Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The Question is: Why?

Just why did Russia unleash its mighty military machine on tiny Georgia? A geopolitical quiz.

Al-Jazeera has it this way: The heavy fighting between Russian and Georgian forces appears to have ended after the two sides agreed to an EU-backed ceasefire plan.

Now, Russia has about 140 million people, and the arsenal of a former, and nascent, super-power. Georgia has about 4.6 million people. [Dig: these are numbers from the CIA World fact Book, which likely means Big Brother is watching; do be careful.]

So, a former super-power wanting to assert its virility, up against a pup with less than 5 million people -- this is not a pissing contest between Georgia and Russia, but between Russia and and the US, and one has To hope that Condie Rice and W Bush got enough cojones to match up against Vlad Putin (not a bet I'd be glad to make).

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