The EU are trying to organise a cease-fire, the USA and the UK are calling the Russians names, the Russians say they're protecting ethnic Russians in South Ossetia from ethnic cleansing, the Georgians say the Russians are trying to annex Georgia...

The objective media seem to be totally confused - nobody knows who jumped first. Georgia say they were responding to military action by Russian-backed seperatists in South Ossetia and that the rapid deployment of armour columns by the Russians show it was an invasion planned long in advance, meanwhile the Russians say the USA encouraged Georgia to provoke them, claiming the Americans' aiding the swift return of Georgian troops from Iraq as evidence.

How can we be four days into this conflict and still the media doesn't know who started it? I thought this was the information age?

So I suppose we should ignorantly speculate - this is a web forum after all, it's what we do best. Is this a revitalised Russia making excuses to take back old Soviet territories, or another fuel-related military action by the USA and its allies?

It is bad business for the US/EU for Georgia to be in conflict as the pipeline from the middle east runs through there.

From what I gathered from the news, Georgia was going to quash the militia when Russia stepped in. But Russia has always backed the break away factions (look how they have moved into Abkhazia), I think really it is Russia trying to reclaim old USSR territory.

What even happens next it isn't going to be pretty.

[edit: This makes it sound like it is Russia trying to reclaim old soil, more so this:

"It started out making legal humanitarian arguments for intervening.

But the further Russian troops penetrate into Georgian territory, the less credible that is.

The worrying thought is - has this crisis now gone too far for Russia to care how it affects its international reputation."]

Russia is invading, USA wants that(peace, but obviously they wont get it) so they can fight against Russia

The whole situation is extremely confusing, but from what I can tell both sides were prepared for a fight, and both sides have killed civilians.

Georgia wanted to gain control of south osettia, Russia saw an opportunity and decided to join in. They fought for a few days(supposively) and now theres reports that russia is invading non-disputed georgian territory, and has actually taken over a city or two. I dunno what's really going on, that's just what I read...

A couple of interesting articles:

http://www.belgraviadispatch.c ... 8/georgia_on_my_mind.html
http://crookedtimber.org/2008/ ... ritorial-integrity-norms/

also, c&p'd from another forum I post on:

Quote :

Borders there, and really everywhere that there are (non-resource based) independence movements are usually a product of more or less arbitrary post colonial/soviet line drawing. Ossetia became part of Georgia because of Soviet governance, though it had considerable autonomy that Georgia wanted to take away when it became independent of the USSR. Georgia was unsuccessful in 1991 and they are now (unsuccessfully) trying again.

S.O. should probably have independence, but it's not like Georgia was attacking some sovereign nation. Regardless it seems like Russia's response is disproportionate to the degree that it's probably part of some larger effort to debilitate the country as a whole (maybe in order to exert direct political control?), show its muscle in the region, and call the U.S./nato bluff that we would support our allies.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

blaa blaa

That sounds about spot on to me.

I can't see how Nato are going to respond to this in all honesty. At the moment the only action they will take is political.

If/when Nato ground troops move in I hope that it is solely for peace keeping purposes to monitor the region. If Russia refuse to budge, then I'd start to get a bit worried for several reasons.

1. Russia are war warmongering (one way or another) and if left untracked they will gain confidence and continue to bully other small states in the region.

2. This will show Nato as completely toothless.

3. If Nato were to move in with a force of some sort, other than a peace keeping mission (after a Russian withdrawal), I would get particularly worried about the stability of eastern Europe and how the situation might escalate.

Well,the situation is tight,in estonia theres a american navy ship,and a NATO-s Fighter flew above estonia 2 days ago,i think the american navy ship is here in case russia trys to attack us.
Russia was trying to make up excuses to attack baltic states,this text was on russian media:There were body's of soldiers from baltic states and asians,and they tried to help georgia,well noway,cause estonia needs soldiers them self right now,so i hope 3-rd world war isnt coming

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

The worrying thought is - has this crisis now gone too far for Russia to care how it affects its international reputation."

If it really is just the Russians excusing an invasion, then we've basically given them all the justification they need and their international reputation will be no worse than ours.

Want to attack an independent sovereign state? Say they attacked first or they would've been capable of attacking first! Can't get the UN to agree to it? Do it anyway, you've got veto powers!

Quote from bmwe30m3 :

Well,the situation is tight,in estonia theres a american navy ship,and a NATO-s Fighter flew above estonia 2 days ago,i think the american navy ship is here in case russia trys to attack us.

NATO fighters fly over here all the time since we don´t have fighters ourselves. And there´s nothing unusual about a US ship in our ports. That happens all the time too. You seem to think that in the case of an Russian attack USA would actually help... How naive. They´ll probably say some diplomatic bullshit and be done with that.


Russia is showing his muscle and testing the West about their reactions, which have been absolutely toothless. Italy has even shown support to Russia. It´s exactly like Germany´s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Then the excuse was to defend the Germans living in Sudetenland and it is the Russian reasoning now too. And the West seems to be just looking on like in 1939. It is extremely scary because since there are hundreds of thousands of Russians living here (which weren´t here before WW2) Russia could use that stupid excuse against us or a number of other former Soviet states.

I can think of more recent invasions that were carried out using the excuse of protecting their citizens.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

How can we be four days into this conflict and still the media doesn't know who started it? I thought this was the information age?

Because we don't know what information is right and what information is coming out of the Russian propaganda machine.

The UN can't do much with it because Russia is a UN country.

