The sky in Bill Kristol's world is always red, white, and blue

Russian forces pushed past the borders of South Ossetia today and into Georgia proper as the Kremlin forewarned about the opening of a second front. Russian troops and tanks overran lightly defended Georgian positions in the town of Senaki, a full twenty-five miles from the South Ossetian border. Concurrently, the Kremlin issued an ultimatum to Georgian special forces digging in along the border with Abkhazia, another renegade province: disarm or face annihilation.

[Above, state-of-the-art medical facilities in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali. Photo courtesy of the New York Times]

The case here seems pretty clear: Russia is out to bust some heads, looking to quell a small, restive, U.S.-allied neighbor and pick up some ethnic Russians and their territory in the process (not an insignificant factor, given Russia's negative population growth rate). This is a naked land grab, and the escalation of the conflict to include sustained bombing of Tblisi, the opening of an Abkhazian front, and the continued drive through South Ossetia make it difficult to argue that Russia is not engaging in pre-meditated aggression...which, for those of you keeping count at home, is a war crime.

The New York Times's Opinionator blog does a good job laying out Georgian-Russian Power Relations 101, but the real story here is how the West will respond. With the Olympics in full swing, world leaders' collective attention is not focused on the Caucasus (never fear: Dubya made sure to bring a sage old friend with him to Beijing, in case circumstances dictate a quick foreign policy decision...someone should give ol' Hank some No-Doz). While Georgia is in a race against time---as GWS pointed out last week, if Georgian defenders can't hold out until Michael Phelps leaves the pool for the last time, they're finished---Russia is somewhat beholden to the same timetable. For the next couple weeks, Russia will be able to turn most of Georgia into a free-fire zone.

The Russian air force bombed Tblisi's airport a few short hours before French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was slated to arrive, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what message Russia is trying to send. The Georgians' pleas for a cease-fire have been pocket-vetoed by the Russian President, the Russian Prime Minister, and the Russian Foreign Ministry. American diplomats say the bedraggled, outnumbered, outgunned Georgian forces have tried to surrender and withdraw, but the Russian forces have pursued them and refused to grant quarter. GWS predicts that from now until Beijing's closing ceremonies, Russia's generals will let slip the dogs of war, as they've already cried havoc.

President Saakashvili of Georgia has accused the Russians of ethinc cleansing, and while that claim's outlandish for now, the Russian Army's continued push into Georgian territory does nothing to quell GWS's concerns. It's worth pointing out that Abkhazia didn't have anything to do with this current conflict except having similar demographics to South Ossetia; here, the Russians don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to "punishing Georgian aggression," but the international community has turned a blind eye to this warmongering escalation of the conflict.

GWS's rage gland was inflamed earlier today when he read William Kristol's op-ed in today's Times. GWS agrees with Kristol in many ways, and early reports from retreating Georgian soldiers have contained a running theme: we can't believe you pricks are just going to abandon us like this. DBMIVFK further congratulates Kristol for getting this far through an op-ed without 1) suggesting that lower taxes might solve the problem, and 2) for getting about two-thirds of the way through his piece before vividly demonstrating how frightfully out of touch with reality the man is.

"Surely we cannot simply stand by as an autocratic aggressor gobbles up part of — and perhaps destabilizes all of — a friendly democratic nation that we were sponsoring for NATO membership a few months ago." Surely! Thanks Bill. One quick question: how do you propose we, um, go about doing that?

Kristol somehow fails to connect the dots from Kabul and Baghdad to Tblisi, to wit: if we hadn't launched the absurd War on Terror Kristol's Weekly Standard championed, we'd probably have the force flexibility to credibly deter the Russians' advance. Surely we can't simply stand by? What else would you have us do, Mr. Kristol? Where, exactly, do you get off by advocating a foolish war and then complaining when we don't have any spare combat brigades to throw around? Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

Oh, Russia, you're incorrigible!

