ymarsakar
In the end, it’s always convenient when weaker people in foreign lands are doing the dying for your average self-absorbed Westerner.
Ymarsakar, … was US chose that to happen to those weaker people in foreign lands when you humiliate them and open the gates inviting the criminal gangs from around the world to run wiled in foreign lands hunting weaker people…..
The interesting thing about many of the comments above is they ignore the fact that this president Bush is one of the many leaders who coddled Putin in the early days — he has long been relatively muted in his criticisms of Putin’s increasingly antidemocratic moves both inside his own country and in neighboring countries. Bush once said of Putin that he had “looked him in the eye” and had gotten “a sense of his soul…”
The US has been too meek with respect to the political situation both in Russia and China.
“The interesting thing about many of the comments above is they ignore the fact that this president Bush is one of the many leaders who coddled Putin in the early days”
Why is that interesting? I thought the same thing. He showed me wrong. As far as complaining about the current way we are treating it I don’t think you can make the case that we are coddling anyone. Bush can not act and that is due to the side that *you* support not allowing it.
I think it is more interesting that you skip over your side making it impossible to do anything other than wring our hands and complain that the neo-cons aren’t going to war.
“The US has been too meek with respect to the political situation both in Russia and China.”
So, do you support us doing something that will provoke Russia into full out war would help? Really, we have two choices – nothing or all out. There is no in between, if we try something like that it will only lead to all out (I would think Vietnam showed us how well slowly escalating war worked and that was against a poorly organized unfunded non-nation).
I’m not sure – it’s always a hard choice. War is a terrible thing and we have to weigh many choices – both humanitarian and national interest. Georgia is a hard choice in that there is a nice mix of “yes” and “no” in both those cases (much as Iraq still is). They are no more, or no less, a clear case than Iraq and if we went in there and opposed Russia it would be MUCH more deadly than Iraq ever looked like.
In this case, as Iraq, I will support which ever decision is made by the powers that be (and be happy I’m not the actual decision maker). If we go in go in to win and fight it until the end, if we don’t go in there should be no carping that we didn’t (especially amongst those that have been opposing such things).
There is no “political” solution to this – you have an opponent that is ready to go full military if opposed and that makes the *only* solution military in nature. That is either through opposing them or allowing them to have what they want and declaring a “political victory” because they quit killing people after getting everything they want. In either case it is a military that achieved their goals, just in the latter some people in another country and not really involved with the whole thing rationalized that they got what they wanted.
Putin is playing chess, at which Russians excel. Western ‘statesmen’ are playing tiddlywinks, while Western pundits trade obscenities debating whether pattycake is too violent a game.
Imagine if, in the highest circles of the Department of State, there were a group studying chess-with-Russia, trying to keep from getting backed into a corner. Imagine what would happen if word of it got out to the press. Realize that it will never happen because the Department of State is run by Leftists with lifetime tenure who cannot be fired for sabotaging government policy. With another two Republican administrations, some of the 60’s and 70’s dreamers may retire; whether they are properly replaced I cannot say.
Yes! one has to worry about Russians’ intent to reconstitute empire of the Romanov’s.But not all former adversaries of such an empire are equally alarmed. There is, a treaty signed in 1829(nearly 200 years ago) between Russians and the Persians following two Russo-Persian wars.The dispute was over which side owned Georgia. Both wars were resounding Russian victories.The 1829 treaty, following secession of hostilities, allowed the victors to have possession of Georgia as war reparations.Additionally, the victors were to send armed forces into Persia(now Iran) to protect Russian nationals(sounds familiar?)if and when the victors deemed it necessary to do so.
the Iranians, helplessly, became a party to their own humiliating capitulation. Persia/Iran in effect lost its independence and became a part of Russian empires’ hegemony. Fast forward to today. The Mullahs in Tehran, fearing and hating the Americans even more, are reminding the Russians of that awful treaty. The hope is that the Russian military power is a sufficient deterrent to the Great Satan’s possible designs on the Mullas.
President Ahmadinihjad’s idiotic ramblings about the axis of Tehran-Moscow-Beijing to counter the Great Satan, is a meandering way of inviting Russia to reexamine and reconsider utilizing that shameful 1829 treaty.I guess the Mullahs are grown quite fond of their newfound power ,wealth, and prestige and are willing to sacrifice Iran’s independence to retain it. Given the treaty, the Mullah’s insecurities , and the Russian power grab in Georgia,I as an Iranian/American view this Russo-Georgian war with both interest and alarm.
alright…here’s the Russian perspective… http://www.enewsreference.com/newspaper/russi.htm
>I think it is more interesting that you skip over your side
>making it impossible to do anything other than wring our
>hands and complain that the neo-cons aren’t going to war.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to here. What has “my side” done to make it “impossible to do anything”?
>nothing or all out
As Neo correctly points out, the calculus of the Cold War obtains here — we can’t go to all out war with Russia, and I’m not suggesting we do. However, we could have applied diplomatic and economic pressure on Russia from the start to try to contain its antidemocratic actions long ago. I’ve been critical of Bush’s cozy and I believe naive relationship with Putin (and China) from the beginning. We’ve done little about human rights abuses and given Russia rhetorical slaps on the wrist while they dismantle democracy within their own country.
The irony is that by dismantling democracy Putin thought he was strengthening Russia, but as I’ve argued elsewhere democracy is crucially important in the long term to tamping down corruption and maintaining proper restraints on government power, so government can reflect the will of the people enough to fight abuses of private power. The worst of all worlds is the direction Russia and China have been going: collusion of government power and private power, resulting in a combination of corruption, abuses of state power, AND abuses of private power. In the long run this will harm both Russia and China, as well as threaten freedom in the West — both countries, as they grow in economic power, will start to exert influence in the West, steadily eroding our own freedoms. American corporations are already afraid of speaking out against the Chinese for fear of their government locking them out of the market there.