From what I can gather from teh crap coverage, the Georgian Govt. say they came under fire from some armed seperatists, so launched an offensive against SO. The Russians were already there as peacekeepers and fired back. It's early, but I *think* Georgia then pretty much levelled the main city in SO, with reports of genocide/ethnic cleansing happening on both sides depending on who you listen to.

I think Georgia only had the guile to invade SO because they are matey with the US due to the new shiny oil/gas pipeline, and also that this is one of the places that the US wants to put it's missile defence umbrella. Georgia playing along pretty much gets them into NATO.

There were reports of the US flying Georgian forces back from Iraq to join the conflict.
Shortly after this there were reports of Tblisi airport being hit.

It doesn't seem that different from when Saddam invaded Kuwait and UK/US kicked him back out.
The difference seems to be that Kuwait was a bona fide country, whereas SO is just a self autonomous region.


As I said, that is how I see things atm...but limited news means there are a lot of holes.
I did discover that we have a channel called 'Russia Today' on Sky TV, obviously biased one way, but with the coverage on BBC etc biased the other, the truth should be somewhere in between.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Can't get the UN to agree to it? Do it anyway, you've got veto powers!

Don't forget that The Russian Federation is not apart of the UNSC per say. However the USSR is, and the Russian Federation is considered a successor state to that but the 23rd Article of the UN's Charter has never been amended. So really, to the letter of the law, they do, but they don't.

Quote from Bean0 :

'Russia Today'

That´s just a Russian propaganda channel in English. You shouldn´t believe a word they say. I remember during the Bronze night they showed a couple with huge bunch of flowers and said that it was a young couple bringing flowers to the monument of the "liberators"... Except in the background there was a looted flower kiosk.


Georgia has retreated deep into it´s own territory and offered Russia a truce. Russia has refused. That in my opinion shows which side wants a conflict and which side wants to end it.

Quote from Kalev EST :

Georgia has retreated deep into it´s own territory and offered Russia a truce. Russia has refused. That in my opinion shows which side wants a conflict and which side wants to end it.

True. But the Georgian president seems like a difficult guy to trust too. And a bit of an idiot.

I suppose that's why it's difficult to figure out what's actually happening over there.

Quote from Bean0 :

I did discover that we have a channel called 'Russia Today' on Sky TV, obviously biased one way, but with the coverage on BBC etc biased the other, the truth should be somewhere in between.

Your probably right. Chances are the people living there don't even know what it's about.

I do realise that the channel is 100% biased, but on Friday when all the news on other channels was about the Olympics, it was the only one with any coverage of the conflict.

Being a journalist, this conflict confirms the saying: "The first victim of a war is the truth".

At the moment it is actually a petty argument on who started it and it will be for years to come.

As I see it, it just comes down to oil, like any other recent conflict, as Georgia has one of the most important pipelines to supply good old Europe and Russia is trying for some years now to gain control over the oil and gas supply of Europe either by political, economical means, or nowadays simply by force.

I do share the sorrow that this geographically small conflict might have very serious consequences globally. There are several different scenarios I can think of:

1) The EU and the US try to stop it diplomatically, Medwed and Putin give us the finger, South Ossetia becomes part of the Russian Federation, Georgia a puppet state of Russia. Russia will learn that it can bully Europe and the US around without fearing consequences, making living in any non-EU eastern country not very comfortable. Additionally, the EU and the US lose their moralic high-ground as watchers of freedom, democracy and reason, as they did nothing relevant to protect their values. Thus, both would lose importance and credibility on an international level.

2) The US, possibly with EU, or at least British support, shows some muscle in the region and forces a cease fire by a considerably strong military presence in Georgia. South Ossetia might still become part of Russia as that's what the Ossetian people wants anyway, but georgia might keep it's independance to an extend (they certainly will "return the favour to the west", which makes tham a puppet state of the US basically). Also, that would possibly teach the Russians that the West isn't as toothless as they think it is (and admitedly, as toothless as the West acts nowadays)

But that scenario offers a very high risk: Even an accidental exchange of fire between Western and Russian forces could spark a full fledged armed conflict, which might ultimaely lead to another world war.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

Being a journalist, this conflict confirms the saying: "The first victim of a war is the truth".

At the moment it is actually a petty argument on who started it and it will be for years to come.

As I see it, it just comes down to oil, like any other recent conflict, as Georgia has one of the most important pipelines to supply good old Europe and Russia is trying for some years now to gain control over the oil and gas supply of Europe either by political, economical means, or nowadays simply by force.

Maybe. Russia does have enough oil for itself.

This cartoonist seems to think the same as you:

The sad truth is Russia knows they can get away with it, as they control most fuel resources to the EU if we say "Oi! No! That is naughty, do it again and you'll get a spanked botty" they will turn off the supply out of spite. So they are going to push their luck for as long as they can until someone gets the balls to step in and stop them.

But that will require quite a lot of escalation and I think the Russians will know when to slow down a bit to avoid ramification.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

they will turn off the supply out of spite.

This has happened already not that long ago anyway. See here.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

blaa blaa

I think you said more eloquently what I was attempting to say Maybe because you are a journalist...and I'm an engineer...I have to make it complicated for no reason.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Is this a revitalised Russia making excuses to take back old Soviet territories, or another fuel-related military action by the USA and its allies?

Seems to me that the Emperor Elect Of Georgia played right into a game that has been set up a long time ago on the board.

I've just read that Russia decided to stop the operations a couple of minutes ago (at least that's what the media says).

Aye, seems so.

BBC Ticker just said this...

"LATEST: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev orders an end to military operation in Georgia. More soon."