Thread: Military help for Georgia is a 'declaration of war', says Mo

Military help for Georgia is a 'declaration of war', says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West
Last updated at 16:47pm on 27.08.08

Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a "declaration of war" by Russia.

The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin's envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain.

And Moscow also emphasised it was closely monitoring what it claims is a build-up of NATO firepower in the Black Sea.



Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (right) meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - the 'real architect' of the Georgia conflict - and the Security Council (unseen) in Sochi yesterday

The incendiary warning on Western military involvement in Georgia - where NATO nations have long played a role in training and equipping the small state - came in an interview with Dmitry Rogozin, a former nationalist politician who is now ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance.

"If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia," he stated.

Yesterday likened the current world crisis to the fevered atmosphere before the start of the First World War.

Rogozin said he did not believe the crisis would descend to war between the West and Russia.

But his use of such intemperate language will be seen as dowsing a fire with petrol.



The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas at Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi today, carrying what the U.S. says is humanitarian aid

Top military figure Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Studies in Moscow, alleged that the US and NATO had been arming Georgia as a dress rehearsal for a future military operation in Iran.

"We are close to a serious conflict - U.S. and NATO preparations on a strategic scale are ongoing. In the operation the West conducted on Georgian soil against Russia - South Ossetians were the victims or hostages of it - we can see a rehearsal for an attack on Iran."

He claimed Washington was fine tuning a new type of warfare and that the threat of an attack on Iran was growing by the day bringing "chaos and instability" in its wake.

With the real architect of the worsening Georgian conflict - prime minister Vladimir Putin - remaining in the background, Medvedev followed up on Rogozin's broadside with a threat to use the Russian military machine to respond to the deployment of the American anti-missile defence system in Poland and the Czech republic.

Poland agreed this month to place ten interceptor missiles on its territory, and Moscow has already hinted it would become a nuclear target for Russia in the event of conflict.



A South Ossetian separatist fighter prepares to fire his weapon as another raises the South Ossetian and Russian flags, in Tskhinvali, the capital of Georgia's separatist-controlled territory of South Ossetia yesterday

"These missiles are close to our borders and constitute a threat to us," Medvedev told Al-Jazeera television. "This will create additional tension and we will have to respond to it in some way, naturally using military means."

The Russian president said that offering NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet republics, would only aggravate the situation.

Moscow has consistently expressed its opposition to the U.S. missile shield, saying it threatens its national security.

The U.S. claims the shield is designed to thwart missile attacks by what it calls "rogue states," including Iran.

Meanwhile, Russia - seen by the West as flouting international law - today demanded NATO abide by an obscure agreement signed before the Second World War limiting its warships in the Black Sea.



Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin

"In light of the build-up of NATO naval forces in the Black Sea, our fleet has also taken on the task of monitoring their activities," said hawkish deputy head of Russia's general staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn.

The Montreux Convention, as it is called, sets a weight restriction of 45,000 tonnes on the number of warships that countries outside the Black Sea region can deploy in the basin.

"Can NATO indefinitely build up its forces and means there? It turns out it cannot," said Nogovitsyn.

NATO has said it is undertaking pre-arranged exercises in the Black Sea involving US, German, Spanish and Polish ships. Two other US warships sailed to Georgian waters with humanitarian aid.

Georgia is poised to sever diplomatic relations with Russia, or reduce them to a bare minimum.

"We will drastically cut our diplomatic ties with Russia," said a top official.

President Mikhail Saakashvili said he was frightened to leave Georgia to attend the EU summit on the crisis.

"If I leave Georgia, the Russians will close our airspace and prevent me from returning home," he said.

Russia sought Chinese backing for its action - but the Communist regime in Beijing appeared reluctant to offer support, instead issuing a statement saying it was "concerned" about recent developments.

NATO called for Russia to reverse its decision on recognition for the two enclaves, both Georgian under international law.

But the new 'president' of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoyty, called for Russian military bases on his territory.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner warned today that an marauding Russian bear could trample over other ex-Soviet states.

