Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Bradley Thayer and I co-authored an article in the September/October issue of the The National Interest entitled, “Russia Goes Ballistic.” Here’s a brief excerpt:
OVER THE next ten to twenty years, the erosion of American nuclear superiority will have major ramifications for the global balance of power. It will place new constraints on our freedom of [...]
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Yesterday, the government in Tbilisi announced that it cut diplomatic ties with Russia to protest the continued presence of Russian troops in Georgian territory. The situation in Eurasia is not improving. Russia’s decision to recognize the “independence” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was particularly problematic since these two regions are part of Georgia.
This [...]
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev appealed to China and other Central Asian nations to show its support for Russia’s actions in Georgia at a Shangai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tajikistan today. International press offered conflicting analysis, which of course, is no surprise. What is striking, however, is that the break was not along traditional media [...]
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The other day Thomas P.M. Barnett asked whether or not Russia could eventually be a strategic partner for United States. He argued that Washington’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Georgia has been overly emotional:
Frankly, putting the political and strategic implications aside for a minute, Russia’s intervention in Georgia should strike us as more of a turn-on than turn-off. [...]
After the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, some defense analysts and international relations scholars believed that a new, peaceful era would emerge. One scholar, Francis Fukuyama, built his career on this idealistic hypothesis (which he now backed away from). He wrote a an article in 1989 entitled “The End of History?” which concluded [...]
I wrote to some of you yesterday about what I thought the objectives were for both sides of this conflict. I still think these hold pretty much true. Just to rehash:
Russia: Toss the Georgians out of South Ossetia, and embarrass them enough so that they (the Russians) maintain de facto control over South Ossetia, while [...]
First, a few updates.
While it is unclear yet whether there have been any major engagements between Russian and Georgia forces, some sources are reporting that the Russian armored units that crossed into South Ossetia via the Roki Tunnel yesterday are moving into Tskhinvali:
Osinform in Russian 1248 GMT 09 Aug 08
A tank attack on Tskhinvali is [...]
Defense analysts who once believed that Dmitry Medvedev’s Kremlin would differ from Vladimir Putin’s now have their answer. Russia needs to withdraw its forces from Georgia immediately. Here’s an article from Bloomberg News:
Russia Is Waging `Full-Scale War’ Over S. Ossetia, Georgia Says
By Alex Nicholson
Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) — Georgia accused Russia of waging “full-scale war,” as [...]