Russia has succeeded in capturing South Ossetia and manufacturing a pretext for the attack: the supposed “defense” of the province from the power-hungry Georgians. Now that Russia has South Ossetia in its grasp and it has acquired a launchpad on the Georgian side of the Caucasus Mountains, it will move to bring Georgia’s days of independence to an end. If Georgia doesn’t play along, the Russians have already shown that they can charge forward to Gori and cut the country’s road and rail transports in half, leaving western Georgia disconnected from the capital of Tbilisi in the east. Russia can now station thousands more troops in South Ossetia than were there for the supposed “peacekeeping” mission and they can have much heavier weapons since they aren’t meant to be peacekeeping troops any longer.

The United States needs to take swift, decisive action to prevent Georgia from being cut down like a tree by Russia. We chose not to intervene while Russia was defeating Georgia militarily and killing its civilians which was, in my estimation, a mistake since it is always more difficult to eject a party from an area than it is to keep them out in the first place. The United States’ best (and perhaps only logical) option now is to increase the number of American troops in Georgia significantly. Russia has already shown its hand by raiding Gori: that will be their first destination when they try to undermine the current Georgian government. Therefore, the United States should station a significant number of troops in and around Gori as well as stationing more troops in Tbilisi. It would be wise to sprinkle more troop contingents throughout Georgia near possible targets of the Russian military but the largest numbers should remain in Gori and Tbilisi.

These American troops are going to serve a very important function for continued Georgian independence. They considerably raise the price of a potential attack by hostile Russian forces. By intermixing American troops with Georgian troops, Russia will have to carefully consider any attack on Georgia because if they kill American troops then they will either have to withdraw from Georgia under international pressure or face the brunt of an American retaliation against the Russian forces that would be invading Georgia to destabilize it. This is a tactic that has been used many times in military history: utilizing human shields. Many times the human shields were hostages from the enemy that were important people because they would think twice before possibly killing them unintentionally in an attack. In this situation, however, our troops will be acting as a foot in the door preventing it from shutting on Georgian independence as well as one of our few footholds close to Russia. If our troops are killed by Russian forces perpetrating an attack on Georgia that gives us a legitimate right of unlimited retaliation including an unremitting air campaign to assist Georgian ground forces in not only pushing the Russians back but also driving them out of South Ossetia and into North Ossetia.

Some may be saying that it is foolish to antagonize Russia over a small country such as Georgia. I disagree. Georgia is an American ally and that should mean something. Russia’s attack on Georgia is a slap in the face to America. They know that Georgia is our ally and they dare us to do anything to stop them from overrunning the entire country. Today it may be Georgia but if we do not extract a price from the Russians for attacking one of our allies, the next time the attack will be more bold. The next time it won’t be an attempt to kill the leader of Ukraine. The next time it will be a military strike on Ukraine to bring it back under Russia’s yoke as a satellite country.

Russia has made great amounts of money from its oil and it has used that money to rebuild and vastly improve its military. History shows us that armies are not built for peace; they are built for war. Vladimir Putin has bent the government in Russia to his will and ensconced himself as the leader of Russia in perpetuity. There was a time 70 years ago when an autocratic leader overseas acted belligerently and demanded territorial concessions based on questionable ethnic ties. The major powers foolishly thought that giving up this land would quench his thirst for conquest and bring peace. Instead, it only whetted his appetite for war and convinced him that the other powers were gullible and could be defeated by a concerted attack. The leader was Hitler, the territory was the Sudetenland and the small country that the major powers sacrificed on the altar of peace was Czechoslovakia. The Sudetenland contained most of Czechoslovakia’s industrial and military might so when Czechoslovakia was forced to cede it to Germany it was left nearly defenseless against the later onslaught by Germany. If the West sacrifices Georgia in the misguided hope of “peace” with Russia and not starting any trouble, it does so at its own peril. The West has seen what appeasement does to the countries that lay down at the feet of the bully. We would do well to remember the principle lesson from the Munich Agreement: “Peace” kills.

Unlike the previous Gulf War, the United States mustered a smaller coalition of nations willing to engage in the liberation of Iraq prior to the invasion in 2003. Much has been made of the weaknesses in the international alliance, in so far as it did not include powers such as Germany and France, two pivotal players on the European mainland. Germany and France, for reasons cultural, strategic, and financial, where unwilling to work with the Bush administration’s stated goals for dealing with Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003, and this has plagued relations between the U.S. and its traditional allies in Europe since.

Yet, other European nations bucked the leadership coming from the old continental forces. A number of these “new” European states were formerly members of the communist Eastern-bloc, and sided with the American mission to topple Iraq’s totalitarian government and establish a democracy in its remains. One of the key nations in this union was Poland, lead by Aleksander Kwasniewski’s government, which headed the nation between 1995 and 2005. (more…)