"That is very dangerous," he said, pointing at Ukraine and Moldova.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/arti ... erComments

Georgia As Seen From Azerbaijan
8-28-8

Living in Azerbaijan, I may be somewhat closer to recent events in Georgia than many of your other readers. A few points for you to consider:

1. Neither Abkhazia, nor South Ossetia were ever formally an integral part of the Georgian Socialist Republic. Abkhazia, during the Soviet Union days was an independent Socialist Republic. South Ossetia was an Autonomous Region, (Times Atlas of the World - 1990 edition and earlier Â* A.O. translates as Autonomous Okrug, or region). U.S., EU and NATO claims that Russia respect Georgia's territorial integrity in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are baseless, and indeed incorrect. Amazing that none of the millions of bureaucrats in the west has bothered to refer to a world atlas from the Soviet period.

2. US military advisors and Georgian regular army / special forces troops conducted a large scale military maneuver only days before Georgia's invasion of South Ossetia. Since 2003 both the U.S. and Turkey provided Georgia with tens of millions of dollars in military aid, and countries such as the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Israel, Poland, etc. sold weapons and military support systems to Georgia. Much of the revenue that Georgia received from crude oil transit tariffs, (from the BP managed Baku-Tbilis-Ceyhan pipeline project, which was, "by coincidence," started the same year that Georgian President Saakashvili came to power in the Rose Revolution) was funneled into weapons purchases.

3. Georgian forces were well-equipped, especially with night sight and specialized communications gear and had plenty of tanks and mobile artillery at their disposal. Contrary to public perception, the Russian forces mobilized to South Ossetia did not have an initial advantage in either men or equipment, indeed, many of the Russian tanks moblized from North Ossetia broke down along the mountain roads to South Ossetia because they were in such poor condition. Russian President Medvedev has subsequently stated that a major revamp of the Russian army is in order.

3. Russian Peace Keeping forces allowed the Georgian military to take control of several strategic heights near Tsinvali, (the South Ossetian capitol) on 2 and 3 August. While the reason for this is unclear, taking the strategic heights around Tsinvali clearly gave the upper hand in any future military attack to the Georgian army - you could say that the Russians had baited the trap. Indeed the build up to war had been going on since early July. Several terrorist style bomb blasts in Abhazia, (which were blaimed on Georgian special forces) and almost constant, small scale, shooting and shelling back and forth between Georgian and South Ossetian forces had heated up the kettle to the boiling point.

4. In the run up to the brief war in South Ossetia, Georgian special forces had been actively spying against Russian military targets in both South Ossetia and the North Caucasus region of Russia, most of these spy operations were eliminated by Russian counter espionage units. Several Georgian agents admitted that they were to blow up bridges and other strategic targets upon receipt of the appropriate signal from Tbilisi.

5. The Russian military and espionage forces operate an exhaustive intelligence gathering network in Georgia and the entire Caucasus region, and were almost certain to have known about Georgia's upcoming attack.

6. There is only one land route between South Ossetia and North Ossetia, (in Russia) and this "life line" mountain road goes through a single 4 kilometer long tunnel, (the Rokski tunnel). If the Georgian forces would have immediately detonated this tunnel they would have been almost assured a military victory, however, they did not destroy the tunnel. Apparently the Georgian military had planned to terrorize the South Ossetian people, (which they did a good job of) and force them to flee for their lives through this single tunnel into Russia, thereby enthnically cleansing the region, (some 35,000 South Ossetians did flee through the tunnel in the days leading up to, and during, the conflict). One should also remember that this is the 3rd attempt since 1920 to ethnically cleanse South Ossetia of its Ossetian population. So, the Georgian commanders, confident of their military superiority and convinced that Russia would not be able to significantly react before most Ossetians had been forced to flee to Russia through this single tunnel, decided to keep the tunnel intact, at least for the immediate future, and this was their fatal error.

7. Georgia had very good anti aircraft weaponry, (the best of which was purchased from the Ukraine) and indeed did shoot down 4 Russian planes, 1 a strategic bomber. The Georgian battle plan was simple and brutal, push the South Ossetians off of their land and / or kill them. The Georgian army literally rained death upon South Ossetian homes, schools, hospitals, public buildings, etc. It was indeed a humanitarian disaster for those trapped under the artillery barrage. Dozens of Ossetian villages were wiped off of the map. The President of South Ossetia was safely some 40 kilometers up the road to Russia in a town called Dzhava though - coordinating the South Ossetian military response, and indeed hundreds of South Ossetians put up a desperate struggle to slow down the Georgian military advance during those early hours of the conflict. Many Russian Peace Keepers were killed and wounded in the first 2 days of the conflict.

