…It kind of makes you wish they had, I dunno, an expert on Russia somewhere high up in the State Department… like someone whose dissertation was on the military in 20th c. Eastern Europe, perhaps.

To us in the West (myself included), it looks as if Russia has only harmed its international image. This isn’t the way Russia (specifically its leadership) looks at things though. Russia has had an inferiority complex to the U.S. since the end of the Cold War. This isn’t helped in the way the U.S. has dealt with Russia since then: like a vanquished foe who doesn’t deserve much respect and is only to be given directives to, not negotiated with.

Having some oil clout is one way to bolster its ego and knocking the U.S. down a peg by showing that Russia can do what it wants in its backyard is another. Personally, I don’t think that losing $16.4 billion in capital and the world’s goodwill is worth pushing around the Georgians. Still, this brings up the old argument of which a leader would rather have from his people: love or fear. North Korea is another example of an inferiority complex and constant efforts to try to join the nuclear club in order to gain more respect (fear).

I’m not saying that Russia made the right move in regards to Georgia, but I am saying that Russia made a statement it felt it had to make in order to gain more respect (and they timed it perfectly, as you noted in your post). I think this is only a continuation of the strategy of bullying that Russia started once oil prices rose steeply after 1998.

Pushing around the Ukraine and others by using gas politics apparently leads to violence against smaller neighbors. Putin has also said that he doesn’t like how many NATO naval ships are in the area. When asked about what he’d do about it he said recently “You’ll see.” Idomu kas bus toliau…

J.V.