It's Time for a Pop Quiz

Okay. So the electorate of this great Country has spoken and Senator Obama is the President-elect. According to his running mate and Vice President-elect, Senator Biden, that means “it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy . . . watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

Well the “world” may already be testing the new President-elect. The Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, announced in his state of the nation speech that Russia will deploy short-range missiles near Poland, apparently in response to Poland’s decision to “play” with us in a missile defense system. President Medvedev explained the need to deploy the missiles by saying, “From what we have seen in recent years – the creation of a missile defense system, the encirclement of Russia with military bases, the relentless expansion of NATO – we have gotten the clear impression that they are testing our strength.” Russia sees the presence of a missile defense system in Poland and in the Czech Republic as a threat to them, rather as a means to neutralize a missile threat from Iran.

It looks like Russia has decided to test President-elect Obama’s strength with a pop-quiz a couple of months before he’s even inaugurated. Russia’s timing is impeccable. They decide to deploy these short-range missiles when we have an unpopular President who is just finishing out his term of office and doesn’t want to take any extraordinary measures and when his successor has just been elected and may not want to “weigh-in” on possible actions or responses because he’s still riding the euphoria of winning the election (and because he’s still almost 3 months away from sitting in the hot seat). So do we have a missile-crisis-in-the-making? How will President-elect Obama answer this, the first, of the world’s tests?

Is it Getting Colder in Here?

Leon Aron, the director of Russian studies and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, in an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal, asks. . .what is Russia’s next target? His question is very similar to the question I asked a couple of weeks ago, “Is it getting cold in here?” According to Mr. Aron, the evidence supports the belief that Russia’s invasion and occupation of Georgia is “the onset of a distinct, and profoundly disturbing, national security and foreign policy agenda” with new priorities, “the most compelling” of which is the “recovery of the assets lost in the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.” Profoundly disturbing is right. It seems I’m not alone in wondering if a new Cold War is beginning.

If Russia’s new national security and foreign policy agenda includes the goal of reconstituting the old Soviet Union by absorbing (again) the break-away republics, how are they doing it? Mr. Aron thinks that they do it “[b]y dominating the domestic politics and, more importantly, economic- and foreign-policy orientation, of the former Soviet republics.” In Mr. Aron’s opinion, Russia has the attitude that

“Anything considered antithetical to Russia's interests, as interpreted by the current Kremlin leadership, must be discarded -- be it democratization, oil and gas exports that bypass Russia, and, especially, the membership in the Western organizations such as the European Union and NATO. And if, in the process, Russia must sacrifice most or even all of the fruits of the post-Soviet rapprochement with the West -- including membership in the G-8, entry to the World Trade Organization or ties to the EU -- so be it.

Russia's "targets of opportunity" include simmering border disputes (and virtually all Russia's borders with newly independent states could be disputed, since they are but the very badly demarcated internal borders of the Soviet Union), and the presence of the ethnic Russian or Russian-speaking minorities in neighboring countries.”

So with Georgia still occupied and Russia recognizing the two Georgian provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as independent, what is the next target in the Russian sights? According to Mr. Aron, it’s the Ukraine. They’re pro-democracy and pro-Western. They want to join NATO (although we should wonder why when NATO has been totally ineffectual lately). And nearly 1 in 5 Ukrainian citizens are ethnically Russian. Additionally, as Mr. Aron says, “the Russian political barometer seems to augur storms ahead.”

For example, “Mr. Putin has made his contempt for Ukrainian sovereignty clear, most notably at the NATO summit in Bucharest last April when, according to numerous reports in the Russian and Ukrainian press, he told President Bush that the Ukraine is "not even a real state," that much of its territory was "given away" by Russia, and that it would "cease to exist as a state" if it dared join NATO.” Then there’s the dispute over the Crimea. “A solid majority of the Russian parliament” does not want Ukraine to recognize the Crimea as a part of Ukraine. Russians, many of them retired Russian Navy, are vehemently against Ukraine absorbing the city of Sevastopol, which was the base for Russian’s Black Sea fleet and important to Russian Naval history and lore. As recently as September 5th, the Ukraine Foreign Minister accused the Russian consulate in Crimea of distributing Russian passports for those living on the Crimean peninsula. Sound familiar?

I don’t want to be a harbinger of gloom and doom, but I continue to wonder, “Is it getting cold in here?

More Georgian Info

It looks like Michael Totten's getting some interesting information about Georgia, including some in-depth background to the current Russia-Georgia conflict. Good stuff!

Question Everything!

UPDATE Check out this post on Blackfive for some interesting background on Georgian-Russian relations from a Georgian woman now living in the US.

On August 14th, I wrote a post about propaganda where I agreed with one of the bloggers at Castle Argghhh, Kat, who wrote that “all information is propaganda. Official information is official propaganda. Thus, it always deserves to be challenged. Paraphrasing Socrates, question everything.” I truly believe that we should question the information we’re given, particularly when it’s information that is “fed” to us through the news media, the government, or other secondary sources. If the person feeding the information isn’t “there,” or isn’t “involved,” in otherwords isn’t a primary source, then the information may be screened or spun or shaped in some way. That’s the reason I started reading blogs, particualrly milblogs, in the first place; because I wanted to get the story from those who were writing it. Having said that, there’s nothing wrong with getting information from secondary sources and passing that information along, as long as you identify the secondary source so that others can make their own judgments about the information you’re passing along. After all, it’s all propaganda and we chould question everything.