8. PM Putin personally met with the President of Chechna, and Chechna dispatched 2 battalions of hardened Chechen warriors to South Ossetia in support of the Russian army. The presence of Chechen fighters in South Ossetia and Georgia did a great deal to demoralize Georgian regular army troops, as the Chechens do have a fearful reputation. It is interesting to note that Georgia chose to attack during the opening day of the Beijing Olympics, when PM Putin was in Beijing. Indeed PM Putin even had a brief word with President Bush in Beijing, informing him that Georgia and Russia were now at war with each other.

9 As soon as the cream of Georgia's military had been destroyed or captured, the "house of cards" literally collapsed, and Georgian troops abandoned hundreds of perfectly good tanks, mobile artillery units, armoured troop carriers, etc. Tons and tons of expensive munitions were captured and / or destroyed by Russian forces. With Abhazia also joining the fray, encircling some 2500 Georgian troops in the Khordoski valley, Georgia was essentially defenseless, and Russia took full advantage of this situation, moving deep into Georgian territory to capture Georgian military targets and set up road checkpoints. In fact, Russian forces could have easily rolled into Tbilisi, they were only about an hour's drive away, with basically no organized military force to stop them.

As you know the western corporate media was essentially silent about Georgia's unleashing a "Stalingrad type" artillery barrage upon Tsinvali, and to this day appears to have absolutely no concern about the thousands of South Ossetian lives lost. Western media coverage of Georgian refugees is extensive, however. After the Georgian ethnic cleansing campaign had failed, many South Ossetians began to take the law into their own hands and extract revenge from those Georgians living in nearby villages, (Georgians and South Ossetians often lived in ethnically separate villages at short distances from each other). Many Georgian homes were torched, people forced to flee for their lives, with all of their property and livestock confiscated as spoils of war. As so often happens during war time, the poorest suffer the most. The Russian military appears to have done little to protect these Georgian villagers, and perhaps simply did not have the manpower for this mission as its troops had already advanced deep into Georgian territory.

The western media has also been focused upon Russian "agression" in Georgia, again failing to note Georgia's murderous surprise attack. This would be about the same as accusing the USA of military aggression against Japan after Pearl Harbor. The latest western notion of delivering "humanitarian aid" to Georgia on U.S. missile destroyers and frigates also appears somewhat strange, and the Russian General Staff takes a very dim view of this "humanitarian" operation.

I essentially agree with your position that at the very top most major events are carefully coordinated, well in advance, particularly if they occur within the sphere of influence of one of the major Illuminati power groups. I also believe, however, that the competing Illuminati power groups often quarrel among themselves, (as Russia and Great Britain have been doing now for centuries - remember the Great Game of the 19th Century?) especially when desired spheres of influence collide, and that matters can temporarily get out of hand, (humans are human after all). This would account for the somewhat "knee jerk" reaction of western politicians and the mass media to Russia's crushing the Georgian army. There definitely is an ongoing struggle for control of natural resources and regional influence, and Russia sees the Caucasus, Central Asia, and indeed most of the Ukraine and Moldova as being within its historical sphere of influence, (Great Britain's Foreign Minister was quickly rushed off to Kiev to meet with President Yushenko and publicly stated that Russia should not start another Cold War - also informing President Yushenko that the Ukraine should do absolutely nothing to anger Russia). You can expect events in the Crimea and throughout the Ukraine in general to heat up in the coming months and years, at least this is what the U.K. is preparing for, (a sort of 21st Century Charge of the Light Brigade, only this time with NATO troops and sailors).

