. . . and everybody came?

From Stratfor's Political Diary (subscription only; here's the money quote):

The Russians are getting increasingly bolder in their actions against the West, taking full advantage of the fact that NATO can do little to seriously undermine Russia’s moves in the Caucasus. But Russia is not invincible — especially when it comes to Russian defenses against the West in the Black Sea.

The Black Sea is absolutely critical to Russian defense. Though NATO does not currently have the capability to project power through land forces against Russia, it does have the naval assets to give the Russians pause. Already, nine Western warships (including U.S., Polish, Spanish, Turkish, and token Bulgarian and Romanian vessels) have made their way into the Black Sea in the name of humanitarian aid for Georgia. Russia is accusing the West of building up a NATO strike group in this body of water with which to threaten RussiaÂ’s hold on the Caucasus, and perhaps beyond.

The Russians simply cannot allow an increased NATO presence in this particular body of water to remain unanswered. The Black Sea is an important buffer for what is a direct line to the Russian underbelly, the Ukrainian plains and the land bridge that extends between the Black and Caspian Seas. Russia is well-aware of its weaknesses when it comes to defending this crucial frontier. The Black Sea, and the Aegean beyond it, essentially comprises a NATO lake. Controlled by Turkey through the Dardanelles, the Turkish and U.S. naval presence combined could easily overwhelm the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The last thing Moscow wants is a U.S. naval strike force in the Black Sea threatening MoscowÂ’s control of the Caucasus, crucial for its logistical and supply links to Russian troops in Georgia.

And so, the Russian response is already beginning to take effect. The Black Sea Navy flagship “Moskva” sailed from Sevastopol today, and the Russians are likely to deploy more of their current — albeit limited — naval assets out of the Crimean Peninsula. Such moves are only likely to give NATO forces more cause to beef up their naval presence in the Black Sea, further contributing to the Kremlin’s sense of insecurity.

At that point, the next logical step for the Russians is to start spending some of their three quarters of a trillion dollars in reserves on covert operations that would force the United States to split its attention. It was not too long ago that the Russian intelligence powerhouse excelled in starting up fires in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East to keep the West preoccupied. In the Cold War days, the Russian FSB and KGB were neck-deep in backing groups like the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Red Brigades in Italy and the Palestine Liberation Organization across the Middle East. Names and ideologies have since shifted, but it is not beyond the Russian FSB to spread its tentacles once again into certain areas of the world where it can poke and prod the West.

This type of tit-for-tat escalation defined the Cold War. Now that the Black Sea has come into play, we are now just a few short steps from having this fracas in the Caucasus fully revive those Cold War tensions. Russia may have been looking for a relatively risk-free option to confront the United States with the war in Georgia. But now that we are seeing hints of a NATO naval build-up in the Black Sea, the Russians may be getting more than they asked for.

h/t: St9, who points out that we want to watch Germany's reaction particularly closely, and that Russia itself is not without splinter groups that could lead to a partitioning. A country with an antiquated military, he remarks, shouldn't bank too hard on a temporary petro-superiority.

I'm off to look for hybrid sedans to replace my husband's car with, after which I'll be installing a windfarm on the roof of my condo, and converting the cruiser to run on algae-derived ethanol. It's going to be a busy day.

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And I was thinking of voting for John McCain?

No, no: Buerge-Goldstein 2008. Like their campaign stickers say: "Hard Men for Hard Times."

Plus, when one guy's superb in a standard barroom brawl, and the other's made a serious study of the "mixed martial arts" (AKA UFC-style fighting), there's no one whose ass they can't kick. And if there were, they'd just shoot 'im.

Anyways, here's Buerge, on how shamefaced Russia is over that regrettable little Georgia incident:

DIPLOMATIC BREAKTHROUGH IN GEORGIA:

RED-FACED RUSSIAN PARTY CRASHERS RETREAT

Tbilisi, Georgia—Bowing to a withering barrage of pointed criticisms and strongly-worded letters of reprimand from the international diplomatic community, an embarrassed Russian military today abandoned its attack on the former Soviet republic of Georgia late this afternoon and retreated sheepishly over the Caucasus.

"Look, I don't really know what to say—other than, 'hey, our bad,'" said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an awkward, shoe-gazing statement to the United Nations. "Seriously, dude, it just totally wasn't like us to lash out like that. We've been having a couple of bad decades, and I guess we just sort of snapped."

According to Moscow newspaper Pravda, Lavrov and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin left several messages on the voice mail machine of Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili offering apologies and help cleaning up the damage from the weekend invasion. Sources say an angry Saakashvili was in no mood for forgiveness.

"Haven't you done enough damage already?" asked a testy Saakashvili, according to a U.S. State Department official. "Just get out. Come on dude, leave."

Russia's embarrassing geopolitical faux pas began over the weekend, just as the world was celebrating the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Friday, several armored divisions of the Russian Army and Air Force found their way into Georgia through an unguarded back door.

"Russia said South Ossetia invited them, to try out some of their pipeline stash," explained a source with the French Foreign Ministry. "I know Russia used to have something going on with Georgia, but nobody thought it was going to turn into a big ugly scene."

Russia's invasion prompted a quick stern response from GOP presidential candidate John McCain, while Democratic candidate Barack Obama urged Russia and Georgia to "work together to iron out their differences," and "chills, y'all." After learning that Georgia was a U.S. ally, Obama clarified the remarks, demanding that Russia withdraw its troops north to Tennessee and West Virginia.

By early Saturday morning, however, Russia's loutish behavior had gotten out of control, and according to some included wearing lampshades and carpet bombing of civilian areas. In response, the U.S. State Department prepared a carefully worded rebuke, reading "Dude, totally not cool," and the UN Security Council issued a special envoy to the region expressing "grave concern" and warning that "come on dude, you're drunk."

