They want a tough guy for them and a wuss for us. What a shock.

In light of Euro-wussiness and Russian belligerence, Wess Mitchell argues the US should move its European forces to the east. 

A dangerous cycle could ensue in which US allies feel a sharpened security dilemma and Russia continually tests the limits of its local power position. The net result could be that the vital strategic middle ground between Russia and Europe could gradually come back “into play” for the first time in two decades.

This would not be in the US national interest. While the centrality of Georgia to key American interests may be, as some US commentators allege, debatable, the importance of Central Europe is not. Of the three occasions in the past century when America has been pulled into global conflicts, all originated in the 800-mile strip of land between the Baltic and Black Seas. Only when this region, and with it, the eastern flank of NATO, are unambiguously in the Western ambit can America confidently turn its attention away from Europe and deal from a position of strength with issues further afield.

In an ideal world, the United States would be able to count on the European Union to quell disturbances in what is, after all, Europe’s own strategic hinterland. However, as recent events have shown, many of the EU’s largest states are more interested in avoiding a rupture with Moscow than in protecting the vital interests of the Union’s eastern members.

When Russia launched a cyber attack on Estonia last summer, the EU failed to issue a meaningful response. When Russia threatened to aim nuclear weapons at Poland and the Czech Republic for cooperation on US missile defense, the EU said nothing. And when Russia invaded Georgia, eastern leaders were shocked to find their Western neighbors reluctant, not only to back proposals for a tough EU response, but to assign blame in the conflict at all.

If a convincing message is to be sent to Moscow, it will have to come from the United States. Perhaps it’s too late even for that. Perhaps the majority of analysts are right that America - distracted, out-maneuvered and over-stretched - is no longer capable of a tough response.

But perhaps not. There is one option that has not been discussed that could help to shift the diplomatic playing-field to the West’s favor. The United States should announce its intention to transfer, on a permanent basis, the entire Europe-based American military establishment to new locations in Central Europe.

This should include the EUCOM headquarters and the bulk of the US Seventh Army and Third Air Force - upwards of 60,000 troops. Ideally, these forces and facilities would be distributed between the three largest and most Atlanticist eastern states - Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania - thus covering the northern, southern and central approaches to the region.

Probably not. But actions do have consequences. As Instapundit notes, “It seems that Putin’s bullying is having precisely the opposite effect he intended.”

WHAT HATH PUTIN WROUGHT? Germany Offers Support for Georgia’s NATO Bid:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is offering strong support for Georgia, saying the country is on track to become a member of NATO. Merkel flew to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Sunday, two days after she met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Plus this: Ukraine to join in US-led missile shield in Europe:

Ukraine has agreed to take part in a missile defence system designed by the United States to protect Western countries. The government in Kiev defended its decision for military co-operation with the West, saying Russia cancelled a bilateral treaty with Ukraine earlier this year.

A few days ago, Poland and the United States reached agreement on the siting of missiles on Polish territory. These, together with radar installations in the Czech republic, make up the missile shield. Russia is fiercely opposed to the defence system and has threatened retaliatory measures.

Whiny liberals and assorted sufferers of Bush Derangement Syndrome, this is your moment to learn.

After seven years of whining that America is an imperialist nation with no respect for civil liberties etc., see what a real imperialist police state looks like: Russia.

In June 2001, a hopeful President Bush, unaware that Sept. 11 would unravel the kinder, gentler world his father spoke of, met with Vladimir Putin.

“I looked the man in the eye,” he said of Putin afterward. “I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy, and we had a very good dialogue . . . I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

Turns out the man doesn’t have one.

At that moment the former KGB colonel already was plotting the reacquisition of the lost provinces of the evil empire.

In his annual address to parliament in 2005, Putin made the grotesque claim that the “demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest political catastrophe of the century,” demonstrating a nostalgia for what he considers the good old days that explained his decision to reinstate the old Soviet national anthem and military flag.

When Bush observed the 60th anniversary of VE Day with Putin in Moscow, the Russian leader refused to acknowledge, much less apologize, for Soviet complicity in making World War II happen in the infamous Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact that divided Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin.

Putin also maintains the fiction that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia “invited” the Soviets in, just as he offers a new fiction that Russia was merely responding to Georgian aggression in South Ossetia.

“Stalin was a tyrant whom many call a criminal,” Putin says, “but he wasn’t a Nazi.” Oh.

These are words to ponder as Russian tanks roll toward Gori, birthplace of Stalin, Putin’s hero.

The Russia of Putin has been the No. 1 supplier of weapons to America’s enemies.

In December 2005, Russia announced it would send Iran $700 million worth of TOR-M1 (SA-15) short-range surface-to-air missiles.