Another point to ponder is China's economic expansion into Central Asia and a possible Russia / China "Entente," (which already more or less exists under the guise of the Shanghai Organization for Cooperation which is currently meeting in Tajikistan). China will not soon forget that the U.S. basically gave "passive permission" to Georgia to open hostilities on the very day that the Beijing Olympics opened. Furthermore, the U.S. announced that it would be selling Taiwan more weaponry on the very day that the Shanghai Organization for Cooperation gathered in Tajikistan. China quickly fired off an ice cold reply to the U.S. stating that it considered Taiwan as Chinese territory. The U.S. and U.K. appear to be doing their utmost to antagonize and irritate both Russia and China lately. Why the U.S. / U.K. power group would want to drive the Russian and Chinese power groups into a formal military pact remains unclear to me at the present time. Perhaps a new cold war would take people's minds off the deflating western economies and concurrent rampant inflation, at least until some other distraction can be organized. It's definitely something to think about the next time you shuffle off to your Lucifer revival cult party wearing all the latest skull and bones fashion accessories, (as an interesting side note Â* Satanic fashion accessories, body piercing and tattoos are all the rage among Russian teenagers these days, much like their American counterparts).

So, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The Great Game continues, and the plebes continue to have a cause to fight and die for. The show must go on.

http://www.rense.com/general83/geor.htm

From The Times
August 28, 2008

Cold War tension rises as Putin talks of Black Sea confrontation



Russia has criticised the US for using naval ships to deliver aid to Georgia

A new Cold War between Russia and the West grew steadily closer yesterday after the Kremlin gave a warning about “direct confrontationâ€

Russia may cut off oil flow to the West
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 9:26pm BST 28/08/2008

Fears are mounting that Russia may restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe over coming days, in response to the threat of EU sanctions and Nato naval actions in the Black Sea.

Any such move would be a dramatic escalation of the Georgia crisis and play havoc with the oil markets.

Reports have begun to circulate in Moscow that Russian oil companies are under orders from the Kremlin to prepare for a supply cut to Germany and Poland through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. It is believed that executives from lead-producer LUKoil have been put on weekend alert.

"They have been told to be ready to cut off supplies as soon as Monday," claimed a high-level business source, speaking to The Daily Telegraph. Any move would be timed to coincide with an emergency EU summit in Brussels, where possible sanctions against Russia are on the agenda.

More on oil
Any evidence that the Kremlin is planning to use the oil weapon to intimidate the West could inflame global energy markets. US crude prices jumped to $119 a barrel yesterday on reports of hurricane warnings in the Gulf of Mexico, before falling back slightly.

Global supplies remain tight despite the economic downturn engulfing North America, Europe and Japan. A supply cut at this delicate juncture could drive crude prices much higher, possibly to record levels of $150 or even $200 a barrel.

With US and European credit spreads already trading at levels of extreme stress, a fresh oil spike would rock financial markets. The Kremlin is undoubtedly aware that it exercises extraordinary leverage, if it strikes right now.

Such action would be seen as economic warfare but Russia has been infuriated by Nato meddling in its "backyard" and threats of punitive measures by the EU. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday accused EU diplomats of a "sick imagination".

Armed with $580bn of foreign reserves (the world's third largest), Russia appears willing to risk its reputation as a reliable actor on the international stage in order to pursue geo-strategic ambitions.

"We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War," said President Dmitry Medvedev.

The Polish government said yesterday that Russian deliveries were still arriving smoothly. It was not aware of any move to limit supplies. The European Commission's energy directorate said it had received no warnings of retaliatory cuts.

Russia has repeatedly restricted oil and gas deliveries over recent years as a means of diplomatic pressure, though Moscow usually explains away the reduction by referring to technical upsets or pipeline maintenance.

Last month, deliveries to the Czech Republic through the Druzhba pipeline were cut after Prague signed an agreement with the US to install an anti-missile shield. Czech officials say supplies fell 40pc for July. The pipeline managers Transneft said the shortfall was due to "technical and commercial reasons".

Supplies were cut to Estonia in May 2007 following a dispute with Russia over the removal of Red Army memorials. It was blamed on a "repair operation". Latvia was cut off in 2005 and 2006 in a battle for control over the Ventspils terminals. "There are ways to camouflage it," said Vincent Sabathier, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"They never say, 'we're going to cut off your oil because we don't like your foreign policy'."

A senior LUKoil official in Moscow said he was unaware of any plans to curtail deliveries. The Kremlin declined to comment.

London-listed LUKoil is run by Russian billionaire Vagit Alekperov, who holds 20pc of the shares. LUKoil produces 2m barrels per day (b/d), or 2.5pc of world supply. It exports one fifth of its output to Germany and Poland.

