GWB won’t do a thing. He’s weak, a lame duck, and couldn’t get Congress to declare in favor of Mom and Apple Pie.
Georgia is done for. It will die, but hardly as hard as Wretchard believes. They’ve been beat, and beat before, repeatedly and know in their hearts they are just not big enough to fight.
After this, likely Ukraine, Belorussia, and Poland. Perhaps other nations in Eastern Europe: Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, etc.
Europe bet the farm that Gary Brecher was correct, that war between industrialized nations was “over” due to the evolving nature of humanity. See also Barack Hussein Obama.
What this does domestically is show the total failure of Obama-messiah public relations against Putin. Let alone Ahmadinejad. Everyone understands WHY Georgia was conquered. They weren’t strong enough to deter Putin and Russia. Lacking Arms, nukes, and men.
The whole international system that Obama touts failed. It failed to stop a Russian attack. It failed to preserve the Georgian state. It failed to keep peace. FORCE, and the overwhelming threat of force, credibly used, is the only thing that keeps peace. Georgia’s alliances with the US, other nations, it’s participation in international peacekeeping efforts, did nothing.
Nor will NATO function. There is no NATO. No armed force in Europe save Russia, and drawn-down US. That’s it. Russia could crush all of Eastern Europe and while it would cost them, what would NATO do? Send a sharply worded letter of regret? Trade Paris for Moscow in nuclear exchanges?
European arms consist of a few border guards and “diversity” programs to insure gay peacekeepers in the Congo and the like. Disarmament has it’s price and we are seeing it now.
But domestically, this is akin to the Soviets rolling into Afghanistan. Ending any semblance of Detente because you can’t deal with them. It kills Carter-Obamaism DEAD.
Also, any effort at alliance building. We won’t lift a finger for Georgia, and other nations at the periphery of China and Russia will simply make deals.
The other outcome of this will be the requirement for the US to remilitarize, with a 800 or more ship Navy, new Aircraft Carrier groups, new strategic bombers (probably unmanned) and far more work on space defense of our satellites, quick launch capacity, and rebuilding the “big Army” and Marines. No more small war insurgencies. That’s dead too. With Russia gambling on it all.
Russia’s play is to help Iran’s nukes along, even giving them a few, and pointing them at the West ala Putin’s “story” quoted by Wretchard to Natan Sharansky. using the chaos and global crash in trade to make moves to simply seize people and nations to extract tribute. It’s not like Russia will make money any other way, and this should be seen in the light of Russia chasing off foreign direct investment like BP and their people to simply take investments.
