Are we doing stupid things like this…

…Or this?

How does one miss a place so much that one has never visited?

Someday I’ll visit. I swear.

Doesn’t anyone in this country realize that something seriously grave and important is happening in the Caucuses? Russia and Georgia are at war, and it’s getting even less than the scantily-covered American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. Regardless of who or which side began the current aggressions, the fact remains that a couple months ago the US was actively pursuing membership into the NATO alliance of Georgia. Under the terms of the NATO treaty, this would have meant we would have been at war with Russia at this time.

I’m so sick of the persistent American need for a constant drip of militarism to keep its social cohesion alive. For years I’ve been watching as American administrations and politicians dive into the “problems” with Russia, consistently spouting a jingoistic lament at the “democratic deficits” and “authoritarian trappings” of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. All the while ignoring the fact that most of the elections in Russia in the past decade have been free and fair compared to anything that happened prior to them, and that regardless of the wisdom of specific policy decisions he may have made since taking office, Vladimir Putin has been the deftest handler of the Russian state in living memory and is easily the most popular Russian Leader in history.

America endeavors to clash with Vladimir Putin or to “contain” Russia at its peril. We need to look closer at the wider region and Russia’s ability to be an ally and stabilizing force, and stop letting balance-of-power rivalry lead us blindly to our doom. America risks the same decline Britain and Rome before it experienced: obsessed with leadership, we are spreading ourselves thin and failing to see the positive influence that can be had by letting other great powers manage their own near-abroad.

Georgia has been at war with Abkazia and South Ossetia for years. Trying to bring such a quagmire into the fold of NATO could prove fatal to the alliance. Trying to take sides in this current conflict would also be total folly for America. America must support the quickest end to the conflict that leaves the least casualties and then stay the hell out of the way. If that means accepting Russia as the governor and mediator of the matter, so be it (and I’m not the only one saying so). We need a strong, stable Russia that is at peace with its neighbors far more than we need the territorial integrity of Georgia. Besides, if we really cared about the territorial integrity of tiny European states, we would not have let stuff like this happen over the past 20 years…

Yep, Georgia’s quaking in it’s boots. This should solve the recruitment problems in the US army, I suppose, since so many rednecks are thoroughly convinced that the Russkies are marching on Atlanta.

As someone else noted, “Russophiles know they live in the matrix; Russophobes think they’re free and laugh at the poor Russians, not realizing that they’re laughing at their own ugly reflections.”

Never a better analogy, really - the idea of ‘acceptance’ took a long time for me. These days I like to think of myself as post-ideological. My Russian teacher often told me how she never liked capitalism because she equated it with American militarism/imperialism (a too-close-too-home similarity to what made her leave Russia in the first place). I told her America would be great - if it were really a capitalist country.

In fact, no philosophical ideal as detailed in the text of a great thinker has ever really impressed itself onto a state that has actually existed on this Earth. They try, but it’s always a bastardization, whether you’re talking about Von Mises capitalism superimposed on the pork-barrel state of America or Marxist communism warped into Stalin’s slave state.

The key is realizing that neither philosophers nor statesmen have yet figured out how to talk to each other - states are designed to impose a political order, not a philosophy, and philosophers are designed to develop ideology, not policy.

Anyone wanting a fairly straight-forward explanation of what’s going on in the Caucuses without having it filtered through the propaganda machines at either end of the current mainstream press should read this.

A good interview with former German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder, which provides another good perspective that the mainstream media is simply failing to broadcast. An especially astute observation about why Russia matters to the West:

“I see Russia as part of Europe, more than as part of any other constellation…  And we in Germany and Europe should interpret this as an opportunity. Russia has an Asian alternative, but Europe does not. Besides, such a constellation does not necessarily have to lead to Europe distancing itself from the United States.”

Russia is a part of the European order, regardless of what Washington tries to claim to the contrary. Having Russia as a partner with our existing European allies would be far preferable to an estranges Russia that seeks better integration and partnership with Asia instead. The same could be argued about Latin America for the past couple decades - another issue that is falling by the wayside as successive American administrations repeatedly ignore the region as irrelevant (despite persistent growth and better global integration of all its consitituent economies).

I have said before that a McCain presidency would not bother me, but over the past few months I have changed my mind: he is trying to campaign as the war hero, here to save the country - as if it was still 12 September 2001 and we were all still reeling from some direct hit. What better target that poor wounded Russia, only now getting its strength back after two decades of abuse by the Western business-military-crime syndicates. He will certainly gain the old geezer vote, as millions of codgers who miss their cold war will cast a ballot in favor of starting a new one…