Although Russia would lose much-needed revenue if it cut deliveries, the Kremlin might hope to recoup some of the money from higher prices. Indeed, it could enhance income for a while if the weapon was calibrated skilfully. Russia exports roughly 6.5m b/d, supplying the EU with 26pc of its total oil needs and 29pc of its gas.

A cut of just 1m b/d in global supply – and a veiled threat of more to come – would cause a major price spike.

It is unclear whether Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or other Opec producers have enough spare capacity to plug the shortfall. "Russia is behaving in a very erratic way," said James Woolsey, the former director of the CIA. "There is a risk that they might do something like cutting oil to hurt the world's democracies, if they get angry enough."

Mr Woolsey said the rapid move towards electric cars and other sources of power in the US and Europe means Russia's ability to use the oil weapon will soon be a diminishing asset. "Within a decade it will be very hard for Russia to push us around," he told The Daily Telegraph.

It is widely assumed that Russia would cut gas supplies rather than oil as a means of pressuring Europe. It is very hard to find alternative sources of gas. But gas cuts would not hurt the United States. Oil is a better weapon for striking at the broader Western world.

The price is global. The US economy could suffer serious damage from the immediate knock-on effects.

While the Russian state is rich, the corporate sector is heavily reliant on foreign investors. The internal bond market is tiny, with just $60bn worth of ruble issues.

Russian companies raise their funds on the world capital markets. Foreigners own half of the $1 trillion debt. Michael Ganske, Russia expert at Commerzbank, said the country was now facing a liquidity crunch. "Local investors are scared. They can see the foreigners leaving, so now they won't touch anything either. The impact on the capital markets is severe," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.j ... sia129.xml

The West pledges its support for Ukraine - up to a point

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor in Kiev
Wednesday, 27 August 2008

Western governments are rushing to bolster Ukraine's pro-Western government amid fears that the former Soviet Republic is becoming the front line in the "new Cold War".

A day after Russia threw down a fresh challenge to the West by recognising Georgia's breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, was the first Western official in Kiev to demonstrate support for the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko. Dick Cheney, the United States' Vice-President, is travelling to Georgia and Ukraine next week.

Mr Yushchenko, who fell victim to a mysterious poisoning in 2004, which almost cost him his life, fears his country could be next on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's hit list. But are the Western visitors telling the Ukrainian leader "we're all Ukrainians now", after the Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, expressed solidarity with the Georgians by saying "we're all Georgians now"? Not exactly.

Everyone is aware that the conflict in the Caucasus would pale into insignificance when compared with the risks to regional stability in case of conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Not only does Ukraine have a population of 47 million, but it is also home to a significant minority of ethnic Russians who live mostly in its eastern regions and in the Crimean peninsula. So the challenge for Ukraine and its Western allies is to balance a "real sense of determination" with "the realism that comes from the geographical position" of Ukraine, as Mr Miliband put it during his whistle-stop tour through Kiev's chestnut-lined avenues.

The Ukrainian President, who is campaigning to take his country into both the European Union and Nato (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) – as is his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili – has condemned Russia's latest decree amputating Georgia. As Mr Miliband flew back to London last night, he learned that his colleagues on the G7 leading industrialised nations had also condemned the actions of "our fellow G8 member" as Russia faced heightened international opprobrium.

Mr Yushchenko believes that membership of the Western military alliance offers the best insurance policy for Ukraine against attack. "What has happened is a threat to everyone, not just for one country. Any nation could be next, any country. When we allow someone to ignore the fundamental right of territorial integrity, we put into doubt the existence of any country," he stated yesterday.

Mr Miliband offered strong words of support during his talks in Kiev, but did not stray beyond EU and Nato policy of offering Ukraine eventual membership of both organisations.

"My visit is designed to send a simple message," he told an audience of students and diplomats gathered at Kiev's oldest university. "We have not forgotten our commitments to you. Nor shall we do so." He went on: "The Russian President [Dimitri Medvedev] says he is not afraid of a new Cold War. We don't want one. He has a big responsibility not to start one."

Mr Miliband, who advocated a "hard-headed engagement" with Russia, discussed in Kiev how Ukraine could avoid falling for Russian provocations in the Crimea, where the Ukrainian leadership accuses Russia of stirring up trouble. He cautioned Ukraine against giving Moscow a technical pretext for intervening in the peninsula, potentially triggering a major conflict. In his question-and-answer session in the university library, the Foreign Secretary stressed that "the Ukrainian government should ensure that the letter of the agreements are stuck to until 2017".

