Economic Warfare

[Brian Hanley]

Interesting. Nice try Vladimir. :-)

I think I've posted here about that little Georgia war. I ran an office in Tbilisi for 5 years up until 2005. Saw the transition to Saakishvili. I'll quickly recap my thoughts on that and segue into what I think this attempt probably means.

I think the Kremlin decided that McCain was going to pull an October surprise in Georgia, pull the US into kicking some Russian ass to drive their troops back from Tskhinvali in order to throw the presidency to the republicans. Their reasons are: A. Saakishvili needed it to prop himself up. B. Saakishvili had been paying the guy McCain chose for SecDef as Georgia's lobbyist. C. McCain chose Saakisvili to succeed "Heavy Schevy." D. The republicans were clearly on the ropes. (E. It's what they would do in a heartbeat to keep power.)

So, Putin and the boys decided to pop it off early when it they would be in control, and could kick some Georgian ass instead. Saakishvili's government is crawling with FSB agents. And frankly, I have to say, Saakishvili is a good sycophant, but he's just - well - the guy ain't very bright. Since lobbyists always over-indulge their clients, it was no big deal to get Saakishvili to think he should attack during the Olympics. (Schevardnadze never would have.)

Putin knew that he would be in the stands with George Bush, able to watch him at the Olympics. When the balloon went up in Georgia, there he was. I watched him on TV during the opening preamble looking at Bush as Bush was told about it, and then Putin was conferring with his guys. Check the archives if you doubt me. I said right then what was going on - that Putin was using this as his final way to convince Kremlin doubters of the wisdom of his plan. The Kremlin boys have learned about us that our politicians are led around by the nose by our news media. And they knew the Olympics would be just too big a distraction for the Georgia war to get press. And that is why the war started at the Olympic opening, and wound up the day before the end. Nice, neat, tidy, and our politicians didn't have to give a damn.

Consequently, it does not surprise me at all that Putin and company would attempt to try to get the Chinese to whack us with a big stick at the same time. Thinking this through, I would bet good money that there was a contingency plan to extend the Georgia war and push all the way through Georgia, taking control of the capital and annexing the nation back into the Russian Federation. (Georgia was a province of Russia for longer than the USA has been a nation.) I'd bet that the idea was, that if the Chinese could be talked into doing that, it would slam the USA economy so as to make a US military response a non-starter inside the beltway. A quick little blitz, then lock down Georgia until the house-to-house fighting is over. In America, if a War falls in the forest and nobody reports it, it didn't happen.

But, the Chinese are no dummies. I am certain they saw right through it and knew darn well it wouldn't be in their interest. It would have critically weakened China too, because we are in a bit of a deadly embrace these days.

I have said for many years now that the long term Russian Federation plan is to wait until the USA tires, try to provoke nations like Iran and whomever else into provoking a US military response. The long term plan is to be able to waltz in when the USA tires out and runs out of money - then take control of the Middle East. After all, it is as much their backyard as Mexico is ours. In the interim, the Russians learned all about what happens when a nation overspends on military and gets bogged down - we pushed them into that to end the cold war. As Russia sees it, since we have no significant trade relations with them, our loss is their gain.