Thursday, August 14, 2008

Who Wins in Georgia, Internationally?

Could it be Russia? That's what the opinion of this article on ynet thinks.

2 comments:

Pelmo said...

What is scary to me, having been born in Lithuania, could this be the start by Russia to regain all those territories they have lost in the past twenty years. The U.S. and all its NATO allies have to get tuff with Russia.

But as usual, oil has become the dominant factor as Russia is a big player on that stage.

Steve said...

NATO really can't intervene - it's a mutual defense treaty - if one member state is attacked, the others agree to participate in the defense. Georgia is not a member state, so there's not really a NATO issue involved.

As for the United States - I'm not sure what we can do - We are not in a treaty with Georgia, we have no plenary authority to act, and committing forces would violate War Powers. Atop this is the very real fact that we have already committed forces in two nations and do not have the resources to take on a third front, particularly when that third front is Russia.

Understand that I am not saying that Russia is right, nor am I saying they are wrong. What I am saying is that, based on my understanding, there is little, if anything, we can do about this, short of declaring war, which may violate UN regulations and LOAC...