If we want to protect freedom and democracy we need to develop a strategy to deal with these two new oligarchies.
Grackle: Where was the CIA?
The dems have gutted our intelligence agencies over the past 40 years. If one wants to dig one can go all the way back to the 60s and see how key decisions ended up beuracratizing the agencies. Though a few times, when needed they ended up using older movers and shakers that were effective at getting things done.
Today, they analyze through consensus, meaning that they don’t actually analyze like they use to. they are very ineffective, since one cant argue to the consensus against the answer that the consensus is dialoging to.
Our agencies have been compromised and shuttered for decades. If you search you will find things under bush, but if you go back, you will find that each administration, especially the dems, cut the agencies and scaled them back making them ineffective.
Note that with the way propaganda is used, they turn out to be a public liability each way. if they are not successful, they are ridiculed, or asked what they were doing sleeping at the watch. If they are successful, they are ridiculed as to what methods they were using in a political area in which there are no limits. And if they are really successful, no one knows what did or didn’t happen for more than 30 years if ever.
from time: CIA supporters are upset about what they see as the neutering of an agency that helped win the Cold War and worry that it will undermine its human spy responsibilities, of which the CIA is still in charge. “It’s a huge thing going on. It’s a huge drama and nobody’s picking up on it,” the former CIA official said of the DNI’s realignment of CIA responsibilities. “CIA feels quite friendless right now. We’re seeing more pieces of it just keep being moved to the door.” A senior U.S. official sympathetic to the CIA warns that “if the DNI’s not careful, the Agency and what it does will be different, and maybe that’s what everybody wants. That’s OK, but maybe the Agency won’t be able to do what everybody wants.”
Ever since they defused Angleton, and started choosing the wrong defectors as being right (cause they liked their messages more), they have suffered seriously in these areas. humint taking a back seat pretending that sigint and random luck would work.
from ny times: In the mid-1970’s, a series of Congressional investigations uncovered a history of assassinations, bribery and other untoward acts by the agency over the decades, resulting in new limits on its power and a new level of oversight. Its power expanded again under President Ronald Reagan, but the 1990s saw a series of embarrassments, including the case of the high-level Soviet mole, Aldrich Ames, and the failure to detect progress in nuclear weapons programs in India and Pakistan.
in 2004, acting on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, Congress enacted sweeping changes to the organization of the nation’s intelligence system. As part of the changes, the C.I.A.’s directorship lost its preeminent position to a newly created post, director of national intelligence, who is supposed to oversee the C.I.A. and other intelligence groups.
today we argue as to what things they can do, and how transparent our spy actions are to oversight. Anyone else other than me see a problem there? of course no one is complaining that russias spying isnt transparent nor that they are using polonium, thalium, and other interesting things against foreign nationals, or ex nationals.
No one I have met yet has been aware of the new executive order as of this august 1 2008. order 12333 is to be amended, it was the order that was issued by Ronald Reagan that re strengthened the agency and got them to be effective again (Which was key to the games going on in that era. Soviet archives revealed that the soviets were planning an invasion and escalating the war material kept them from doing so till they failed economically).
The new executive order affirms, for example, that “The United States Government has a solemn obligation… to protect fully the legal rights of all United States persons, including freedoms, civil liberties, and privacy rights guaranteed by Federal law.” Such a statement, in a presidential order that is intended to direct a rule-driven bureaucracy, is not nothing.
The old Reagan order did not even mention the words “civil liberties” or “privacy.” (Nor did it mention the term “covert action,” which the new order uses instead of the old euphemism “special activities.”)
Ultimately this led up to Feingold whithouse act… typically they use the basic right of the people in a democracy to over see everything. Which conveniently leverages this idea to prevent the effectiveness of these agencies in protecting interests. Lots of other laws have had this effect, like removing the laws that say subversion is illegal.
You can dig here to learn a lot more than I can tell you: http://www.fas.org/irp/world/index.html
Though once you leave that area, you enter tin hatter ville. In which much information is disinformation or provided by other agencies who wish the revelation to poison our system. so you get anything and everything and enter Angleton’s hall of mirrors rather than actually getting good information to learn from.
There is a lot of quality information out there, that is correlated with other states information as well. so there is little need to believe odd reports from inknown sources that reveal at best half truths.
You can get some good info on the new Russian structures here: http://www.fas.org/irp/world/russia/index.html
This will bring up some stuff on Venona. I would also look at things like golytsins book new lies for old, mitrokens sword and the shield as well as other books that are available.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/part1.htm
They are often a bit alarmist, but they offer a lot of confirmed material that tends to surprise people that read the books. Its actually surprises them a lot when they find out that things that are reported still one way in history, have a back history that is just as commonly known but totally ignored. (like lattimore who coined the term mccarthyism turned out to be a spy as revealed by the Venona transcripts.)
C’mon, Mitsu, give Bush a break. He’s not responsible for every ill on earth, just the vast majority of them.
Pretend Putin was Saddam Hussein. Then Bush would have been doing what Dems said he should have done with Saddam.
When Bush goes after a hairball, he’s a cowboy and too aggressive. When he talks to a hairball, he’s coddling him. You can’t have it both ways.
I feel the sniffles coming on. Damn that George Bush!
*njcommuter, let me quote Doug Muir on this one (I wholeheartedly agree):
I keep reading people writing “oh, the Russians have been so clever here – see, they’re playing chess”. Jesus Christ, people. Can we PLEASE declare a moratorium on this totally stupid metaphor? The majority of Russians do not, in fact, play chess. And why don’t we ever hear about Chinese playing go, or Turks playing nardi?
