Ethnic attacks in Georgia

[CultureKing]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/world/europe/15ethnic.html?ref=world

This really made me think that supporting Georgia against Russia is a good idea. Some peacekeepers need to be sent there immediately.

[dead0man]

But the Russian peacekeepers are already there!  Why would we need more?

[King]

But the Russian peacekeepers are already there!  Why would we need more?

I remember watching a CBS News report from Georgia a couple a days ago... "all the Russian peacekeepers we ran into smelt of alcohol and would yell anti-Georgian obscenities at us"

What a joke.

[War on Want]

But the Russian peacekeepers are already there!  Why would we need more?

I remember watching a CBS News report from Georgia a couple a days ago... "all the Russian peacekeepers we ran into smelt of alcohol and would yell anti-Georgian obscenities at us"

What a joke.

haha well that is to be expected.

[dead0man]

..and the West is supposed to be afraid of this Army of drunk, racist conscripts?

[King]

..and the West is supposed to be afraid of this Army of drunk, racist conscripts?

No, we are supposed to be afraid of their nukes and the fact that winter is coming up so we'd get slaughtered on the ground.

[dead0man]

Again with the nukes.  It's not 1963 anymore (and thank God it's not, we'd still have nukes pointed at us in Cuba if you pansies were in charge then).  Russia's arsenal is a fraction of what it once was and they don't want to get annihilated anymore than we do.

And nobody is planning on putting Western boots on the ground heading towards Moscow, I'm not sure where you guys keep getting this from.  Also, F22's fly well in the cold.

[HappyWarrior]

Once again, we need to send in troops to keep the peace in Georgia and tell the Russians to get the hell out.

[CultureKing]

Again with the nukes.  It's not 1963 anymore (and thank God it's not, we'd still have nukes pointed at us in Cuba if you pansies were in charge then).  Russia's arsenal is a fraction of what it once was and they don't want to get annihilated anymore than we do.

And nobody is planning on putting Western boots on the ground heading towards Moscow, I'm not sure where you guys keep getting this from.  Also, F22's fly well in the cold.

Do you think that harsh diplomacy or detente lead to the end of the cold war. Almost every way I look at it Dentente had a much larger influence on the downfall of the USSR than anything else.

[Beet]

This is disgusting. The US must make clear that relations with Russia are already irrevocably damaged. You don't invade another country and then look on as your allies start ethnic massacres of the natives of that country, no matter how powerful you are. This is like if Shi'ites started bombing Sunnis in disproportionate numbers in Iraq in 2003, though even worse than that.

[JohnFKennedy]

It's not 1963 anymore (and thank God it's not, we'd still have nukes pointed at us in Cuba if you pansies were in charge then).

The Cuban Missile Crisis ended with the removal of American missiles from Turkey as well as Soviet missiles from Cuba. It also led to a US statement to the effect that it would recognise Cuba's sovereignty and not interfere in her internal affairs. Not really very 'hawkish' is it?

That being said, I do think it is imperative that the US - along with the rest of the world - speak out against Russia's atrocious behaviour. I would prefer it to be done multilaterally via the UN, but I respect that that probably isn't possible given Russia's Security Council Membership. If anything, I think that one of the nations that could come out of this best internationally is China. It is widely known that Russia and China aren't exactly the best of friends so for China to side with the USA, the EU et al in a condemnation of Russian behaviour could do its international standing no harm.

[dead0man]

Again with the nukes.  It's not 1963 anymore (and thank God it's not, we'd still have nukes pointed at us in Cuba if you pansies were in charge then).  Russia's arsenal is a fraction of what it once was and they don't want to get annihilated anymore than we do.

And nobody is planning on putting Western boots on the ground heading towards Moscow, I'm not sure where you guys keep getting this from.  Also, F22's fly well in the cold.

Do you think that harsh diplomacy or detente lead to the end of the cold war. Almost every way I look at it Dentente had a much larger influence on the downfall of the USSR than anything else.

I thought they ran out of money or were about to run out of money.  Dentent may have been the tool we used to crack open the Soviets, but it was their lack of money that got us to that point.

[dead0man]

It's not 1963 anymore (and thank God it's not, we'd still have nukes pointed at us in Cuba if you pansies were in charge then).

The Cuban Missile Crisis ended with the removal of American missiles from Turkey as well as Soviet missiles from Cuba. It also led to a US statement to the effect that it would recognise Cuba's sovereignty and not interfere in her internal affairs. Not really very 'hawkish' is it?

You don't think JFK's actions that October were "hawkish"?  I'll admit they could have been more hawkish, but he could have been a lot bigger pussy too.  JFK stood up to the Soviets, he didn't wring his hands in the corner saying "we don't want to mess with the Russians, they have nukes" like some people here have said.

[JohnFKennedy]

It's not 1963 anymore (and thank God it's not, we'd still have nukes pointed at us in Cuba if you pansies were in charge then).

The Cuban Missile Crisis ended with the removal of American missiles from Turkey as well as Soviet missiles from Cuba. It also led to a US statement to the effect that it would recognise Cuba's sovereignty and not interfere in her internal affairs. Not really very 'hawkish' is it?

