Making enemies is not the way to remain a "superpower". That's why all those other superpower/imperialist nations are, well, history.

Bold statement considering you really don't have a clue what my world view is.

No. What's ridiculous is you claiming that "most people here have true feelings" while at the same time dismissing my (alleged) feeling that my (unexpressed) world view is irrelevant.

That's nice. Got anything of substance to contribute to this thread or should we just mark you down for mindless chest thumping?

This I agree with.

I'm old enough to remember when the U.S. was considered to be a great country in the world's eyes. It pains me greatly to see all of the goodwill we accumulated pissed away in 8 years.

yeah well it's the natural course of history, my opinion doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things, regardless of what it is...certain events are still going to take place and people that will direct them aren't me...I have neither the ability nor the aspirations to be the one trying to change things

Hooray for cynical apathy, the downfall of democracy.

No, sorry, I really don't care what your worldview is. My point is that people are allowed to express their opinion, and it shouldn't matter that you somehow feel like a martyr. Furthermore, I really don't think that anyone was blaming you, or saying "it is all our fault" as you put it.

I'm not saying that your worldview is ultimately irrelevant, but rather that other people should feel free to post their own opinion regardless of whose toes they step on. You simply cast aside people's opinions as bandwagon jumping.

And furthermore if he's not expressing your world view then what, precisely is he expressing?

given how fiercely Georgia has fought to retain control over the Ajarian and Abkhazian autonomous zones, not to mention South Ossetia itself, i have a hard time buying that Georgia wouldn't be invading Russia if their roles were reversed. again, let's not forget that Georgia fired the first shot, here--and let's not forget that they fired the first shot a week after agreeing to a ceasefire. Georgia is just as hard and just as acquisitive as Russia. Georgia's just smaller.

TwistedAngel said:

These are big words on Russian foreign policy that are riddled with contradictions (let alone the double standards) that run counter to post soviet history of Russia that seems to be the main thrust of your argument.
The most critical weakness is the application of "choice politics" to geo political situations, if you put a little bit more thought into what you were saying you would realise that russia can say with equal right the same thing about the "choices" in allies of the break away republic of Abakhsia, South Ossettia, the Georgia of the soviet union is not the same as post soviet Ect, ect
Feel free to bring in a metric for some actual standards to measure post soviet russia to prove their Isolationist yet aggressive politics.....

TwistedAngel said:

Wait a minute how is it that russia is controlling the media in Georgia, I thought the soviet union had collapsed and the all powerfull state media had evaporated, fuck have they invented an new way to control media through embedded reporting that is subject to military scrutiny......oh wait that was an american invention, shucks dont suppose any american allies might actually utilise the same tactics?

So it seems to all boil down to an obscure desire for power and influence, though one would think that by assisting the ambitions of rather obscure break away republics of georgia would not help russia in their quest for "international power and influence" epsecially when the result is modern warfare (in which their tends to be an escalating cost of innocent lives on one side or the other).
The already formentioned geo political motives(Nato threat, logistics for oil transportation) are much more plausible explanations for the current situation on top of the long history of social reaction in the region.
Where independence means trying to trade ones dependence on one agressor for an even larger one on the world stage.......

That, unfortunately, is the New American Way.

The thing I disagree with in this article is your premise that because Russia is undergoing a nationalist movement with military buildup, that we must drop all support for neighboring countries that Russia might act against. Remember the cold war? We supported tons of smaller nations in their conflicts with Russia, and vice versa; many proxy wars were waged and yet we somehow avoided WWIII.

'm pretty sure that nobody expected Russia to respond in the way they did; Georgia certainly didn't think they would be on the receiving end of massive airstrikes after their military action into South Ossetia. It's pretty clear that Russia has ulterior motives as well from the fact that they rapidly landed troops in Abkhazia and began attacking Georgian forces there despite the fact that Georgia only initiated an attack in Ossetia. Regime change (oil!) is probably their ultimate goal. Hell, if it weren't for the international outcry I wouldn't be surprised if Russia was bombing Tbilisi right about now.

Of course, NATO membership for Georgia seems like a bad idea in the aftermath here, so I don't know wtf McCain is thinking. Obviously if they're a NATO member it would require us to directly assist them if attacked, rather than providing covert support like in Afghanistan. But the point is, I think your "I-told-you-so" position, like we should have seen this coming, is a bit unfounded.

What I see. Been that way for a while.

Don't get bent out of shape dude. We still don't expect you to respond to criticism. I'm sure it took less time to imbed that screen capture than it would have taken to compose a reasonable response that didn't include the words shit and fuck fifteen times.

The whole problem is that this is not the cold war, many of americas "alllies" during the cold war have huge interests in the integrity of Russia and its economy, their is no ideological tug of war that polarised the politics like it use to especially in europe.

I mean seriously do you think the u.s governments accusations of Iran supplying weapons to Iraq as destabilising the Middle east to be taken seriously when america is doing exactly the same thing in caucases(mind you both Iran and russia are part of or border these regions and have valid security concerns in having unstable nations along their border)?

Well I guess you will be surprised that Russia has declared a cease fire, whether it will last remains to be seen, but never the less you will find the link in another thread on this subject in the CE.....

As for what was expected out of russia when presssing their political buttons, I can only say that one could say the same thing when Iraq invaded Quwait, who thought the original war would be sanctioned by the U.N let alone lead to another war based on lies and fabricated evidence....

Never the less in all these instances their is continuity in political policy, though in russias sake to extend a metaphor; if a man takes a yard when given an inch, dont expect a nation that feels against a wall to take anything less.

Covert support for Afghanistan? You do realise America actually has troops on the ground in Afganistan while the U.s has -2,000 in Georgia if you include the troops Georgia has sent to Iraq.......
Again one can only not realise the consequeces of trying to ram Georgia through into NATO in being entirely ignorant of NATO's history being founded as a bulwark against the USSR and eastern europe, which their is no chance in the slightest that such ignorance of this history in a whitehouse controlled buy a party that pretty much feels it was responsible for "the fall of communism"!