Enough with the chess. This isn’t chess. It looks like Georgia got suckered into doing something stupid, and the Russians were ready for it, and are taking the opportunity to stomp Georgia good. But there’s nothing particularly chess-like about that.
and its chess. sorry tatyana, chess is a game that embodies tactics, strategy, fog of war, movement, promotion. etc. though i think chinese chess comes closer than western chess.
go while being a territory game, is not akin to the same kinds of actions that chess embodies. however, the chinese and japanese play go (or similar) and it has been used much as chess has been used here.
also, it was never dictated that it mattered whether the proletariat played chess. it does not matter if chess is played by every person in the country, what it matters is that the LEADERS keep their minds sharp through their choice of down time.
though my favorite is the last paragraph that you are quoting…
the very points made are modelled in chess. georgia got suckered, russians were ready for it.
well that would describe a plan, tactics and strategy, and that similar principals are what the game chess is about. that one can sucker an oponent in chess and draw them into a plan that is obfuscated by the huge numbers of permutations and variations of play. then there is also sacrificial plays, which saakasvilis move might also be appreciated under. though there is no cavalry in chess.
Chess is called the game of kings, because for many centuries it was played primarily by nobility and the upper classes.
The names of the pieces– the queen, king, knight, rook and bishop came about during the Middle Ages, when society was extremely oriented towards war and rigidly stratified. During the Renaissance period, society became more dynamic and rules were added to enable rapid attack techniques. These include making the queen more powerful, and permitting pawns to move two squares on the first move.
so chess has even followed human conflict styles and situations!
aqnd the paragraph at the end describes SHA MAT. or checkmate!!!
russia checkmated georgia, and the west. a situation in which one side is defeated no matter what action it takes!!! a type of winning that chess cultivates so ones plans do not get overturned. one makes plans in which the actions of the other are not crucial, or one makes many plans to cover all the actions.
even famous chess quotes apply to larger concepts of conflict and teach valuable lessons of such without the costs.
“When in doubt, take a pawn!”
Wilhelm Steinitz
“Chess is life”
Bobby Fisher
“Chess is 99% tactics.”
Richard Teichmann
“Even a poor plan is better than no plan at all.”
Mikhail Chigorin
here is one i think applies to georgia
“A passed pawn increases in strength as the number of pieces on the board diminishes.”
Jose Raul Capablanca
and this one too
“If your opponent cannot do anything active, then don’t rush the position; instead you should let him sit there, suffer, and beg you for a draw.”
IM Jeremy Silman
“Of chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not chess.”
Irving Chernev
“Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.”
GM Savielly Tartakower
of course perhaps associating chess with russians is helped along by such famous russians as Gary kasperov?
but then again, the fact that the greatest players lists are dominated by russians.
Alexander Alekhine: Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was born to aristocracy in Moscow, Russia.
one of the greatest were from the country of my heritagem latvia. Aaron Nimzowitsch, influences the modern game a lot, two of his most famous desciples were the russians petrosian, and karpov.
Internationally Rated Players 2650+ Elo
a) By Country as of 2007
1st Russia 11
2nd Ukraine 5
3rd China 4
4th= Armenia 3 France 3 Hungary 3 India 3 Netherlands 3 USA 3
10th= Azerbaijan 2 Bulgaria 2 England 2 Israel 2 Poland 2 Spain 2
16th= Cuba 1 Czech Repulbic 1 Georgia 1 Germany 1 Norway 1 Romania 1 Switzerland 1 Uzbekistan 1
b) By Country as of 2003
1st Russia 11
2nd= Hungary 3 Israel 3
4th= Armenia 2 England 2 France 2 India 2 Netherlands 2 Ukraine 2
10th= Bulgaria 1 China 1 Georgia 1 Massadonia 1 Slovakia 1 Spain 1 USA 1 Uzbekistan 1
c) By Country as of 2000
1. Russia 10
2. Hungary 3
3.= England 2, Bulgaria 2, Israel 2, Switzerland 2.
7.= India 1, Spain 1, America 1, Ukraine 1, Belgium 1, Belarus 1, Georgia 1, France 1, Czech republic 1, Poland 1, Armenia 1, Bihar 1, Netherlands 1.
notice that russia has 11… divide the states up and add the ones that were russian sattelites together and you will see them totally dominate the competitions..
Chess originated in India in the 6th century. It was called “chaturanga”, which means literary “four divisions of the military”.
Some time around the seventh century, a new board game appears in India. Its pieces include a counsellor, elephants, chariots, infantrymen, horsemen and a king. Called chaturanga, it’s the ancestor of modern chess – and a game of war. But if chess in all its variations has been used historically to illustrate battlefield tactics and probe new strategies, today nothing’s changed. Teams at the Swedish national defence college in Stockholm and the defence science and technology organisation in Australia are studying the game afresh in an attempt to understand better how to gain military success. In Sweden, the researchers are using real players. In Australia, the team has run tens of thousands of virtual games – with some clear messages for their military sponsors.
On the face of it, the bloodless, low-tech game of chess might seem to bear little resemblance to modern warfare. “But it resembles real war in many respects,” maintains Jan Kuylenstierna, one of the Swedish researchers. “Chess involves a struggle of will, and it contains what has been termed the essentials of fighting – to strike, to move and to protect.” By studying chess and other adversarial abstract games such as checkers (draughts), researchers can strip away some of the confusion of the battlefield and identify the factors that are most important for winning, says Jason Scholz, who leads the Australian work. “The strength of this approach is our level of abstraction,” Scholz says.
But neither group is studying standard games. By modifying key variables, such as the number of moves al lowed each turn, or whether one player can see all of the other’s pieces, they are investigating the relative importance of a host of factors that translate to the battlefield, such as numerical superiority, a quick advance and the use of stealth.
