Word: sovietizers
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Since the Soviet Union collapsed 17 years ago, Washington in particular has deluded itself into believing that it was somehow a real competitor to Russia in the southern tier of the former Soviet Union - that is, the eight states that make up the Caucasus and the former Soviet Central Asia. Washington acted as if these states were truly independent and sovereign, immune from the influence of the old metropolitan center, Moscow. Washington deliberately ignored how Russia had held on to its military bases in the southern tier, how the successor to the KGB stayed more plugged into intelligence from...
...Since the early 1990s, South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been an integral part of Russia's strategy to preserve its traditional spheres of influence following the collapse of the Soviet empire. The two territories broke away from Georgia for the same ethnic-nationalist reasons that Chechnya wanted out of Russia. But while Moscow relentlessly and bloodily suppressed Chechnya's secessionists, it fully supported their Ossetian and Abkhazian counterparts as a tool against Georgia's tilt toward the West. Moscow issued Russian citizenship to over 90% of the population of both entities and deployed "peacekeeping" forces sympathetic to the separatists...
...NATO members to induct Georgia as a member, despite strong U.S. support for Georgian membership.) And by extending its offensive into Georgia - dozens of civilians are reported to have been killed in Russian air strikes on Georgian cities - Moscow has also fired a warning shot at Ukraine, another former Soviet territory that shares Georgia's ambition to join NATO...
...Russian move could backfire, however, by reminding former Soviet territories and satellites just why they might want NATO protection. Azerbaijan will resume pumping oil across Georgia as soon as hostilities there end. Ukraine, angered that the Russian navy used bases in Ukraine to launch its naval blockade against Ukraine's ally and sink one of its ships, may step up its efforts to ease out the Russian military presence on its soil before 2017, when the current leasing treaty for bases expires. And the bloodshed in Georgia may spur Ukraine to intensify its own efforts to put its national security...
...Terrorists are mobile and headed from all over to Iraq because the U.S. was there. Now Afghanistan is becoming the hotbed, and terrorists will flow there. The problem is that no foreign force, including the former Soviet Union, has ever been successful in Afghanistan. Could this be why the U.S. chose to fight terrorists in Iraq? Charles Langhorn, Auburn, Calif...