[…] Which explains Putin stopping the Russian army (for now) short of Tbilisi. What everyone overlooks in the cease-fire terms is that all future steps — troop withdrawals, territorial arrangements, peacekeeping forces — will have to be negotiated between Russia and Georgia. But Russia says it will not talk to Saakashvili. Thus regime change becomes the first requirement for any movement on any front. This will be Putin’s refrain in the coming days. He is counting on Europe to pressure Saakashvili to resign and/or flee to “give peace a chance.”
The Finlandization of Georgia would give Russia control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which is the only significant westbound route for Caspian Sea oil and gas that does not go through Russia. Pipelines are the economic lifelines of such former Soviet republics as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan that live off energy exports. Moscow would become master of the Caspian basin.
Subduing Georgia has an additional effect. It warns Russia’s former Baltic and East European satellites what happens if you get too close to the West. It is the first step to reestablishing Russian hegemony in the region.
What is to be done? Let’s be real. There’s nothing to be done militarily. What we can do is alter Putin’s cost-benefit calculations.
1. Suspend the NATO-Russia Council established in 2002 to help bring Russia closer to the West. Make clear that dissolution will follow suspension. The council gives Russia a seat at the NATO table. Message: Invading neighboring democracies forfeits the seat.
2. Bar Russian entry to the World Trade Organization.
3. Dissolve the G-8. Putin’s dictatorship long made Russia’s presence in this group of industrial democracies a farce, but no one wanted to upset the bear by expelling it. No need to. The seven democracies simply withdraw. (And if Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, who has been sympathetic to Putin’s Georgia adventure, wants to stay, he can have an annual G-2 dinner with Putin.) Then immediately announce the reconstitution of the original G-7.
4. Announce a U.S.-European boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi. To do otherwise would be obscene. Sochi is 15 miles from Abkhazia, the other Georgian province just invaded by Russia. The Games will become a riveting contest between the Russian, Belarusan and Jamaican bobsled teams.
Charles Krauthammer: Cómo parar a Putin?
No, significa que estar cerca de Rusia supone el riesgo de que los tanques rusos te dejen sin casa en un plis-plas. Pero tú eso ya lo habías entendido. Ocurre que si lo hace Rusia es siempre una milésima de lo que hagan otros. Sean quien sean. Porque son los buenos, no?
Tu segunda observación no merece más que un comentario: lee, anda, que aquí si nos hemos ocupado de dilucidar quienes, cuándo y dónde. Y después de leer, Jose María, reanudamos la discusión.
Es tremendo, leeis el nombre de Krauthammer y os poneis locos!
Subduing Georgia has an additional effect. It warns Russia’s former Baltic and East European satellites what happens if you get too close to the West. It is the first step to reestablishing Russian hegemony in the region.
¿Eso significa que estar cerca de occidente equivale a invadir territorios que no desean formar parte del estado agresor?
Moscow would become master of the Caspian basin. ¡Acabáramos! Ahí es donde os duele a los neocones, el plan para dominar el petróleo de la zona del Caspio ha fracasado.
Curiosa la necedad de los neocones, podéis invadir Irak, Líbano, Kosovo, bombardear quizás Irán, y todo ello “legalmente” y con la bendición mediática, Rusia no hace ni una milésima parte de eso y ya andáis mintiendo, porque es mentir conscientemente decir que Rusia invade o amenaza sin explicar de dónde y de quién ha partido la agresión.