TUESDAY,  AUGUST 12,  2008

MILITARY VIEW

Posted at 7:42 p.m. ET

I've always believed that you have to get the views of military experts fully to understand most international conflicts. 

Ralph Peters is an astute, and often passionate, observer of events, and has a military background.  He offers an expert view of the Georgia crisis, and introduces a view that hasn't been widely circulated - that the attack on Georgia was planned for months, and that the Russian military was made ready:

IT'S impossible to overstate the importance of what's un folding as we watch. Russia's invasion of Georgia - a calculated, unprovoked aggression - is a crisis that may have more important strategic implications than Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

We're seeing the emergence of a rogue military power with a nuclear arsenal.

And...

Let's be clear: For all that US commentators and diplomats are still chattering about Russia's "response" to Georgia's actions, the Kremlin spent months planning and preparing this operation. Any soldier above the grade of private can tell you that there's absolutely no way Moscow could've launched this huge ground, air and sea offensive in an instantaneous "response" to alleged Georgian actions.

As I pointed out Saturday, even to get one armored brigade over the Caucasus Mountains required extensive preparations. Since then, Russia has sent in the equivalent of almost two divisions - not only in South Ossetia, the scene of the original fighting, but also in separatist Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast.

The Russians also managed to arrange the instant appearance of a squadron of warships to blockade Georgia. And they launched hundreds of air strikes against preplanned targets.

And...

This is the most cynical military operation by a "European" power since Moscow invaded Afghanistan in 1979. (Sad to say, President Bush seems as bewildered now as President Jimmy Carter did then.)

This attack's worse, though. Georgia is an independent, functioning democracy tied to the European Union and striving to join NATO. It also has backed our Iraq efforts with 2,000 troops. (We're airlifting them back home.)

Whether one agrees or not, Peters sees our actions as shameful:

Just as Moscow has reverted to its old habit of sending in tanks to snuff out freedom, Washington has defaulted to form by abandoning Georgia to the invasion - after encouraging Georgia to stand up to the Kremlin.

Ouch.  That point is being made in a number of circles.  Others, of course, dismiss it as sentimentalism, or, excuse the expression, the logic of the neocons. 

Oh, we sure are giving those Russians a tongue-lashing. I'll bet Putin's just shaking as he faces the awesome verbal rage of Condi Rice. President Bush? He went to a basketball game.

The only decent thing we've done was to reveal, at the UN, that the Russians tried to cut a deal with us to remove Georgia's president.
Shame on us.

More ouch.  I'd love to have peters spell out exactly what he thinks we could have done.  But I agree that this wasn't one of our finer moments.  As we've noted here, we'll pay a price down the line as other nations, particularly those surrounding Russia, wonder how much support we'll give them if they get into a jam.  That wonder will increase geometrically if The One takes the oath on January 20th and hoists high the banner of Jimmy Carter.

August 12, 2008.      Permalink          

TRACKERS

Posted at 1:09 p.m. ET

Both trackers are out.  Unchanged from yesterday.  Rasmussen has Obama up two, Gallup has him up five.

But Gallup states it bluntly:  This five-point lead (among registered voters, RVs) is larger than the average lead Obama has held since early June.

Obama has clearly stopped any losses he suffered after his European trip, and McCain has stopped gaining.  The race seems frozen at this time.  But, as they say, if the election were held today, Obama would win.  Now he goes into the fall with lots of money, an adoring press, a young generation that can't tell the difference between a president and a lead singer, and an aging opponent.

Can McCain win?  Yes.  But it will have to be an all-out effort.

The Georgia crisis seems to have had no impact.  Obama's blundering performance hasn't moved the polls one point.  Do Americans care?  I don't know.  They'd better care by November, or we're in for Jimmy Carter II, or much worse.

August 12, 2008.      Permalink          

OBAMA IN A CRISIS

Posted at 6:38 a.m. ET

The Georgia combat is the first international crisis to occur on President-for-sure Barack Obama's watch.  As Jonah Goldberg notes, the Obama campaign has pulled out every trick to make their guy appear to be president already.  They never, though, anticipated a real crisis - with guns and soldiers and people streaming along evacuation routes.  How has Obama done?  Professor Goldberg is not impressed by the performance.

Now fate has given Obama a chance to be presidential rather than pretend. Taking advantage of the Olympic distraction in Beijing, the Russians invaded South Ossetia, a territory on the north side of Georgia, a democratic U.S. ally. Out of the blocks, the Russians bombed civilians, rolled tanks across an internationally recognized border and threatened to launch an all-out, destabilizing war. Now it looks as if their army has cut Georgia in two...

...Obama's response?

First, late Thursday evening, he gave a conventional written statement calling for calm, U.N. action and "restraint" from both sides -- followed an hour later by a slightly stronger condemnation of Russian aggression and a call for a cease-fire.

