If you've been following the news recently you must have heard about the war going on the Caucuses. A boiling cauldron of ethnic tensions and rivalries, the region has seen turmoil ever since the iron hand of The Soviet Union left in the early 90's. Although all these countries have used the boundaries drawn by the Russians since sometime after WWII, they really reflect nothing more than lines on a map. In addition to the two conflict zones of Abkhazia and Ossetia, the southwestern region of Adjara has seen its share of conflict, also fostered by the Russians.
Why is this important you may ask? A tiny Caucasian country that imported about $260 million wort of US products while exporting around $160 million. It's important because certain factions within the US have been pushing to admit Georgia into NATO since the Rose Revolution brought President Saakashveli to power. While NATO has over 26 member states, one as to only take a glance at Afghanistan to see who has to carry the water in any military conflict. Had Georgia been accepted into NATO The United States would have been obligated, under a treaty that's been in place for almost 60 years, to defend their territorial integrity.
It could be argued that had Georgia been under NATO protection the Russians may have thought twice about such blatant aggression. But that's a big maybe and as much as I sympathize with the Georgian people, the last thing I want is a war with Russia.
1 comment:
What does the North ATLANTIC Treaty Organization have to do with Eastern Europe? From what I have gathered, Georgia has been provoking Russia in the South Ossetia region for quite some time. They, Georgians, are the ones that have been sending their troops in and running civilians over with tanks. Aren't 90% of the civilians in South Ossteia Russian citizens anyways? Putin is absolutely right that the West is caught in a cold war mentality and is trying to circle Russia with EU and Nato members. While we, the US, have our own security concerns, Russia is entitled to its own as well. It is perfectly understandible for them to want their neighbors not to have too close of ties with the West, certainly not Nato membership which guarantees an attack on one is an attack on all. This offers perfect leverage for these countries to extract concessions from Russia which it doesn't want to make and what is Russia going to do, attack a Nato member? And aren't citizens of AzAbkhazia Sunni Muslim, I wonder how that plays into this all?
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