Ukraine's main concerns focus on the presence of Russia's Black Sea fleet, based in Sevastopol, which is leased to Moscow until that date. But Mr Yushchenko risked fuelling tensions with Russia yesterday by pointing out that the base had been leased at below market rates and that it was time to think about raising the price.

Diplomats are aware that unlike public opinion in Georgia, Ukrainian opinion is fiercely divided on whether Ukraine should join Nato. Opinion polls show that while 27 per cent of people are in favour of Nato membership, about the same percentage is opposed – although the number of those in favour has risen since Russia's armed intervention in Georgia.

On the streets of Kiev yesterday, Ukrainians voiced fear and support for Moscow in equal measure. And the government itself is also divided – with presidential elections scheduled at the end of next year.

While Mr Yushchenko has called for closer ties with the West in the light of the Georgia conflict, his former ally in the Orange Revolution, Julia Tymoshenko, who is now Prime Minister, has kept silent. She has been accused by her detractors of taking a more nuanced approach in the hope of gaining support in the presidential election from Russian-speaking voters. Her strategy appears to be working – Mr Yushchenko is trailing in the polls, with 7 per cent support, while she has at least 24 per cent. The third dominant political figure, Viktor Yanukovich, a former prime minister, has criticised Mr Yushchenko for his open support of Georgia, saying Ukraine must remain neutral.

Such concerns were at the heart of Mr Miliband's discussions yesterday with the President, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Volodymyr Ohryzko, who said afterwards that Ukraine needs to join Nato "as soon as possible".

Nato and the EU have agreed to set Ukraine on the path to future membership, but no date has been set. Nato leaders are due to assess whether to extend a formal timetable to Ukraine – a Membership Action Plan (MAP) – at the summit in December. Diplomats say Russia's actions in Georgia make it more likely.

EU membership is even further off. The political infighting between the President and the Prime Minister has held back progress ahead of an EU-Ukraine summit on 9 September. The EU is also insisting on Ukraine demonstrating results in fighting corruption, reforming its constitution and justice system.

At the Nato summit in Bucharest five months ago, Mr Putin reportedly told President George Bush that Russia would reclaim the Crimea if it joined Nato. "Do you understand, George? Ukraine is not even a state," he is reported to have said. Russia's Foreign Minister has denied that Mr Putin intended to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 10491.html

POLITICS-US: A Really Bad Couple of Weeks for Pax Americana
Analysis by Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (IPS) - Whatever hopes the George W. Bush administration may have had for using its post-9/11 "war on terror'' to impose a new Pax Americana on Eurasia, and particularly in the unruly areas between the Caucasus and the Khyber Pass, appear to have gone up in flames -- in some cases, literally -- over the past two weeks.

Not only has Russia reasserted its influence in the most emphatic way possible by invading and occupying substantial parts of Georgia after Washington's favourite Caucasian, President Mikhail Saakashvili, launched an ill-fated offensive against secessionist South Ossetians.

But bloody attacks in Afghanistan, and Pakistan, about 1,000 kms to the east also underlined the seriousness of the Pashtun-dominated Taliban insurgencies in both countries and the threats they pose to their increasingly beleaguered and befuddled U.S.-backed governments.

And while U.S. negotiators appear to have made progress in hammering out details of a bilateral military agreement that will permit U.S. combat forces to remain in Iraq at least for another year and a half, signs that the Shi'a-dominated government of President Nouri al-Maliki may be preparing to move forcefully against the U.S.-backed, predominantly Sunni ''Awakening'' movement has raised the spectre of renewed sectarian civil war.

Meanwhile, any hope of concluding a framework for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority by the time Bush leaves office less than five months from now appears to have vanished, while efforts at mobilising greater international diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran to freeze its uranium enrichment programme -- the administration's top priority before the Georgia crisis -- have stalled indefinitely, overwhelmed by the tidal wave of bad news from its neighbourhood.