“There’s all sorts of anecdotal evidence that there are certain factors in warfare that are important, and people talk about having a strong operational tempo, and that kind of thing,” says Greg Calbert, a mathematician on Scholz’s team. “But even today there’s debate over what really counts. How important is stealth over tempo, or tempo over numerical strength? That’s what we wanted to find out.” As well as informing fundamental military theory, this kind of information could have a big impact on how army procurement officers choose to spend their budget. There might be urgent calls for more tanks or better surveillance devices – when, in fact, to win the next war the money might be better spent on faster communications systems, for instance.
on another note… things are getting even hotter on a global scale thanks to the war.
Russian planes were downed by Georgian systems operated by Ukrainian crews – Russian military
12:59 GMT, Aug 13, 2008
DUSHANBE. Aug 13 (Interfax-AVN) – Russian planes which flew missions in the peace enforcement operation in Georgia were shot down with air defense systems supplied by Ukraine and other countries, members of a Russian military delegation said on Wednesday after a meeting of the Air Defense Coordinating Council of the CIS Council of Ministers in Dushanbe.
“According to information available to us, a Tupolev Tu-22 long-range supersonic bomber and several Sukhoi Su-25 jets were shot down with S-200 and TOR surface-to-air systems, supplied to Georgia by Ukraine. Ukrainian crews were operating the air defense systems,” a member of the Russian military delegation said.
given history ukraine is not in a good place now, or rather, its in a worse place than it was a few days ago.
In a development that possibly reflects Washington’s attempt to warn Moscow to not overplay its hand in Georgia, the US Air Force test-launched a Minuteman 3 ICBM from Vandenberg AFB early this morning. The missle hit a target near the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
The U.S. air force says it has successfully tested an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile. The ICBM was launched at 1:01 a.m. from a base in California today. Its three unarmed re-entry vehicles travelled about 6,800 kilometres over the Pacific Ocean to targets near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The missile was launched under the direction of the 576th Flight Test Squadron. The air force says squadron members installed tracking and command destruct systems on it to collect data and meet safety requirements.
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jg_1E3uZh9uy1x4wfxUtVTGR0Nlw
and to show tatyana that other games are used for the same reason, and historically. though it depends on when and who was rulling at the time.
[the last paragraph having bearing on the current conflict]
2,000 years of role playing games
China
The board game Go, known in China as weiqi, is a game of territory and encirclement, and has long been linked with warfare. Some of the earliest military references appear during the Dong Han dynasty, from AD25 to AD220. They describe weiqi as a game of war, and some modern scholars infer that the Chinese might at that time have been using it to model military strategies. Mao Zedong reportedly insisted his generals study weiqi – and there are rumours that today senior members of the Chinese military must be proficient at the game to progress through the highest ranks, says Jason Scholz of Australia’s defence science and technology organisation.
Persia
The Persian game of Shatranj is believed to be adapted from the Indian chess-precursor Chaturanga (although there are some scholars who argue that Shatranj came first). Like the Indian version, the Persian game includes elephant pieces and horses, and Persian nobles were taught Shatranj as part of training in military strategy. It has even been suggested that pawns’ ability to move two squares in their opening move in modern chess is a Persian modification, to better model a strategy in which foot soldiers with spears rushed ahead of the rest of the attacking army – but the true origins of military influences on chess, and the game itself, remain murky.
War in Iraq
The build-up to the war in Iraq coincided with the first results from the chess simulations run by Jason Scholz and his team. “We watched with great interest the dialogue between General [Tommy} Franks, who wanted to use more materiel, and Donald Rumsfeld who wanted a fast tempo and lighter units,” Scholz says. Based on the chess results, which favoured a fast, decisive attack strategy, Scholz says his advice would have been to go along with the US defence secretary’s ideas. “In the end, there was a compromise,” he says. “But a relatively fast tempo did really gain a very decisive, rapid advantage in Iraq.” However, trying to win a battle as quickly as possible might not always be the best strategy, he adds: “You can win a battle quickly but hearts and minds are not so easily won – and of course we do have continuing trouble in Iraq.”
>When Bush goes after a hairball, he’s a cowboy and too
>aggressive. When he talks to a hairball, he’s coddling him.
>You can’t have it both ways.
That is precisely the sort of bizarre comment I’ve never understood in the political arena. It’s as though to be “consistent” one has to always criticize the *tactic* as though the problem were the tactic and not the application of the tactic. I.e., if one criticizes one war but not another, one is accused of being “inconsistent” because, apparently, all wars are good, or all wars are bad, and you can’t have it both ways?
Well I don’t happen to believe that tactics have some sort of intrinsic “goodness” or “badness”. To me, that’s ludicrous.
The real question is always, who do you use a given tactic against, when, and why? If you use a tactic against one target it means devoting some money, political capital, prestige, lives, etc., towards that end, which diverts resources away from other issues or threats. My beef with Bush has never been that he’s “too aggressive” (a content- and context-free criticism if there ever were one) but that he’s squandered our limited resources against targets in an ineffective (and therefore weak) manner. I’m all for being aggressive: against the right targets.
Al Qaeda is a significant threat to the United States. But Russia and Chinese are also long-term threats. As you know my chief interest is in democracy — I believe democracy is far more central a value than the economic issues politics tends to be about in the United States. Evidence shows that stable democracies of either the left-wing or right-wing variety tend to be reasonably prosperous and tend to support civil rights. Dictatorships of either the left or the right tend to be oppressive and tend to centralize power in both the public and private sector. To me, overcentralization of power is a problem, but the key way of resisting this I believe is democracy, not a specific economic approach.