They will be part of a national air defense system designed to protect Iranian facilities feverishly working on a nuclear weapon to use against Israel. Moscow has supplied the fuel for the nuclear reactor Iran has built at Bushehr.

Peter Kirsanow at The Corner:

Earlier this year, Obama promised that he would 1. cut investments in “unproven” missile defense systems, 2. slow the development of future combat systems, and 3. not develop new nuclear weapons.

Putin/Medvedev have made no such promises. In fact, just last month Putin instructed the Russian Defense Ministry to accelerate the completion of promising R&D projects.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian military deteriorated significantly — a point of humiliation for Russian nationalists. Although Soviet/Russian military spending has always been difficult to gauge, all indications are that over the last 6-7 years Russian spending on weapons systems — fueled in part by oil and gas revenues — has risen dramatically. This coincides with the new Russian bellicosity in a variety of areas.

John McCain said that when he looks into Putin’s eyes he sees three letters: K-G-B. What does Putin see when he looks into Obama’s eyes?

Laying down markers. 

Poland and the United States reached an agreement Thursday to base American missile interceptors in Poland, the prime minister said, going ahead with a plan that has angered Russia and threatened to escalate tensions with the region’s communist-era master.

Speaking in an interview televised on news channel TVN24, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the United States had agreed to help augment Poland’s defenses with Patriot missiles in exchange for placing 10 missile defense interceptors in the eastern European country.

“We have crossed the Rubicon,” he said, referring to U.S. consent to meet Poland’s demands.

Tusk said the agreement was initialed by negotiators late Thursday in Warsaw and includes a “mutual commitment” between the two nations — beyond that of NATO — to come to each other’s assistance in case of danger.

George Freedman at Stratfor. 

The Russian invasion of Georgia has not changed the balance of power in Eurasia. It simply announced that the balance of power had already shifted. The United States has been absorbed in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as potential conflict with Iran and a destabilizing situation in Pakistan. It has no strategic ground forces in reserve and is in no position to intervene on the Russian periphery. This, as we have argued, has opened a window of opportunity for the Russians to reassert their influence in the former Soviet sphere. Moscow did not have to concern itself with the potential response of the United States or Europe; hence, the invasion did not shift the balance of power. The balance of power had already shifted, and it was up to the Russians when to make this public. They did that Aug. 8.

Let’s begin simply by reviewing the last few days.

On the night of Thursday, Aug. 7, forces of the Republic of Georgia drove across the border of South Ossetia, a secessionist region of Georgia that has functioned as an independent entity since the fall of the Soviet Union. The forces drove on to the capital, Tskhinvali, which is close to the border. Georgian forces got bogged down while trying to take the city. In spite of heavy fighting, they never fully secured the city, nor the rest of South Ossetia.

On the morning of Aug. 8, Russian forces entered South Ossetia, using armored and motorized infantry forces along with air power. South Ossetia was informally aligned with Russia, and Russia acted to prevent the region’s absorption by Georgia. Given the speed with which the Russians responded — within hours of the Georgian attack — the Russians were expecting the Georgian attack and were themselves at their jumping-off points. The counterattack was carefully planned and competently executed, and over the next 48 hours, the Russians succeeded in defeating the main Georgian force and forcing a retreat. By Sunday, Aug. 10, the Russians had consolidated their position in South Ossetia.

(click image to enlarge)

On Monday, the Russians extended their offensive into Georgia proper, attacking on two axes. One was south from South Ossetia to the Georgian city of Gori. The other drive was from Abkhazia, another secessionist region of Georgia aligned with the Russians. This drive was designed to cut the road between the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and its ports. By this point, the Russians had bombed the military airfields at Marneuli and Vaziani and appeared to have disabled radars at the international airport in Tbilisi. These moves brought Russian forces to within 40 miles of the Georgian capital, while making outside reinforcement and resupply of Georgian forces extremely difficult should anyone wish to undertake it. (more…)

Richard N. Weltz in American Thinker

In its lead editorial today, the New York Times once again demonstrates its usual sacrifice of fact and ignorance of history to find a tortuous path for assigning blame to George Bush’s administration for the recent Russian invasion of Georgia — all caused, it is claimed by the horrendous error of befriending a state which reached out in support of the United States and Western Europe.

But, wait. Right across the page in the op-ed section, is an explanation of the actual causes of the current conflict, written by a real expert on the region, whose credentials as research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, indicate a lot more knowledge of the subject than the propagandists who pen editorials for the Times.

He merely provides a sensible and educated insight into the underlying causes of the conflict which, to put it politely, make the Times’s editorial writers appear liars or ignoramuses, or both.

