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Russian Official: Russia Will Absorb South Ossetia, Eventually

Well, no one's exactly surprised by that.

The fight here is to make sure they don't try to absorb all of Georgia, or turn it into a KGB puppet.

Posted by: Ace at 04:20 PM



Comments

1 But but but it was all about Ossetian independence!!!1! This can't be!

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at August 29, 2008 04:23 PM (0+Ggj)

2 We will add your technological and cultural distinctiveness into our own.

Posted by: Putin of Borg at August 29, 2008 04:23 PM (GwV+j)

3 Is it just because I'm a Krout that I'm so disturbed by the basic principle that seems to be implicit in what's going on here? Theres a lawful border here, but it's a recently established border, and people on one side of it have an ethno-linguistic identification with people on the other side, so that makes the border immaterial? If the mounties get too aggressive with some rioters in Quebec, does that mean Canada is starting something with France? BAD THINGS NEED TO HAPPEN TO HEADS OF STATE WHO PULL THIS.

Posted by: Dave M at August 29, 2008 04:32 PM (A96BE)

4 I still think that Putin (and this is Putin's play; you can see the strings leading from Medvedev's limbs to putin's hands) might have miscalculated here. Russia knows that they are basically a third-world country; the oil wealth boom time won't last, and Putin is as well-aware of that as anybody. The Russian birth-rate is crashing, which means that in a few decades Russia may well cease to be in any meaningful sense of the word. That old enemy China presses in from the East; the Muslims agitate in the South; from the West NATO looms; and to oppose those specters of disaster, you have a corrupt, shrinking, and alcoholic Russian population dreaming of (largely illusory) former glory.

Putin's intent was to bring Georgia to heel, and to remind Ukraine and the Baltics who still holds the whip. The effect, however, was to drive those very same countries into a closer embrace with NATO.

Russia is using a lot of bellicose language (such as threatening Poland with a nuclear strike) that seems pretty ill-considered, even for such nekulturny barbarians as the Russians. And yet there seems to be a positively existential fear among Russians, and Russian existential fear often manifests in some pretty unpleasant ways. Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Lenin, and then Stalin -- the instinct is to lash out, to create "buffer zones" to protect the Rodina, to suppress dissent and remove "enemies of the state". The next step in this little waltz is for Putin to finish the job of nationalizing Russia's industry and ruthlessly purging the state of "dissenters".

New boss, same as the old boss. You can't always trust the Russians to behave rationally, but you can always trust the Russians to act like Russians.

Posted by: Monty at August 29, 2008 04:34 PM (4Pleu)

5

Well if your going to do a land grab, this is the time to do it.

 

I get the polotics of Putin doing this, but what are the economics of absorbing South Ossetia? It looks like it will be a rubel sucking state that will return nothing for a very long time, if ever. I dont think Putin will try an entire land grab of Georgia anytime soon, but it does not bode well that the bear is awake and hungry and looking to expand its sphere of power. Ukraine, Mongolia, Moldova, Central Asiaian stans, and the Baltic states(to a lesser degree) should all be worried.

Posted by: jeff at August 29, 2008 04:39 PM (3ZswP)

6 This will happen.....if BO wins it happens sooner than if McCain wins. BO will do nothing about it.

Posted by: RobG at August 29, 2008 04:41 PM (8Yrry)

7

Monty, Putin is trying to increase the birthrate and decrease the abortion rate of Russian Christians. He has decided (rightly) that the way to do that is to give his people hope for the future. The problem is that he thinks the best way is to win "victories", on the model of Reagan in Grenada.

Whether all this improves life as an Abkhazian in Abkhazia or as an Ossetian in Ossetia (as Reagan actually did improve life in Grenada) is beside the point for Putin.

Putin will eventually run out of pipsqueaks to bully, if he hasn't already. He is in for a very short, unpleasant and possibly radioactive lesson if he doesn't wise up.

Posted by: David Ross at August 29, 2008 04:47 PM (GwV+j)

8

Monty: Russia has lost home for the future, and that is why its birthrate has been so low and its abortion rate so high for this generation, which is now at its last years of healthy childbearing age. Putin understands this. Putin also understands that giving the people "victory" is a cheap way to improve national morale. He's even got a moral argument that Abkhazians and Ossetians would be better off under absentee protection than at the mercy of the local Turks, Georgians and Chechens. He's doing a Grenada.

I personally think that Putin has mishandled this; he is going to run out of pipsqueak unpopular ethnics to "protect" against other pipsqueak unpopular ethnics. And then he's going to turn on people who don't take that shit with Russians, like Polacks. I believe he's already reached that stage.

Putin is due for a sharp, unpleasant lesson in manners if he doesn't shape up.

Posted by: David Ross at August 29, 2008 04:54 PM (GwV+j)

9 bah, double post. minx crashed on me during the first one. Sorry.

Posted by: David Ross at August 29, 2008 04:58 PM (GwV+j)

10 Let me get this right:
Russia invading Georgia is on a par with the Germans invading Rhett and Scarlet's hometown.
Well, actually, to keep the metonymic truth correct, the Germans started with the Anshluss and the Sudentenland, and it was a US General who burned down German-occupied Atlanta.
Or something like that. I really can't figure out who s talking about who on this damned blog.
Deconstructionism is the fog of war d/b/a treacherous vocabulary.

Posted by: The Railsplitter at August 29, 2008 05:10 PM (o4MaC)

11 I hope Russia gets indigestion from eating Ossetia. Serve 'em right.

Posted by: chuck in st paul at August 29, 2008 05:28 PM (jDpso)

12

Hmm. Russia is getting pushy. Maybe having someone in the next administration who's familiar with the Arctic might be useful. Hmm.

Posted by: andycanuck at August 29, 2008 05:32 PM (qKkaY)

13 but it does not bode well that the bear is awake and hungry and looking to expand its sphere of power

And yet the bear looks out into it's lake - the Black Sea - and trembles because there's more NATO firepower on that lake than Russian...

Posted by: I R A Darth Aggie at August 29, 2008 06:07 PM (1hM1d)

14 I wonder what that Canadian douchebag "journalist" Gwyn Dyer has to say about this. Last week he wrote a column claiming that the Russians had acted to protect the independence of the Ossetians.

Posted by: Jack Bauer's Evil Brother at August 29, 2008 07:02 PM (OqYSc)

15 Russia's decision here is, of course, BS.

Before Sarah.

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at August 29, 2008 08:33 PM (jPxd2)

16 We do this because Russia needs more goats.

Posted by: Putin at August 29, 2008 10:45 PM (xIUG5)

17 If you look at a map, you'll see that the section known as NORTH Ossetia is part of Russia (it's much larger than South Ossetia). They never moved for independence, and the guys that Michael Totten spoke to made it clear: this is about leveraging ethnic groups against governments that Russia doesn't like.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at August 29, 2008 10:58 PM (0+Ggj)

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