The invasion of Georgia elicited a wan written communique instead of the sort of exciting rhetoric we've come to expect from his make-believe presidency. But he did make it in front of the cameras the next day for a rally celebrating his vacation in Hawaii. He promised "to go body surfing at some undisclosed location."

Not inspiring.

By Monday, both Bush and Obama were playing catch-up to Sen. John McCain, who seemed to have grasped the gravity from the get-go and whose support for Georgia is long-standing. He took the lead from the outset, demanding on Friday morning an emergency meeting of NATO and Western aid to the fledgling democracy.

Even the mainstream media couldn't avoid covering McCain.  At least they have some pride left.

The geopolitical significance of Russia's invasion of Georgia at this stage is hard to gauge. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may not wish to revive the Soviet Union or the Cold War, but he clearly seeks to restore Russia's imperial stature. And Item One on that agenda is to crush Georgia's independence and smother hopes for NATO's expansion to Russia's "near abroad."

The campaign significance for Obama is easier to calculate. He has been playacting at being presidential in order to convince voters that we live in a "new moment" with "new challenges" -- and that he is the president we need for this new era.

This moment calls for more than playacting, yet Obama looks lost without a presidential script. Events in the Caucasus -- and, for that matter, in Beijing -- suggest that the times aren't so new after all. Two powerful antidemocratic foes are once again flexing their muscles at a moment when America seems weak and distracted.

That is not a new challenge but a very old one. Perhaps this is not a time for a novice spouting grand rhetoric about a new page in history, but for someone who's actually read the pages of some old, but still relevant, books. Perhaps this is not the time for playacting.

From Goldberg's pen to the voters' eyes.  It hasn't shown up in the polls yet, but we can hope the American people see the difference between an amateur, Obama, and a professional, McCain, as we travel through this latest foreign crisis.  They will also see the difference between someone who cares about these things, and someone who often appears to regard foreign threats as an inconvenient truth.

August 12, 2008.      Permalink          

THE COST OF GEORGIA

Posted at 6:58 a.m. ET

We've been subjected to years of whining over our "image" abroad.  The current Georgia crisis can have a real impact, a huge impact, on that image, yet very few in the chattering classes seem to care.  It doesn't matter what you each feel we should do, or even say, in this situation.  What counts here is the opinion of the average guy in countries that have tried to be our allies.

Wes Pruden, who has always had a good sense of how actual humans react in these situations, reports on the cost:

His critics ought to give George W. a little credit. He famously looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and saw a soul. That's more than anybody else has ever found there.

We all learn lessons. Harry S. Truman, everybody's favorite no-nonsense president, met Stalin for the first time and thought he could "do business" with him. The Cold War followed soon afterward. Tyrants charm the unwary.

But President Bush says he's been talking tough to Putin about Georgia.

Given the givens, the tough talk is probably all the answer Mr. Putin's regime should fear. President George H.W. Bush obviously meant it in that different time and place when he told Saddam Hussein that his seizure of Kuwait "will not stand." Georgia is an ally of the West, having sent 2,000 soldiers to Iraq, but nobody expects to see American tanks and bombers answer Russian tanks and bombers to settle a family feud.

And...

Brutal as it is, the Russian invasion didn't surprise the observant. The message to the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, was clear enough: Forget any idea of taking Georgia into NATO. The Russians had been massing hundreds of tanks and light armor on the border for months, waiting for the moment. Now George W. is busy in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran is unfinished business. Flush with oil riches and buoyed on dreams of restoring Soviet glory, with the prospect of an inexperienced peacenik president at the threshold of the White House, Mr. Putin found his moment.

And the payoff...

It was deja vu all over again. "The Russians will be here tomorrow," a villager in Tkviav tells a correspondent for the London Times. "They want to show us and the world how powerful they are. Tomorrow it will be Ukraine and nobody in the West is doing anything to stop them." A farmer tells another correspondent: "Why won't America and NATO help us? If they won't help us, why did we help them in Iraq?"

If not the Americans, who? America the Beautiful has been transformed into America the Bully, if you listen to the likes of Barack Obama and the glassy-eyed cult crying for mindless "change." But not if you listen to the pleading voices of the brutalized with no one else to turn to. The pitiful cries for help - "Why won't America help us?" - would break a banker's heart.

Please note that line:  "Why won't America and NATO help us?  If they won't help us, why did we help them in Iraq?"  Okay, it doesn't mean we have to jump every time someone wants our aid.  But don't be shocked if the governments of the nations on Russia's rim start acting a bit standoffish toward us, a but hesitant about appearing too pro-American, a bit suspicious about our real intentions.  That may well be the cost of Georgia.  And it's change you can believe in, even if you hate it.

But the professionally anti-Bush crowd is far more concerned about public opinion in French universities than about this.  A price will be paid.

August 12, 2008.      Permalink