Not only does Russia suffer from a low birth rate, it has a high death rate from AIDS and a whole host of illnesses, many of which begin with vodka.

Russia needn’t have had an AIDS epidemic — it was free of the disease for ten years as the virus caught the west by surprise. But incompetent government let the threat grow.

Now there’s this from UPI on Russian hypermortality.

Publius Pundit:

As we’ve previously reported, Vladimir Putin experienced a series of devastating defeats at the NATO summit in Romania last week.

Russia didn’t want NATO expanded. Two new countries were admitted (Albania and Croatia), and a firm promise of future admission was given to two more (Ukraine and Georgia).

Russia didn’t want defensive missiles in Eastern Europe. NATO unanimously approved their installation.

George Bush, who Putin thought was comfortably in his back pocket, delivered a blistering speech in Ukraine calling for NATO protection against Russian imperialism.

And perhaps worst of all, the NATO policy engineers structured their response so beautifully that it was impossible for Putin to get traction in a PR offensive. He had threatened to boycott the meeting if it didn’t do his bidding, but ended up being forced to attend, hat in hand.

It turns out that all this failure was just a bit too much for the malignant little troll to stand, and according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, he cracked like an egg. The paper reported:

Putin “lost his temper” at the NATO-Russia Council in Bucharest during Friday’s discussions of Ukraine’s bid to join NATO, Kommersant cited an unidentified foreign delegate to the summit as saying. “Do you understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state!” Putin told U.S. President George W. Bush at the closed meeting, the diplomat told Kommersant.

After saying most of Ukraine’s territory was “given away” by Russia, Putin said that if Ukraine joined NATO it would cease to exist as a state, the diplomat said. Putin threatened to encourage the secession of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, where anti-NATO and pro-Moscow sentiment is strong, the diplomat said, Kommersant reported.

When the price of crude comes down — and it will — Russia will once again be revealed as the Third World nation it is.

Rogue military personnel humiliated prisoners at Abu Ghraib and we never hear the end of it, despite those responsible having been prosecuted and sentenced to prison.

Will Russia bear any stain for this?

The cruelty to prisoners often begins prior to their actual sentencing. “When people are transported from prisons to courts to attend their hearings, they are jammed in a tiny room where they can barely stand. There’s no toilet; if they have to relieve themselves, it has to be right there,” says Mr. Ponomarev. “Then they are put on trucks. It’s extremely cold in winter, extremely hot in summer, no ventilation, no heating. These are basically metal containers. They have to be there for hours. Healthy people are held together with people with tuberculosis, creating a breeding ground for the disease.”

Once sentenced, prisoners are transported in packed train wagons to distant correctional colonies that, under Russian law, range from relatively lax “general regime” colonies to “strict,” “special,” and (most terrifying of all) “medical” colonies. Arrival in the camps is particularly harrowing. According to prisoner testimonies collected by Mr. Ponomarev, in the winter of 2005 convicts from one torture colony in Karelia, near the Finnish border, were shipped to the IK-1 torture colony near the village of Yagul, in the Udmurt Republic, about 500 miles east of Moscow.

“The receipt of convicts ‘through the corridor’ takes place in the following manner,” Mr. Ponomarev reports. “From the [truck] in which a newly arrived stage [of prisoners] is brought… employees of the colony line up, equipped with special means — rubber truncheons and dog handlers with work dogs. . . . During the time of the run, each employee hits the prisoner running by with a truncheon. . . . The convicts run with luggage, which significantly complicates the run. At those [places] where employees with dogs are found, the run of the convict is slowed by a dog lunging from the leash.”

Yuri Gagarin was not the first man in space: 

As 40 years have passed since Gagarin’s flight, new sensational details of this event were disclosed: Gagarin was not the first man to fly to space. Three Soviet pilots died in attempts to conquer space before Gagarin’s famous space flight, Mikhail Rudenko, senior engineer-experimenter with Experimental Design Office 456 (located in Khimki, in the Moscow region) said on Thursday.

According to Rudenko, spacecraft with pilots Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov at the controls were launched from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome (in the Astrakhan region) in 1957, 1958 and 1959. “All three pilots died during the flights, and their names were never officially published,” Rudenko said.

HT: Instapundit

Like their sinister Soviet counterparts, today’s Russian media love to depict the USA as equally corrupt as they are. To that end, they have the anti-American American Left giving them an assist.

This time, it’s Dennis Kucinich griping that the New Hampshire Democrat primary vote was rigged. (He actually might have a point.)

Gary Kasparov on how Putin will use his Time magazine endorsement:

Ever since President Vladimir Putin took office eight long years ago, the political and media leadership of the West have had a full-time job trying to look on the bright side of Russia’s rapid turn from democracy.

