Idle Talk

[tongodeon]

In 1991 during the first Gulf War, President Bush Senior encouraged the Shia in the south of Iraq to revolt against Saddam. American intelligence realized that the consequences of this uprising - a disintegrated and disoragnized Iraq - would be difficult and unmanageable. American support never came to support the rebels we had supported and

Comments

[ikkyu2]

Do you think Russia would have attacked a NATO member?

[tongodeon]

You're right - Russia would have been less likely to attack Georgia if our invitation to NATO had succeeded. And Russia would have been less likely to attack if we'd never invited Georiga in the first place. Just like there wouldn't have been a massacre in Iraq if the Iraqis had never rebelled, or if the rebellion had been successful. In both cases the actual outcome was the worst case scenario - a local minimum. Anything else would have been better than what either Bush actually accomplished.

[catbear]

> proud to stand with those pipelines you've got there.

FTFY

[swingland]

As horrible as this sounds, at least it happened now instead of after an official NATO welcoming. I think that neither Russia nor the US would benefit greatly from an outright shooting war. Well, Russia could if they were able to out and out rout whatever forces we managed to send to Georgia.

[rwx]

I think the main difference is that we signaled to the Russians that this sort of thing was fair, reprisal-less game over Kosovo, and also that the US is so overcommitted militarily that there's essentially nothing we can do.

I think that second point was what must have been entirely obvious to the Russians -- there's effectively nothing that we can do to back Georgia, even if we wanted to. The US' military is committed to two different conflicts and has huge morale/retention problems, and the US' international prestige is at a post-WWII low such that even if we were to go on a stump for others to help Georgia it wouldn't achieve anything.

The net effect of this is that I think the prime difference between this time and 1991 is that if we had wanted to help Georgia we wouldn't have been able to. So, it isn't necessarily an example of Bush's fecklessness so much as Russia sensing a moment of free action.

[bedpimp]

This man