Word: putin
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...Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force has just been used effectively - and not by the U.S., which tried to prevail on the cheap with its 2003 invasion of Iraq. This time around, it might as well be rechristened the Putin Doctrine, given what the Russian military has done to Georgia over the past two weeks. In the aftermath, assorted soldiers and graybeards in the Pentagon, the National Security Council and government warrens around the world are evaluating the military lessons of Moscow's move into the Caucasus. Just what does it mean for the way war is waged in the 21st...
...Putin has used the opportunity presented by Saakashvili to show Russia's neighbors that Washington's tough talk could not be matched by any meaningful response to the Kremlin's military campaign. Bush may now be trying to play catch-up with his tough talk, but reversing the impact of the Russian offensive will require a lot more than stitching up a bloodied Georgia and casting Russia out of the G-8 or boycotting the 2014 Winter Olympics. (Thursday's announcement of a deal between the U.S. and Poland to station missile interceptors on Russia's doorstep over increasingly bellicose...
Russia could do little to stem NATO's advance during the economic and social collapse presided over by Boris Yeltsin. But Putin's Russia, flush with petrodollars, has re-emerged as a geopolitical player at the same time that U.S. influence has been waning. With the bloodletting in Georgia, the Russians are telling Europe that the current security architecture is dysfunctional - a message Moscow sent earlier in the year through a vague proposal to replace NATO with a pan-European security structure in which Russia would be an equal partner...
...will be growing doubts over the value of a security system built upon a structure designed to isolate and contain Russia. The problem, of course, is that NATO operates strictly by consensus, and in the absence of such consensus, paralysis may set in. Indeed, it may yet emerge that Putin's campaign in the Caucasus has succeeded not only in keeping Georgia out of NATO but in dealing a body blow to the Alliance itself...
...This is not to suggest that the West do for Russia what the U.S. did for Germany - integrate an aggressor. Invading a country out of humiliation is as deplorable as doing so for territory or riches. Indeed, the West must be prepared to sanction Putin for the invasion of Georgia. The U.S. and its allies can avoid humiliating Russia by acknowledging that Georgia is not blameless and that the rights of Russian minorities must be protected. But Western countries must refuse to accept Russia's cease-fire assurances without independent monitoring, and they must state that Russia's continued membership...