Russia and China, as they grow in power, also increase the part of the world devoted to centralized, oppressive use of power. Yes, it is arguable that engagement can yield results — I don’t entirely disagree with this. But at the same time, it’s critical to apply real pressure, because if we don’t, in the long run both nations will attain the power and stature to directly, I believe, impact us in the West. Imagine a China 2 to 3 times more wealthy and powerful than it is now — imagine how Chinese wealth and power might then start affecting our politics, our economics … we need to respond to this and pressure them to reform. Same is true of Russia.
No, my point was that the perspective is “Bush is wrong – now what’s the question?”
Talking with Russia – a formidable military power that is pretty much reform-proof – but dealing with Saddam’s Iraq – not as formidable a military power, and trying to set the obvious natural leader of the Middle East on a democratic path – were both perfectly reasonable things to do. Fighting Russia is just not on. And negotiation without the implicit commitment to fight if necessary is a fool’s errand.
But let’s recount the bidding. If McCain wins, then all the world’s ills become his fault as of January 2009. If Obama wins, then all those ills remain Bush’s fault until the next Republican gets elected.
Got it.
Realistically, a President has to pick his fights. Dems always love to claim Republicans should have chosen a different fight, but we all know that in that case they would have merely reversed their criticisms. It’s why Obama says we should invade Pakistan (! – I thought he’d stopped using drugs), not invaded Iraq, and why we should have had a surge in Afghanistan, not Iraq. It’s political three-card Monte.
Bear in mind too that both Russia and China have borders with many states and have been invaded by land routes in the past. History and geography (including obstacles like mountain ranges) figure heavily in their planning.
>Bush is wrong
I’ve spent just as much time (if not more) on liberal sites arguing that the Afghan war was the right thing to do at the time with leftists. Where’s your “Bush is wrong – what’s the question?” there?
I can’t condemn Bush for being deceived by Putin, any more than I could condemn him for thinking Saddam had WMDs. Just as Saddam himself did everything he could to convince the entire world that he was hiding huge stockpiles of WMDs, so too did Putin do everything he could to convince everyone that his only ambition was to serve his people rather than rule them.
Sometimes you just don’t have enough data to see through the lies until it’s too late. The real measure of a man is how willing they are to own up to the mistakes they make, not to never make any mistakes at all.
In that case, kudos to you, Mitsu. You’re the exception/
Most liberals strongly opposed the Afghan War in prospect (graveyard of armies, Russia, Britain, Afghan winter) and predicted dire consequences and the dreaded “Q” word.
Once it was engaged, and won, in short order, they moved onto to Iraq. That was the wrong war, the Revolutionary Guards were bad-asses, etc. The rough going in Iraq merely encouraged more of the same (creating terrorists, no WMDs, should have invaded Pakistan/ Darfur/ Detroit/ Disney World instead, Arabs incompatible with democracy, blah blah).
Now the Iraq War is essentially won, we don’t hear a peep about it any more. Now it’s somewhere else we should be involved, something else we should have done. In extremis, liberals argue that we should have focused on some domestic matter (infrastructure, global warming, gas prices, acne, athlete’s foot, something).
See the pattern here? People who have no responsibility (just as well) are always quacking about how (implicitly) they would have done things differently.
But it’s always possible – and generally mendacious – to second-guess a decision. Everyone’s a genius after the fact.
In Bush’s case, lancing the Iraqi boil but minimizing problems with the Russians was probably a wise course.
FredHjr noted earlier in the comments here that one of the motives of the attack is to
” 1. Stop the oil pipe line, which is intended for Europe’s benefit. That amplifies the power that Gazprom has over Europe.”
I agree with this (along with the other motives he listed) but I find it strange that there hasn’t been a peep out of our dear leftest friends.
Where are the screaming protesters chanting “No blood for oil” outside the Soviet — ooops — Russian embassies?
Curious, isn’t it?
Not really. It’s been clear for a long time where their sympathies actually lie, and in whose interests they labor.
In the last few posts i noticed that they were all hovering around something, but not putting their finger on it as a known.
the three card monte, or whatever you want to call it is a tactic. in chess it would be playing like lasky 🙂 for those who dont know, lasky had a very attack oriented style. constantly take take take and hit hit hit.
tactically they keep doing this because it creates a control situation and puts the one struck on the defensive. the only way for the the attacked to recover is to ignore and not get defensive.
what they end up creating is a constant negative barrage where no person gets closure on things but is always reawakened through the next curtain on another issue, and so forth. a constant stream of ‘facts’ that they take in and absorb, but dont have time to sort or validate.
we have a default view of all this stuff, and we may not realize it. coming from a meritocracy, we take in everything as valid or at least honestly so and if not it is not used over again. but in a system in which the end justifies the means and lying is ok, this doesnt happen. our sense of whats valid and invalid gets twisted to judgement by frequency, rather than validity.
the egg shells, keep them dancing barrage attacks dove tails nice with that in that it allows the same negative point to be made over and over and never be categorized.
AIM Report: The Lie that Won’t Die
http://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-the-lie-that-wont-die/
the article covers the soviet disinformation campaign that AIDS was created in a US laboratory and escaped a la dan rather, and more.
given the way we pound issues, is it any wonder that what it does is create a constant stream of points that one takes in, and never thinks much about, incorporating them into their world view.
how many people saw dan rather report it? how many people, rev wright not included, still promote the idea?
ultimately it becomes a floating fact in a sea of floating facts where the only veracity is if it sounds plausible given all the other ‘facts’ and if you have heard it many times (since invalid facts are not to be transmitted in a healthy society).
Georgia war is a neocon election ploy
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/12/EDCD129NI4.DTL
the left is working really hard to create so much mental noise that no one can really ‘choose’.
