Let's Start a War with Russia!

Hate that idea? Quiet, then! Roger Kimball, who I like a lot, keeps the madness rolling in this unfortunate case:

August 8 was the date when Russia began reassembling the former Soviet empire in earnest. When Russian tanks and troops poured into the separatist Georgian province of South Ossetia yesterday, it was not, as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, part of a “peacekeeping mission.” It was part of an imperialist mission whose undeclared goal is to reabsorb the whole of Georgia–West-leaning Georgia with its critical oil pipeline supplying energy to an increasingly thirsty Europe–into mother Russia. Indeed, that pipeline is the unacknowledged key to the drama–unacknowledged, anyway, by the belligerents.

Those Russian peacekeepers, indeed, are hardly peacekeepers in the blue-helmet way we're supposed to mean; then again, South Ossetia and Abkhazia are hardly integral parts of a sovereign Georgia in the way we're supposed to mean. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are not just separatist, they are separate. Kimball cannot present a frightening situation in fact, so he must rely on gnosis. How he is sure of Russia's undeclared goals and unacknowledged keys? By assuming precisely what he sets out to prove -- that the Russians are and always have been imperialists intent on conquering their way back to Muscovy's pre-1991 borders. 

I freely admit this is possible. But it is also possible that, however much Georgia is in the right and however kindred their citizens, America will not go to war with Russia to save Georgia from a 'reabsorbtion' that, I bet, is a figment of a number of exercised imaginations. Russia may be very strong relative to Georgia, but it is very weak overall, and knows it. Securing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia under a passport-sharing/joint-citizenship regime will be more than enough for Moscow, which does not want to be the fur-swaddled brute stepchild beside the tech-bedecked golden kid Beijing for the rest of all time. The West can make Russia's life very difficult if Putin decides like a fool to gobble up Georgia, and this is well and plainly known. But creating many polite-but-firm pains in the ass for Russia, after that might happen, is one thing, and starting the war that Russia's critics seem to be agitating for, before it does, is quite another. 

PS my fellow comrade subversive and filthy Asiatic symp Daniel has lots more.

UPDATE: Georgia has folded like a losing hand. The US government knows the score and takes the stance I've suggested:

U.S. [...] deputy national security adviser, James Jeffrey, said it will be key to see the Russian reaction to the withdrawal of Georgian forces from the South Ossetia breakaway region. [...] The United States would also be "very, very concerned if in fact there is ground action inside of Georgia proper that is outside of these areas of Abkhazia and Ossetia," he said.

Ball in Russia's court. And the Security Council's.

UPDATE: somewhere in these posts I suggested Russia had 24 hrs. as of yesterday evening to call off the dogs without incurring major damage to its international status and position. This morning (8/11) Medvedev expresses Moscow's understanding on that point.

Comments

[The Reticulator]

I read that Roger Kimball article and didn't see anything in it that said he wanted to start a war with Russia. I don't know why you characterized it that way. Is it so terrible to admit that Russia wants its empire back? Every action Russia has taken, e.g. with respect to Estonia, the Ukraine, or Georgia, has been to prepare the way for the resumption of imperialism.

[Buy viagra]

Well the war with Russia is not very recommend it cause they are like father of war only the U.S.A can beat Russia but in military forces they really are very strong .