Posted on 08/08/2018 7:59:31 AM PDT by Mariner
MOSCOW An attempt by NATO to incorporate the former Soviet republic of Georgia could trigger a new, "horrible" conflict, Russia's prime minister said Tuesday in a stern warning to the West marking 10 years since the Russia-Georgia war.
Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with the Kommersant daily broadcast by Russian state television that NATO's plans to eventually offer membership to Georgia are "absolutely irresponsible" and a "threat to peace."
Medvedev was Russia's president during the August 2008 war, which erupted when Georgian troops tried unsuccessfully to regain control over the Moscow-backed breakaway province of South Ossetia and Russia sent troops that routed the Georgian military in five days of fighting.
The Russian army was poised to advance on the Georgian capital, but Medvedev rolled it back, accepting a truce mediated by the European Union.
After the war, Georgia entirely lost control of both South Ossetia and another separatist region, Abkhazia. Russia has strengthened its military presence in both regions and recognized them as independent states, but only a few countries have followed suit.
The European Union on Tuesday reiterated its "firm support to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders" and lamented the Russian military presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
In a show of support for Georgia, foreign ministers of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, and a Cabinet member from Ukraine, visited Tbilisi Tuesday, urging Russia to withdraw its troops from Abkhazia and South Ossetia. "Nowadays no country can change the borders of another country by force," said Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“1962 was closer to the Kaiser marching into France than it is to us... “
And an accurate reflection of how seriously the US takes The Monroe Doctrine.
Russia has been incrementally seizing Georgian land, to the point it occupies 20% of its territory. If Georgia joined NATO, that might short-circuit further Russian expansion, which is presumably why Medvedev is getting all riled up about that possibility. Russia has always considered any move to prevent its territorial expansion to be provocative, and the possible Georgian accession to NATO is no exception.
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-quietly-seizing-territory-in-georgia-10-years-after-the-war-2018-8
[Vice President Mike Pence made similar remarks on a visit to Georgia last year.
“Today, Russia continues to occupy one-fifth of Georgian territory,” Pence said . “So, to be clear the United States of America strongly condemns Russia’s occupation on Georgia’s soil.” ]
When they work.
There is no hard currency earned from their ICBM programs unlike Soyuz...for now. Even Soyuz admits SpaceX is eating their lunch.
Hard to keep trained personnel when they can go abroad for much more money.
[I was a staunch Cold Warrior but the continued expansion of NATO is provocative in nature.]
What Russia wants or doesn’t want is not our problem. Russia almost 2x the size of the next largest country in the world. It has plenty of breathing room - certainly more room than any other country on earth. The issue is that Russians are about conquer or be conquered. Note that mainland Russia is only 50 miles across the Bering Strait from Alaska. They are not a theoretical threat.
Continually poking someone for 20+ years isnt strength, its stupidity. Poking then condemning the eventually push back is even more stupid. NATO should have been disbanded when the Warsaw Pact was.
Do you believe Georgia is in the essential interests of the US?
Is their territorial integrity worth a single US life?
How about a US city?
That 1/5 is also known as Abkhazia, which from the perspective of Russia is not occupied, but has their own government. The Georgians refuse to recognize the secession, but the reality is that they are independent.
Is their territorial integrity worth a single US life?
What was the Soviet empire collapsed 30 years ago and it's still crashing.
Either their old territories side with the West or the Chinese...
Translation: Russia has solid plans for invading and annexing Georgia.
“Continually poking someone for 20+ years isnt strength, its stupidity. Poking then condemning the eventually push back is even more stupid.”
Agreed. Putin should have accepted Ukrainian and Georgian independence rather than trying to annex them using the age old tactic of claiming persecuted ethnic minorities. Ukraine and Georgia wouldn’t be rushing to join NATO if he simply respected their independence.
I didn’t say disengage, selling Georgia weapons to defend themselves is absolutely on the table but this is their fight, not ours. You are actively looking for a fight if you keep expanding NATO into former Soviet provinces. Do you want to go to war over Kazakhstan or some other former province wanting in NATO? Giving or selling arms to independent countries to build up their military should be done, but I for one am not sending my son to die in yet another world war in Europe because of Georgia.
And I know they are fifty miles from Alaska do you suggest we invade their western Russia and push them back further from Alaska?
Letting a bully know if you cross this line there will be consequences and backing it up and knocking the hell out of him if he does is one thing. Walking up to a bully and constantly hitting him, taking his lunch money and knocking him around makes you the bully and eventually you will get a response. My question is, does whether or not Georgia is fully independent worth a nuclear exchange?
“If NATO admits Georgia, Russia will launch nukes.”
Georgia is a sovereign state and it’s none of Russia’s f***ing business what another sovereign state does. And if they’d launch a nuclear war as a form of a national tantrum then maybe we need to go in and kill Putin and annihilate Russia as a nation before they go nuclear over some other idiotic claim.
[Do you believe Georgia is in the essential interests of the US?
Is their territorial integrity worth a single US life?
How about a US city?]
The real question is whether their expansion is worth a single Russian life or a single Russian city. Because it will come to that eventually. Russia is not a band of nutty, incompetent religious fanatics - it’s a world-conquering power with a long record of successful acquisitions. In the long run, we will either stop their expansion or be conquered by them.
Czarist Russia took Siberia from the Chinese after they lost the Crimean War. Vladivostok actually means 'Eastern Fortress'.
And the Chinese are taking it back. With Putin smiling the entire time.
Russia's population crashed when the Soviet Union did.
Worse, emigration of actually skilled Russians gutted their tech programs (And still does).
And Russian, ummm models, are a fixture across Asia in their red light districts.
“This constant expansion of NATO, encroaching on Russian borders with weapons and mutual defense agreements, is an astoundingly insensitive and bad idea.”
It’s not a matter of insensitivity. It is a deliberate prelude to war. The neoconartists and related Soros types WANT a conflict. They think it can be confined to destabilization, targeted violence and ‘regime change’ methods as seen in the Ukraine and Libya.
They’re not very smart. And people who live in glass infrastructures should not throw stones.
[Letting a bully know if you cross this line there will be consequences and backing it up and knocking the hell out of him if he does is one thing. Walking up to a bully and constantly hitting him, taking his lunch money and knocking him around makes you the bully and eventually you will get a response. My question is, does whether or not Georgia is fully independent worth a nuclear exchange?]
Georgia is a sovereign country. It could have chosen to align with Russia. It hasn’t, because it sees Russia as having designs on its territory. And based on the 20% of Georgian territory that is under Russian occupation, I’d suggest that this is a pretty accurate impression. Defensive alliances are not a provocation except to imperialists, which see these alliances as a barrier to their expansion.
I cannot understand the goals of the Neoconservatives on this.
They must hate themselves and desire suicide. And they want to take everyone with them.
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Most of them are chickenhawks. They’ve never served, and probably know few people who did. They think they are immune. They do not desire suicide, but they do delight in murder. “We came, we saw, he died!” *witch cackles*
Neoconartists are the enemy within. They are globalists who make patriotic noise while despoiling weaker nations and peoples.
[Its not a matter of insensitivity. It is a deliberate prelude to war. ]
* WWII took up 50% of our annual economic output, every single year, four years running. We are now spending 3+%, nowhere near enough to sustain any kind of war, apart from plinking terrorists in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
Give him a break, he's read wayyyy too many Hal Lindsey prophecy books with their constant revisions when they don't pan out.
Youre saying that NATO will invade Russia? Are you on drugs?
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No. That isn’t what I said. But then the defining earmarks of neoconartists are stupidity and duplicity, and it is impossible to tell where one leaves off and the other begins.
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