To the guys who producing so much mental noise here
Who can not see far from their short noses, Comparing Georgia borders conflict with disastrous invasion of Iraq is some sort of out of the blue and blondeness.
If Russia war is Oil for blood by looks for oil resources/pipelines what about US although the denial for five years going on by these guys with so much mental noise.
May their so much mental increasing more till…….
They have made a killing
the 2003 U.S. invasion. Estimates of their number vary. The widely used figure of 5 million is about one in five. To get that into context: relative to the size of the population, it would equal the forced displacement of almost 60 million Americans.
“They controlled South Vietnam. They decided the policy and the politics of the entire country.”
Our foreign guest expert makes a blanket statement that may have been true in the early years of the war, but after 1968 that was certainly not the case. And by 1972 the North Vietnamese military and infrastructure were devastated. It took massive foreign aid from the Soviet Union to get them up off the mat so they could violate the treaty and invade again in 1975.
Most of the people of the South did not support the Communists. Interesting that you avoid using that ideological description to describe the enemy. And you do not mention the fact that early in the war, when they did control large areas of the rural South they used terror and extortion in order to kick the peasants in line.
The massive outflow of people from South Vietnam after the Communists took over does not make the case that their control of the South was popular.
No, they did not decide the power and politics of the entire country until after they took it by force.
Your bias betrays your ideological preferences. I have not read a report in which the U.S. Army categorizes its efforts there as defeat. But, tell ya what, you suggest to me books and articles which are the basis for your academic experience on this topic and I’ll read them and make my own decisions about the material. I will honor that promise. So give me a list of the textbooks that form the basis of your opinion.
>Most liberals strongly opposed the Afghan War
This is really not true, Occam — most *leftists* opposed the Afghan war (i.e., Chomsky, et al), but most *liberals* did not. I spend time on both liberal and conservative boards … one of the oldest liberal conferencing systems, the WELL, for example. The VAST majority supported the Afghan war before, during, and after the conflict. We’ve just been re-arguing the war, because of Obama’s support for beefing up our presence there, and there are a few leftists on the system (most of whom I greatly respect, but disagree with) and they have been arguing that we shouldn’t have overthrown the Taliban but should only have engaged in a targeted attack against Al Qaeda. Needless to say, the VAST majority of liberals on the site, including me, respectfully but vehemently disagree.
The Taliban were allied with Al Qaeda. They were an illegitimate government, they were only recognized by 3 countries at the time, they were oppressing their own people, and today over 80 percent of the Afghan people agree that overthrowing the Taliban was a good thing. By nearly any measure we were amply justified in going in, but we have faltered by refocusing our attention elsewhere, too soon.
This really is the way nearly all liberals (who comprise most of the Democratic Party) think. Not leftists — but definitely most liberals.
I have close friends who opposed the Afghan war and I respect their views. I disagree with them. I, and most liberals, are not reflexive anti-Bushites, even though you may think so at this point.
Ask Neo, most of her family and friends are liberals — I’m sure most of them supported the Afghan war. Call them “Jon Stewart liberals” if you like.
As I’ve said many times, it would do the country good if the two sides of the political spectrum spoke with each other more. We’re not as far apart as you might think. We ARE far apart — but not as far apart as you think.
Mitsu, I think you’re being a bit naé¯ve, and exercising some selective recall, colored by your own good faith and intelligence — neither of which I think most on the left side of the aisle share. Most liberals/leftists questioned the Afghan War until after it clearly was successful. (One can clearly game that statement by defining those who supported the Afghan War as liberals, and those who didn’t as leftists, but I know you have too much intellectual honesty to do that.) Here are a few links to support my contention:
America’s Pipe Dream
by George Monbiot, 10/23/01.
We’re All Afghans Now, by Susan Block, 10/30/2001.
Al-Qaida is winning war, allies warned, by Tania Branigan, in the Guardian, 10/31/01.
The War in Afghanistan, by Noam Chomsky (yes, I know, a joke, but nevertheless…), 12/30/01.
A Military Quagmire Remembered: Afghanistan as Vietnam, by R. W. Apple in the New York Times, 10/31/01.
Grading The Other War, by Romesh Ratnesar (?), Time, 10/9/02
Is America losing the war on terrorism?, by Francine Kiefer, Christian Science Monitor, 11/2/01.