You don't think JFK's actions that October were "hawkish"?  I'll admit they could have been more hawkish, but he could have been a lot bigger pussy too.  JFK stood up to the Soviets, he didn't wring his hands in the corner saying "we don't want to mess with the Russians, they have nukes" like some people here have said.

I would agree he could have been a lot less forceful in his response but I still don't think that he was that 'hawkish' really. I think the response was actually fairly restrained. For instance, they had previously said that if their U-2 had been shot down that they would attack but changed their mind once it was. The removal of missiles from Turkey was also more than a bit of a snub to NATO in my opinion. I suppose I could call it a policy of cautious realism although the propaganda victory was all his of course.

[dead0man]

Sure.  He was still a lot more of a "hawk" than the ladies in this thread have been.  Add in that the Russians were a lot stronger in '63 than they are now, especially in the nuke's department and it just becomes that much more annoying.  There was a LOT more on the line then than now.  We wouldn't be destroyed today, even in any reasonable "worst case" scenario.  There was no way we wouldn't have been destroyed in '63 if we went to war (unless Russia's ICBMs had a ridiculously high failure rate, which was/is possible).

I'm in no way suggesting we should invade Russia next week.  I'm just disappointed in the lack of a frim response from the leaders in the West over this.

[Dan the Roman]

Sure.  He was still a lot more of a "hawk" than the ladies in this thread have been.  Add in that the Russians were a lot stronger in '63 than they are now, especially in the nuke's department and it just becomes that much more annoying.  There was a LOT more on the line then than now.  We wouldn't be destroyed today, even in any reasonable "worst case" scenario.  There was no way we wouldn't have been destroyed in '63 if we went to war (unless Russia's ICBMs had a ridiculously high failure rate, which was/is possible).

I'm in no way suggesting we should invade Russia next week.  I'm just disappointed in the lack of a frim response from the leaders in the West over this.

Actually Russia was definitely weaker vis-e-vis the US nuclear wise in 1962. They lacked ICBMs that could actually do more than hit the coasts, which was one reason why they needed the ones in Cuba. They could have made a big mess in Europe, and as it turned out their missiles in Cuba were far more functional than the CIA believed, but we probably would have survived the war with 10-15 million dead and a devastated economy. The Soviets would not have.

Russia has thousands of ICBMs today, and our missile shield, even when operational is useless against more than a few dozen. We may be able to shoot down more than in 1962, but its the difference between being wiped out four times over and wiped out three times over.

Personally though the two cases don't compare. Cuba was within our sphere of influence and the Soviets realized that and did not want to risk war over it. A better example is Hungary in 1956. We stood back and watched as Hungary was invaded while they pleaded for our help. Why? Because it wasn't worth taking a stand over, and it would have led to a war. Do you think Eisenhower was a "lady? Should we have helped Hungary break free of Soviet control?

[dead0man]

One of the reasons the Soviets backed down in Cuba was because they did have the ability to strike us beyond the coasts.

How many of the current thousands are ready to fire/go?

And yes, we should have helped Hungary break free of Soviet control in 1956.  We shouldn't have stopped fighting totalitarianism at the end of WWII in the first place.  Stalin killed ten's of millions (if not hundreds of millions) that wouldn't have died if we were not tired of fighting 1945.  I understand why stopped, I just don't think it was the right decision.

[Dan the Roman]

One of the reasons the Soviets backed down in Cuba was because they did have the ability to strike us beyond the coasts.

But our position vis-e-vis Georgia is far more similar to that of Soviets in 1962 than it is to the Americans then. Georgia is a small country on Russia's borders, traditionally subservient to Moscow, which has had a revolution installing an ideological group allied with Russia's enemy on the other side of the world. That enemy has attempted to arm Georgia, and Russia has invaded, as the United States would have done in 1962 had there not been missiles in Cuba.

The fact was, that in 1962 the Russians could not have stopped a US invasion of Cuba militarily, just as we could not have stopped an invasion of Georgia directly. Therefore they were left with the choice of escalating things else ware or giving in. They initially escalated things else ware, but rapidly decided it was not worth the cost. We did the same, only our calculation was that it was not worth cutting of the EU's natural gas supply to kick Russia out of the G8.

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Probably enough to do some real damage. The benefit of having ten times the nukes you need is that even with a 90% failure rate, you still succeed in hitting things. Not that it is likely to come to that, since Georgia is not worth it to the United States. The real question is whether Georgia is worth that much to Russia.

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Even if it triggered World War III? Our forces would very likely have gotten into a shooting war with the Russians, and at the time the Warsaw Pact had an overwhelming superiority in conventional forces. Our entire strategy called for us to go Nuclear almost immediately because we would be rapidly overrun otherwise. It wasn't until Reagan that we had the ability to go toe to toe with the Russians without Nukes. Would Hungary really have been worth Italy/Germany/France being overrun and/or a nuclear war?

[dead0man]

Kind of a loaded question don't you think?

[Dan the Roman]

Probably. My view is that standing up to aggression is different than inviting it. Georgia does not benefit from us using it as a springboard against Russian power in the region, and if we are not willing, or in this case able, to protect them, than it is are obligation not to encourage them to follow a confrontational line. What the US did here was the worst of all worlds. We armed and encouraged to Georgia to tow an anti-Russian line internationally, and to retake South Ossetia, while at the same time knowing we had no intention of helping them.