Now understanding that all information is propaganda and that we should question everything, I wrote a post on August 21st discussing the Russian invasion of Georgia and asking whether anyone else thought it was getting colder along the former Iron Curtain. I discussed information that had been reported in FoxNews, clearly idenifying the source of my information. I received a very interesting comment to that post from a person identified as “Chris.” In this lengthy comment Chris takes me to task for relying on FoxNews for my international news, emphasizes that I don’t really know the facts about the conflict because I was not there, and points out that he believes that news from English speaking, North American focused media” is useless. Chris then goes on to outline the problems he has with my post, giving what appears to be a Russo-centric point of view for the reasons behind the conflict in Georgia and the increased tensions between Russia and the former-Soviet republics in the region.

Okay. After reading Chris’ comments I wondered if, like the Armorer, another milblogger who posts on Castle Argghhh, I’ve think I’ve found myself in the midst of the Russian InfoOps campaign. Perhaps I’m being too suspicious (I am an attorney) and Chris is just an open-minded guy who likes to play the Devil’s Advocate. But I don’t think so. Although I took care to indicate that I got my information from a secondary source, Chris doesn’t. I don’t know where he got the information for the facts he provides. I don’t know if he’s developed his opinions because of personal experience, or if he’s relying on secondary sources just like I am. I do, however, think that Chris is somewhere in the area involved in conflict. In one part of his comment, Chris talks about why Russia has a right to be nervous about Georgia and the Ukraine moving closer to the west and he says, “What if Canada and Mexico joined China in an all binding military agreement? How would the U.S feel? Surrounded. Think about WHY THE OTHER SIDE IS MAD for once. Does "They hate us for our freedom" sound familiar??? Same thing being spouted here. I don’t know where the “here” Chris refers to really is, Chris doesn’t say, but in context it sounds like Chris is either in Russia or working to advance the Russian point of view. Now, Chris is correct that I’m not there and cannot gather the facts for myself. But, hey, I’m just a blogger and my posts are just my opinion based on information I’ve gathered, questioned, and analyzed. I’m not a reporter and don’t pretend to be one. I’ll leave that for folks like Michael Totten, who is in Tblisi and is blogging about it.

So, maybe I’m seeing InfoOps when there really isn’t one (after all, I’m just a blogger giving my opinion based on what I’ve learned from other people, why would there be an official need to address my opinion?). Maybe Chris is just a concerned citizen of whatever country who wants to give the other side of the equation. Either way, I think it’s great. Bring it on, Chris! As I said earlier, it’s all propaganda and we should question everything; including who is commenting and why.

Is It Getting Cold In Here?

“[The Russians] are making fun of the world,” says Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. He may be right. The Russians have promised to leave Georgia (the country, not the state) by Friday, August 22nd. In fact, a Russian General says that they’re withdrawing troops so that all their troops will be back in the area controlled by Russian peacekeepers by Friday. According to some reports, there have been troops and equipment moving back toward Russia, , but it looks like the Russians do not intend to completely comply with the European Union-brokered agreement to move back to the area they held before the August 7th invasion of Georgia. Instead of beginning a complete withdrawal, FoxNews reports the Russian army has instead settled down in several strategic spots. They’ve build trenches and fortifications in several key areas. They’ve dug trenches, set up mortars, and blocked a bridge at the entrance to Georgia’s port on the Black sea, Poti. They continue build permanent earthen berms strung with barbed wire in at least three areas along Georgia’s main East-West highway, one of which is only 30 miles from Georgia’s capitol city. Russia may be saying it will comply with the agreement; but it sure looks to me like they’re settling in for a long stay in Georgia and thumbing their noses at the rest of the world. Perhaps that’s why Russia sent a diplomatic note to NATO saying they were halting any international military cooperation with NATO under the 2002 agreement that established the NATO-Russia Council “until further instructions.”

Why is Russia even in Georgia? There’s a lot of debate about why. According to Russia, the invasion was a necessary response to Georgian “disproportionate use of force” against ethnic Russians in South Ossetia and the unfortunate Georgian decision to send troops into the disputed area patrolled by Russian peacekeepers. According to most, however, the Georgian use of their military to try to settle a “break-away” province was an excuse to discipline a former-Soviet satellite state. It appears that Russia has become increasingly unhappy about Georgia’s continued effort to develop Western ties and the small country’s attempts to join NATO. Many believe Russia’s desire to “slap down” Georgia was the underlying cause of the military invasion and the South Ossetia situation only a pretext. Why else would the Russian military continue into Georgia and establish what appears to be a permanent presence in a sovereign country, when all it needed to do was respond to Georgia’s incursion into South Ossetia? Talk about taking care of a fly with a sledge hammer.

There are other signs that Russia intends to flex its muscle in other former satellite states. Russia is extremely unhappy with Poland’s decision to permit the US to establish missile defense sites, along with a supporting garrison, inside Poland. A Russian General has even warned that “Poland, by deploying [the system] is exposing itself to a strike – 100%.” The General also mentioned that Russian doctrine permitted the use of nuclear weapons in such situations. Russia is also claiming that both Latvia and Estonia discriminate against Russian speakers. They also demand that Latvia and Estonia recognize the heroism of Soviet soldiers. Could it be that Russia is just looking for more provocations to send troops into these former-Soviet republics, as they did with Georgia?

Does anyone else feel like it’s getting increasingly cold along the former Iron Curtain?