Some choice quotes:
“Could Afghanistan become another Vietnam? Is the United States facing another stalemate on the other side of the world? Premature the questions may be, three weeks after the fighting began. Unreasonable they are not, given the scars scoured into the national psyche by defeat in Southeast Asia. For all the differences between the two conflicts, and there are many, echoes of Vietnam are unavoidable.” — R.W. Apple, New York Times, Oct 31, 2001
“The idea of an expanding U.S. commitment, however, is precisely what raises the specter of quagmire for critics, raising ghosts of Vietnam. The Taliban plainly are unlikely to be destroyed from the air, but Afghanistan is a wild and untamable land, and there is little reason to believe that U.S. ground troops would have greater success in subduing it than the Soviets had.” — Tony Karon, Oct 31, 2001
“The administration has bungled the challenge. … The war effort is in deep trouble. The United States is not headed into a quagmire; it’s already in one. The U.S. is not losing the first round against the Taliban; it has already lost it.” — Jacob Heilbrunn, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 4, 2001
“The U.S. road out of the quagmire in Central Asia ultimately passes through the U.N.” — James Hoagland in the Washington Post, Oct 24, 2001
“Americans must face a hard reality: massive military force is not a winning weapon against these enemies. It makes the problem worse. In contrast, a strategy that emphasizes clever diplomacy, intelligence-gathering, and carefully selected military strikes might produce success eventually if we pursue it with patience and tenacity.” — John J. Mearshimer, NYT, Nov 4, 2001
“I don’t know how you wage war against one person; it doesn’t make sense. I can imagine a commando-type raid to capture Bin Laden, then a trial, with evidence, before the world court. But that would not address the vast global inequalities in which terrorism is ultimately rooted. What is so heartbreaking to me as a feminist is that the strongest response to corporate globalization and U.S. military domination is based on such a violent and misogynist ideology.” — Barbara Ehrenreich, The Village Voice, October 9, 2001
“They have struck us, and in their strike announced: We’d rather die�and take you with us�than go on living in the world you have forced us to occupy. Force will get us nowhere. It is reparations that are owing, not retribution.” — Vivian Gornick, The Village Voice, October 9, 2001
“Melt their weapons, melt their hearts, melt their anger with love.” — Shirley MacLaine on her anti-terrorism policy
“Well, he (Bush) might as well have been bombing Denmark. Denmark had nothing to do with 9/11. And neither did Afghanistan, at least the Afghanis didn’t.” — Gore Vidal in the LA Weekly
“In a war on Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden will either be left alive, while thousands of impoverished, frightened people are bombed into oblivion around him, or he will be killed in a bombing attack for which he seems quite prepared. But what would happen to his cool armor if he could be reminded of all the good, nonviolent things he has done? Further, what would happen to him if he could be brought to understand the preciousness of the lives he has destroyed? I firmly believe the only punishment that works is love.” — Alice Walker, The Village Voice
I ran out of patience at this point, but I think it’s important to resist revisionist history: at the inception of the Afghan War, many on the left opposed the effort, and issued dire warnings of disaster — which, unfortunately for them, but fortunately for America, did not come to pass.
Occam, obviously I understand your position, but it’s equally obvious you don’t know/hang out with many liberals in your day to day life. There’s no selective memory going on — I engaged in extensive discussions on the issues at the time, online and with friends, and opinion ran something like 10-1 in favor amongst the folks I know or talked with. Virtually all Democrats voted in favor of the war resolutions in the House and the Senate. Polls showed overwhelming bipartisan support for the war at the time. Obviously you can find some articles against the war, but please — get out more! Talk to real live Democrats once in a while!
As I say, on the WELL, a liberal conferencing system if there ever were one (it’s based in the Bay Area, I’ve been a member since forever), opinion in favor of the war was overwhelming. Sure, there were doubters, and certainly amongst them were liberals as well as hard-core leftists, but they were in the minority amongst Democrats, by a huge margin. We argued forcefully for the war then as now. It was not even close.
(As for Chomsky — I don’t think he’s a joke — I simply disagree with him. He’s a formidable intellectual. And I read his opinion along with many others on leftist websites at the time — the predictions of a widespread humanitarian disaster, etc. All of these predictions I believed were absurd, and it is true that I lost some respect for Chomsky and many others when I read this. But, I still respect him as an intellectual even though I think he’s extremely biased.)
Mitsu, fair enough. I go by the (ahem) organs of the left, the NY Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Guardian, etc. as my take on the views of the left. Few of my friends are Dems, not out of choice, I just don’t know many.
I understand, Occam. Quite frankly I don’t have many conservative friends either … I have a few. I suppose the Internet has made it possible for me to engage in more conversations “across the aisle” than I ever would have otherwise — but it still does seem that the Internet has served primarily to create an echo chamber of people talking to people on the same “side.”
Even the NYT, LAT, etc., didn’t come out and “oppose” action in Afghanistan so much as raise concerns. Personally I thought most of those concerns were overblown — the more I learned about the situation there the more convinced I was that military intervention was not only justified, it was necessary and feasible. The NYT to some degree, at the time, was reflecting the views of leftist intellectuals but at the same time they expressed these views primarily as concerns rather than opposition per se (even the article you linked to, above, was merely a list of concerns that it “might” become another Vietnam). The reality is, however, despite these editorial rumblings most actual Democrats were behind that war from the beginning — both Democratic politicians and Democratic rank-and-file.
It is somewhat interesting that there was such a disconnect between the leftist intellectuals and the majority of the Democratic Party — I attribute this to a failing in the intellectual left. I’ve been critical of the intellectual left since I was in college — not because they are intellectual (I am a big fan of the intellectual!) but because they’ve gotten stuck in a rhetorical and theoretical cul-de-sac. Their relatively biased and narrow views serve primarily, in my view, to discredit the left and by association discredit liberalism. If anything although I believe my political views are in the mainstream of the Democratic Party and if anything are more progressive than the average Democrat — I stand for a rejection of traditional leftist intellectual thought, because I think much of it is simply wrong. It’s wrong theoretically and it’s wrong practically. The fact that they have often tacitly or overtly supported the wrong side in many cases, and have made predictions that have proven wrong in many other cases has brought ruin to progressive causes across the spectrum. The only thing that has saved liberalism in recent years is that the neocons have also chalked up an even more impressive series of wrong predictions than the left ever did (which is perhaps not too surprising, since the neocon movement is in many ways the intellectual progeny of the left — that is, many neocons were former leftists).
To me, right vs. left is an obsolete political spectrum. I think “ideological and biased” vs “rational and open-minded” is a better spectrum. Ideologues on both the right and the left have made spectacularly wrong predictions, precisely because they’re more wedded to propping up their “side” than to looking at each situation with fresh eyes, being willing to accept the possibility that your “team” is wrong, or the other “team” is right, about any given issue. I am hoping to argue for a new politics that is more pragmatic, that is theoretically sound but based on a commitment to democracy and balancing economic and political factors to obtain optimal results rather than driving things in an ideological direction, which almost never works whether the ideology is on the right or the left. I believe most Americans actually are pragmatic, as I am, yet most vocal intellectuals tend to be more ideological and rigid. I’m here to argue, both on right-wing sites and liberal sites, that it’s time for an intellectual movement that argues for what I think are the true American strengths: pragmatism, innovation, balance, and openness.