''The list of foreign policy failures this week is breathtaking,'' noted a statement released Friday by the National Security Network (NSN), a mainstream group of former high-ranking officials critical of the Bush administration's more-aggressive policies. And a prominent New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, argued that the Russian move on Georgia, in particular, signaled ''the end of the Pax Americana -- the era in which the United States more or less maintained a monopoly on the use of military force.''

Indeed, Russia's intervention in what it used to call its ''near abroad'' was clearly the most spectacular of the fortnight's developments, both because of its unprecedented use of overwhelming military force against a U.S. ally heavily promoted by Washington for membership in NATO and because of the geo-strategic implications of its move for the increasingly-troubled Atlantic alliance and U.S. hopes that Caspian and Central Asian energy resources could be safely transported to the West without transiting either Russia or Iran.

While Russia did not seize control of the Baku-Tbili-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline or approach the area proposed for the Nabucco pipeline further south, its intervention made it abundantly clear that it could have done so if it had wished, a message that is certain to reverberate across gas-hungry Europe. Indeed, investors now may prove considerably less enthusiastic about financing the Nabucco project than before, dealing yet another blow to Washington's regional ambitions.

Russia's move also raised new questions about its willingness to tolerate the continued use by the U.S. and other NATO countries of key air bases and other military facilities in the southern part of the former Soviet Union, notably Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, over which Moscow maintains substantial influence.

As with Georgia, where the U.S. significantly escalated its military presence by sending over Russian protests 200 Special Forces troops in early 2002, Washington first acquired access to these bases under the pretext of its post-9/11 ''global war on terrorism''. But, while clearly important to its subsequent operations on Afghanistan, they were also seen as key building blocks -- or ''lily pads'' -- in the construction of a permanent military infrastructure that could both contain a resurgent Russia or an emergent China and help establish U.S. hegemony over the energy resources of Central Asia and the Caspian region in what its architects hoped would be a ''New American Century.''

As suggested by former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani this week, Washington and, to some extent, NATO behind it, ''has intruded into the geopolitical spaces of other dormant countries. They are no longer dormant...''

Indeed, still badly bogged down in Iraq where, despite the much-reduced level of sectarian violence, political reconciliation remains elusive, to say the least, the U.S. and its overly deferential NATO allies now face unprecedented challenges in Afghanistan not entirely unfamiliar to the Soviets 20 years ago.

''The news out of Afghanistan is truly alarming,'' warned Thursday's lead editorial in the New York Times, which noted the killings of 10 French paratroopers near Kabul in an ambush earlier in the week -- the single worst combat death toll for NATO forces in the war there -- as well as the coordinated assault by suicide bombers on one of the biggest U.S. military bases there as indications of an increasingly dire situation. In the last three months, more U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq.

''Afghanistan badly needs reinforcements. Badly,'' wrote ret. Col. Pat Lang, a former top Middle East and South Asia expert at the Defence Intelligence Agency on his blog this week. ''Afghanistan badly needs a serious infrastructure and economic development programme. Badly.''

Of course, the Taliban's resurgence has in no small part been due to the safe haven it has been provided next door in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where Pakistan's own Taliban, which also hosts a rejuvenating al Qaeda, has not only tightened its hold on the region in recent months but extended it into the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Last week, it retaliated in spectacular fashion to airborne attacks on its forces by the U.S.-backed military in Bajaur close to the Khyber Pass -- the most important supply route for NATO forces in Afghanistan -- by carrying out suicide bombings at a heavily guarded munitions factory that killed nearly 70 people near Islamabad.

Analysts here are especially worried that, having achieved the resignation last week of U.S.-backed former President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the new civilian government will likely tear itself apart over the succession and the growing economic crisis and thus prove completely ineffective in dealing with Washington's top priority -- confronting and defeating the Taliban in a major counter-insurgency effort for which the army, long focused on the conventional threat posed by India, has shown no interest at all.

Indeed, the current leadership vacuum in Islamabad has greatly compounded concern here that the army's intelligence service ISI, which Washington believes played a role in last month's deadly Taliban attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul, could broaden its anti-Indian efforts. This is especially so now that Indian Kashmir is once again hotting up, ensuring a sharp escalation in the two nuclear-armed countries' decades-long rivalry and threatening in yet another way the post-Cold War Pax Americana.

*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy, and particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.

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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43647

Good postings, Airborne!