The harsh international diplomatic verbal response brought an immediate halt to the Russian firebombing campaign, followed by what observers termed "an uncomfortable silence."

"Everyone was just sort of staring at Russia, who's in the middle of beating the hell out of Georgia, and Russia's like, 'what? Come on man, you have to admit it's funny,'" said a source with UNSCOM. "So Russia's going around, looking for high fives and is like, 'don't leave me hangin', bro,' but the G8 gives him the total gas face, so he's like, 'whatever, dude, this party sucked anyway.'"

Read the whole thing, because I came, like, this close to breaking the rules and quoting his whole post. So go now, or it will cause me deep, physical pain and I won't let you back on my site.

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h/t: Ace.

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Perhaps we should be—perhaps we are—working toward a "Blow Me, Russia" Alliance.

Something light and quick that pivots easily. Preferably, one that could also be used as a "Blow Me, Iran" force.

So, um. What are we doing for Ukraine?

Yeah. I'm still pissed. The only thing that could possibly lift me out of this funk is some nice domestic drilling. Um, I mean . . . . well, that would be nice, too. I'll enquire about that as well; they tell me there's a weekend coming up.

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. . . on the Russia-Georgia conflict. I wouldn't dream of trying to summarize it; just go.

I even forgive Ace for being more fluent in obscenities than I am—at least for now. (Though the copy editor in me thinks he might have overdone "sucker of cock" in referring to Robert Scheer. Still, one cannot nitpick when it comes to True Blogging Performance Art, and the man was, as the surfers say, "in the tunnel." It is, I must admit, a thing of beauty.)

The fact is, I'm toggling back and forth between worrying about the energy crisis and worrying about (the country of) Georgia. But they are inextricably linked, and the Georgia crisis is also closely related to our efforts in Iraq: Russia's actions are a threat to the West's oil supplies and a threat to Ukraine. Its actions are pulling the forces of Georgia out of Iraq (a country that has provided a full third of the troops we've used to win that war).

This is a big fucking deal. Let's mobilize, build more nuclear power, get our biofuel act together, and drill anything that looks like it might have any petroleum in it whatsoever; after all, it's petro-superiority that lends Russian its moxie now. Why not?--the need for fuel is a big part of how the Soviets bested the Nazis in WWII. (And a big part of how we beat Japan, for that matter.)

And let's get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Like, now.

Furthermore, anyone who is considering voting for Obama now, with these twin crises unfolding . . . words fail me.

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. . . and love lying in bed with a sports-bottle full of mango-pineapple juice.

Ace debates the merits of Rice's tough talk, toggling back and forth between concern about whether Rice has gone too far and high delight at the Russian accents on display. (I always suspected Ace of having a secret fondness for Eastern European dialects.)

He thinks the Administration is employing a "tripwire" strategy, among other things. That's probably right.

As for the idea that Rice is pushing the Russians too far, I don't know about that. There aren't a lot of Westerners in existence who know more about Russia/the Soviet Union than Condi Rice does. This is where she concentrated most of her academic study, and she speaks fluent Russian.

She's been playing catch-up for years in studying the Islamic threat: Soviet studies are her home turf.

Putin will blink. He has to.

As for AllahP's contention that sending Lieberman and Graham to the country of Georgia sounds "a sour note," I'm not sure. Certainly there's a cheap side to it, inasmuch as it links his campaign strongly to the Russian-Georgian crisis, which is a bit like putting the Hillary "3:00 a.m. in the White House" ad on a continuous loop in people's minds.

On the other hand, the idea of having Obama at the helm while there's a showdown of this magnitude going on scares me enough that cheap tricks bother me less than they otherwise might.

And in fact, the ploy might be justified in this regard: I think one of the reasons the Russians are feeling, um, empowered right now is that the U.S. is in the middle of a Presidential election, which makes the body politic over here a good deal more fractured and distracted than it usually is. (The other is that the Russians have plenty of oil, and we do not, because we prefer to keep our coastlines pretty, every square inch of Alaska pure and virginal, and the Gulf uninfected by oil wells. Even oil facilities we cannot see from our beaches—those located beyond the horizon on the Atlantic and the Pacific—bother us. Never mind if we cannot see them; we know that they are there. It's, like icky and stuff.)

Whereas if there's a nuclear war, lots of people will die, and the overpopulation problem will be solved. The entire species' carbon footprint will lessen considerably.

But a presence of some on the Armed Services Committee who coincidentally happen to be associated with John McCain may simply be a way of assuring the Russians that, if anything, the heat might turn up in several months, and that they may not want to do anything too stupid right now.

That is, it might be a good time for the Russians to glance at their watches, say "would you look at the time!" and mosey on back. Or at least to keep a lower profile and cut down on the trash-talkin'.

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Let's not forget: Russia is one of the countries (along with Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Iran) that has gained disproportionate advantages because of our own weak energy position.

So although we're busy with our bread (gas-price-rage) and circuses (the tainted Olympics), Russian aggression in Georgia is not entirely separate from this decade's energy crisis, and we shouldn't be ignoring it.

Our weakness with respect to energy makes it harder to step in and help other nations to repel aggression—especially members of the OPEC mafia.

And, no: I don't want to be "the world's policeman." But once in a while these things have to be nipped in the bud. (There was once this situation in Czechoslovakia* that wasn't addressed in a timely fashion, and the whole thing turned into a bit of a mess, IIRC.)

* Originally I put "Poland" here, until John of the Evil Snackage corrected me (see the comments). Rather a stupid mistake, but I was in a hurry. Also, there were four of them, and the sun was in my eyes. And while they beat me up, the dog was eating my homework . . .

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