Russia wants the oil that Georgia currently enjoys from her access the Caspian Sea.
This is true enough, but I interpreted this “raising concerns” as essentially establishing the foundation for later squawks, if appropriate, without nailing their colors to the mast, flatly opposing the course of action, and risking being wrong-footed.
That way if their “concerns” were borne out, they had an “I told you so.” If they weren’t, they could (as we see now) say, “Well, we were just raising concerns – we didn’t actually oppose the war.
In short, a prevarication.
>In short, a prevarication
Well, regardless of what it was, my main point is that most Democrats were solidly behind the war, that was definitely my experience, that’s the sentiment I saw on the discussion boards, and that’s what the polls said. I suppose what I’m suggesting is that those of you on the right who obtain their information about “liberals” mostly by reading may not realize that what you think you’re opposing isn’t the vast majority of Democrats or liberals, but in fact a small cadre of intellectuals who don’t represent the majority of those of us who also put ourselves left of center.
In fact, it’s partly through conversations on this board that I myself have come to realize this. I.e., that you guys are afraid of something that really doesn’t hold sway in the mainstream Democratic party nor the public who votes for Democrats. You seem to be paranoid that we’re all America-hating closet Stalinist pacifists or something … but it’s really not the case. We’re not and have never been anything of the kind — most of us are as patriotic as FDR, as willing to fight for liberty as Lincoln.
correction “Black Sea”
noteworthy: http://georgiamfa.blogspot.com/
Most Democrats back Afghanistan because they have no reason to not do it.
But give them a reason, then things change.
We’re not and have never been anything of the kind – most of us are as patriotic as FDR, as willing to fight for liberty as Lincoln.
The Democrat party hierarchy is extremely hierarchical in terms of who has power or not. The power is always at the bottom, but that’s not the real difference. The difference is that people at the bottom have no problems with this system and promote it by feeding even more power to Democrat leaders.
So it doesn’t matter how many you are, when only one person in your hierarchy gets to make decisions and everybody follows.
That is how it is in Islam, which is autocratic and authoritarian, and the same is true for the party of fake liberals.
The power is always at the bottom, but that’s not the real difference.
Clarification: The power is meant to be at the bottom for it is always the citizens that translate state policy into state power. But in reality, some of that power has to be accumulated at the top for humans don’t function in a hive, we function in a pact or hierarchy with people at the top and people at the bottom and people in between.
That is not the real problem, of course.
Obama is a good example. When Democrats eradicate Christianity and religion from their public life, they think they are acting more rationally or responsibly or more intelligent. In reality, they are just pushing more power to people at the top, like Obama, who will make you do things that he wants you to do, whether you like it or not.
Humans form pacts and hierarchies and social groups. A human bereft of a group seeks to belong to a group. A human that has no boundaries, limitations, discipline, and social structure will try to find a place or a person to belong to. Or they kill and suicide.
Ymar … what planet? Give it a rest.
Libs gave Bush a hard time for not having allies, despite there being allies galore. They lied. Surprise.
Liberals always want to bail on allies.
Liberals think we need allies.
I see a difficulty there.
You?
Your planet, nyo. Where else.
Unless you can come up with an argument… I’m already resting and waiting for the light of illumination from you.
I see a difficulty there.
You?
Fake liberals need allies to do their dirty work so that they can be expended like so many disposable cups.
ymar.
I think you’re on to something.
I was repeatedly asked to give some evidence from a “reliable source” that Tskhinval was actually flattened. See, first, “Battle of Tskhinvali” in Wiki; second, see
timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4493620.ece
See also
timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4509624.ece
At least, the author provides some historical context and understands fully an arbitrarness of including Abkhasia and Ossetia into Georgia by Stalin as trojan horses to keep Georgia under his rule.
What I wrote previosly about Georgian national character, now ambly supported by American official working with Saakashili command:
“These are the most romantic people in the world. They’re very gallant, in the stupid sense,” said Bruce P. Jackson, a close Bush administration ally who has worked extensively with Saakashvili and other leaders in the emerging democracies of the former Soviet bloc. “Do they really listen? They’re very much ‘the Charge of the Light Brigade’ people. It has a lot to do with personal honor.”
With such allies, USA hardly needs enemies.
Any time I read about a bad policy coming from neo-conservatives, I have learned to look for one telling phrase: moral equivalence, and spot on cue, it appears. In this case, users of this phrase manage to delude themselves about both the nature of international relations and their own national interests.
Promoting, to the extent possible, respect for the rule of law in international relations makes sense for a country such as the United States, with a preference for small government and a record of commercial success. But the rule of law demands moral equality. We respect our own laws because they enshrine the principle of moral equivalence; if a respected and beloved physician intentionally shoots a crack dealer, the law calls it murder, just as much as when a crack dealer shoots a doctor. Nobody gets a free murder. So when the Bush Administration chose to invade Iraq without international sanction, it seriously undermined the rule of law.
Absent the rule of law in international relations, nations secure their interests with power politics. But playing the game of power politics effectively also requires clear thinking, and power politics has its own set of checks and balances. If the Russians can’t trust NATO to obey international law, it makes sense that having the alliance to expand right to their borders would threaten their interests in a way they would not accept. But the assumption of automatic moral superiority that a generation of sneers at “moral equivalencing” has engendered makes this kind of clear thought and prudence impossible.
So no the Bush Administration finds itself in a truly unenviable position; having made a beginner’s mistake in the game of power politics and gone a bridge too far in expanding the Western Alliance, they can hardly make a credible appeal to the concept of international law. The consequences of following a bad idea have bitten American policy makes where they sit down.