It's on! It is owwwn, shit is going down, shit is going down! Does this mean the Olympics mean something again? Does Ivan Drago become culturally relevant again? GWS sure hopes so.

So, ok, we get it---this is what happens when the guard changes in Russia: the new leader sits quietly for a minute, shakes some hands, kisses some babies, then bombs a Caucasian breakaway region back into the Stone Age. The Russian people then fall in behind their valiant leader because, as far as GWS can tell, that's just what Russians do: Putin came into office with dismal approval ratings, but after creating a bloody shirt around which people could rally, he led Russia into the disastrous Second Chechen War and was eventually loved by most Russians and referred to as "Daddy." Putin left office with nearly nine in ten Russians approving of his work

CNN quotes Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili as saying "This is the worst nightmare one can encounter," which might qualify as the understatement of the year. Georgia has called for a total mobilization of its armed forces, about 70,000 pairs of boots all told; Russia, by contrast, fields an ground army of just under 400,000 men, including 35,000 paratroops. Moreover, Russia's air force will dominate the skies over Georgia throughout this conflict, and Russia's massive numerical superiority in armor and artillery will be difficult for the Georgians to resist. Haven't we seen this somewhere before?

From the most recent statements coming out of Moscow, Tblisi, and Tskhinvali, GWS predicts that this will be Chechnya 2.0, and that this time, the Russians will have learned from their mistakes in Grozny. Oh, sure, there'll be plenty of fuck-ups---this is, after all, the only army that gave its soldiers booze during World War II (100 mL of vodka per day per infantryman). The Russian army still depends on 190,000 unomotivated, unprofessional conscripts and is far from a model force. Still, they should crush Georgian resistance using the same tactics Russian armies have employed in aggressive wars for the last 50 years: loose rules of engagement, heavy reliance on artillery and mobile rocket platforms, and a crushing advantage in manpower and materiel.

GWS's take is that the Russians are launching a fairly naked war of aggression. Claims of protecting ethnic Russians ring hollow considering the way Russia has treated the former Soviet republics in the Caucasus. Besides, ethnic nationalism is sooooo 20th century. Russia timed this move to correspond with the opening of the Beijing Games, and given the South Ossetian government's response to the crisis ("Russian tanks? What Russian tanks? Oh those Russian tanks? Those are, um, milk trucks."), Russia is not acting unilaterally.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took it upon himself (isn't Dmitri Medvedev the Russian president??? Sorry, stupid question) to tell the world that "war has started" in Georgia. No shit! Thanks Vlad, you shifty little ex-KGB bastard. GWS sees a bit of The Wire's Avon Barksdale in Putin---Medvedev might be telling him they can get out of this street game and become legit, become bid'nissmen, quit screwing around with small-time, dangerous little corners of the world like South Ossetia. Vlad takes a drink and tries to hide the contempt in his voice, then makes his priorities clear: "I want my corners."

The big escalation here from the low-level saber-rattling that has defined the South Ossetian problem for the last few years was when Georgian planes bombed a Soviet (oops, sorry, Russian) armored column headed for Tskhnivail and Georgian ground forces fired on Russian attack planes. In what will become, GWS predicts, a running narrative, the South Ossetians claimed that the armored column was, in fact, a humanitarian column. GWS isn't buying it---can someone teach these people to lie plausibly, please? Otherwise, the drama goes right out of this whole thing...

The international response to this crisis is likely to be muted, in part because of the Olympics, in part because Russia's trying to annex a relatively geopolitically meaningless territory, and in part because Russia's ultimate gamble will pay off: while South Ossetia has the potential to turn into another Chechnya, Russia's unlikely to lose this war and even if it does, it will have solidified a de facto sphere of influence approaching its Cold War borders. The Georgians have to think more short-term: dig in, booby-trap everything, and pray you can hold out until after Michael Phelps wins his medals and the world (hopefully) starts paying attention.