The free press has been demolished, elections are canceled and rigged, and then we hear how popular Mr. Putin is. Opposition marches are crushed, and we’re told–over and over–how much better off we are today than in the days of the Soviet Union. This week Time magazine named Mr. Putin its 2007 “Person of the Year.”

Unfortunately, there is no silver lining to Russia’s descent into dictatorship. If anything there is a look of iron to it.

Condoleezza Rice, hardly a Putin critic, said recently that Russia “is not an environment in which you can talk about free and fair elections.” A good start, but this comment was not made where one would imagine–perhaps at a press conference insisting that Putin’s Russia be removed from the G-7 for making a mockery of democratic practices. No, her remark came as a side note to her very early endorsement of Mr. Putin’s handpicked heir to the throne, Dmitry Medvedev.

He’s all about oil. He’s power hungry. He stifles free speech. He tramples the constitution. He suppresses Democracy.

George W. Bush?

Nah, Dubya’s done none of that, no matter what the loony left (alas, much of the current Democrat party and the news media) says. No, we’re talking ’bout Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

Sometimes you gotta just laugh:

No one is born with a stare like Vladimir Putin’s. The Russian President’s pale blue eyes are so cool, so devoid of emotion that the stare must have begun as an affect, the gesture of someone who understood that power might be achieved by the suppression of ordinary needs, like blinking. The affect is now seamless, which makes talking to the Russian President not just exhausting but often chilling. It’s a gaze that says, I’m in charge.

While Time frets about Bush’s interpretation of presidential prerogatives, it’s found a dictator to love.

He is passionate in his belief that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a tragedy, particularly since overnight it stranded 25 million ethnic Russians in “foreign” lands.

Well, that’s what happens when you seize said lands and then are too weak to keep them. Finders keepers, etc.

What gets Putin agitated—and he was frequently agitated during our talk—is his perception that Americans are out to interfere in Russia’s affairs. He says he wants Russia and America to be partners but feels the U.S. treats Russia like the uninvited guest at a party. “We want to be a friend of America,” he says. “Sometimes we get the impression that America does not need friends” but only “auxiliary subjects to command.”

Imagine Time’s excitement when the Tsar implied that Bush is arrogant. See!

Asked if he’d like to correct any American misconceptions about Russia, Putin leans forward and says, “I don’t believe these are misconceptions. I think this is a purposeful attempt by some to create an image of Russia based on which one could influence our internal and foreign policies. This is the reason why everybody is made to believe…[Russians] are a little bit savage still or they just climbed down from the trees, you know, and probably need to have…the dirt washed out of their beards and hair.” The veins on his forehead seem ready to pop.

No, not so much dirt in their hair, but vodka on their breath. Remember, a child born in Bangladesh today has a longer life expectancy than a child born in Russia.

After decades of slumbering underachievement, the Bear is back. Its billionaires now play on the global stage, buying up property, sports franchises, places at élite schools. Moscow exerts international influence not just with arms but also with a new arsenal of weapons: oil, gas, timber.

So Russian billionaires are good. As are “statesman” who seize power through trickery.

To achieve stability, Putin and his administration have dramatically curtailed freedoms. His government has shut down TV stations and newspapers, jailed businessmen whose wealth and influence challenged the Kremlin’s hold on power, defanged opposition political parties and arrested those who confront his rule. Yet this grand bargain—of freedom for security—appeals to his Russian subjects, who had grown cynical over earlier regimes’ promises of the magical fruits of Western-style democracy.

Magical fruits? Wha…?

The premiership is a perch that will allow him to become the longest-serving statesman among the great powers, long after such leaders as Bush and Tony Blair have faded from the scene.

Stalin lasted a long time, too.

 From Global Guerillas:

Here’s another datapoint on the privatization of warfare. The Russian Duma just passed a bill that would allow the energy monopolies, Gazprom and Transneft, to build their own security forces (with greater powers than that normally afforded security firms). This is particularly interesting given that 1) Russia now uses its energy exports/pipelines as its primary tool of strategic power projection, 2) the government has become a corporatist klepocracy centered around the energy industry. Some interesting quotes:

“A couple of terrorist acts and an ensuing ecological catastrophe would be enough to immediately declare Russia an unreliable partner and supplier of energy.” Alexandr Gurov, the Duma deputy that drafted the bill, to Carl Mortished at the UK Times.

“Pandora’s box . . . This law envisages the creation of corporate armies. If we pass this law, we will all become servants of Gazprom and Transneft.” Gennadi Gudkov, a Duma deputy who opposed the bill.