This is easy enough to fix. Bush merely has to call Putin and give him 5 minutes to explain why the US shouldn’t give Georgia a handful of nuclear weapons and delivery systems capable of reaching Moscow. They could threaten to do likewise with various bad actors but I don’t think even Putin is stupid enough to down that road when the easy way out is to just pull back.
Right now the Russians hold all of the cards and the west is begging them to act against their interests and totalitarian instincts. The only card Georgia could possibly hold that would change things on the ground would be a nuclear one. The psychological inversion of Putin having to be the one to beg for a different outcome would be very instructive to him.
Putin is a narcissistic, psychopathic, serial killer who can’t bear even the slightest of criticisms. He murders his enemies without regard to borders or status and now he has decided to rearrange the political roster of a neighboring country. He will have to be dealt with sooner or later and the only language he understands is force. Better now than later.
There is no use in risking men and treasure. The Georgians can make the decision on when and if to pull the nuclear trigger. It’s not like the Russians have been exactly helpful in keeping other nations from acquiring nuclear weapons. Had they been helpful to the free world in any way regarding proliferation or the war on terror then things might be different. As it is, there is no reason why many of the former Soviet possessions shouldn’t be similarly armed… and we are just the people to make it happen.
We really don’t have many other other options. We can fly an air cap over Georgia if we can find bases or we can threaten Russian possessions such as Cuba but none of these are as effective as giving the victims of Russian aggression the proper means of defending themselves.
We can’t be the world policeman… but we can be the armory of democracy. There are certainly plenty of people in Moscow who have been actively arming the other side.
