On August 7th 2008 war broke out in Georgia, a small country on the Black Sea next to Russia. It is the first time since the end of the cold war that Russia has sent its military into an independent country.
Russia destroyed the Georgian army, sank some of its ships and blocked its port. On August 13th, after American protests, it began to pull back its army. But Russia remains in control of two parts of Georgia: Abkhazia in the north-west and South Ossetia not far north of the capital.
Georgia is small. It has about as much land and people as the American state of South Carolina. The country is democratic – power changed hands peacefully in 2003 in the Rose Revolution. Most are Christian and have been since the 300s. Their language is not related to Russian, Persian, Turkish or any other big language.
They were ruled by Russia through most of the 1800s and 1900s. Before that they were ruled by the Turks and the Persians.
To the west is the Black Sea, to the north the Caucasus mountains and over those mountains, Russia and Chechnya, where Russia has been fighting for years. To the south is Turkey and Armenia.
The Abkhaz and the Ossetians are not Georgians. Even before the war their parts of the country were largely independent, with the support of Russia. Russia gave them passports, which gives the Russian military a right to protect them.
The fighting broke out in South Ossetia when Ossetians began killing Georgians there. Both Georgia and Russia sent in their soldiers and war broke out. It is clear that Russia has been waiting for this moment for quite a while. It took the opportunity to spread the war to Abkhazia.
Many in Russia dream of the lost glory of its old empire. They think that if they bring the empire back the good old days will return too. The war does not bring back that empire, but it does help to cow Georgia and the other little countries like it that Russia once ruled.
Some Russians fear the West and how countries in eastern Europe have been joining NATO. Georgia wants to join too. NATO has promised it can, someday, but this war puts off that someday.
One thing the war has made clear to Georgia and the other small countries near Russia is that the West can do little to protect them.
America’s actions over the past ten years have not helped. Just as America protected Kosovo from the Serbians, so Russia was protecting the South Ossetia and Abkhazia from the Georgians. And just as America took over Iraq because it did not like what was going on there, so Russia sent its military into Georgia. If America can have its empire, then why not Russia too?
This war shows that maybe Russia is serious about gaining back its empire. If the West is so weak or tied up elsewhere, who is to stop it?
See also:
- Russia
- American Empire
- Guide to Persians – see where the Ossetians fit in: they speak a Persian language yet they are Christians.
GEORGIAN TERRITORIES
BOMBED BY RUSSIAN JETS
photos
http://www.georgia.inf.ge/
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Two things to keep in mind:
1. Russia views the US in particular, and the West in general, as an adversary, mostly economic but to some extent military as well. In addition, there is an inferiority complex among Russians vis-a-vis the West with respect to culture.
2. Russians dislike Muslims even more than right wing Republicans on the US do. The support by the US for a separatist Muslim state in Kosovo (“Ethnic Albanians” is a euphemism for “Serbian Muslim Separatists”) was to Russia a major insult of gigantic proportion (and, from the perspective of this poster, a monumental error by the US).
With skyrocketing energy costs hammering the already weakened US economy, oil-rich Russia sees an opportunity to assert some level of global dominance over the US.
Georgia’s efforts to join NATO presented Russia with an opportunity to flex its muscle and wreak revenge for the US actions in Kosovo. My gut is that there will be some hard words from the Shrub, but in the end he’ll have to give Georgia back to the bear.
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I agree: Russia knows there is little America can do and are taking advantage of that. Just like when they tried to take over Afghanistan right after the fall of the Shah in Iran.
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There is little the West SHOULD do. It is not to be trusted at all in its agenda regarding Eastern Europe, whose intellectuals refer to US and NATO as the Fourth Reich. They have a lot of evidence behind them. Some very corrupt things are going on behind the scenes. I am quite sure they are backing neo-fascists.
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