DDoS attack floors Georgia prez website

@ Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

Putin: 'short, failed lieutenant general'

Hmmm let me see, became President of the Russian Republic, took control of the World's second largest nuclear arsenal, started rebuilding the military, brought the economy under control, cracked down on low-level corruption, made sure the West took Russia seriously, rebuilt the country's foreign currency reserved, seen by the Russian people as one of their greatest leaders, and is now Prime Minister.

Nice - no; scary - absolutely; failed - certainly not.

Historico-political background

I recently got interested in the situation in Abkhazia and did some investigation (not all online, btw). I was specifically trying to figure out what Russia's interest is in detaching Abkhazia from Georgia. That remains a mystery; it may just be a Russian pleasure in stirring up trouble. There are signs that Moscow is very pissed off that Georgia escaped the Russian embrace, but it's hard to fathom the logic (or emotion) beyond that.

As for the relations between Georgia and Abkhazia, I concluded it's a situation with no possible resolution. There's long standing bad blood between the Abkhaz and the Georgians and there's too much real blood been shed to turn back the clock. Similar in spirit to the conflict in Kosovo between the Serbs and the Albanians.

Because the former Georgian inhabitants of Abkhazia, comprising about 70% of the population, were driven out by the Abkhaz in the early 1990's, Abkhazia itself is now woefully underpopulated and its economy has ground to a halt. Meanwhile, Georgia itself is trying to deal with the great mass of refugees this created and being a poor country itself, there are still hotels full of refugees from the Abkhazian ethnic cleansing.

From everything I've read, Abkhazia is a place of great natural beauty, with a gorgeous landscape and a climate ranging from sub-tropical along the Black Sea coast to alpine cold at the crest of the Caucasus. But lack of international recognition of the Abkhaz government, capital investment to make good physical damage from the conflict, and underpopulation because of ethnic cleansing, Abkhazia is dead in the water.

Various Georgian sources make all sorts of inflated claims about Georgia's right to Abkhazia, but these resemble nothing so much as the ridiculous Serb claims to Kosovo and other breakaway regions.

There is no solution; only time (generations of time) will resolve the issues

In South Ossetia, the Russian interest is more obvious: the southern adit of the trans-Caucasus tunnel is in South Ossetia, and if I were in charge in Moscow, I'd want to control the entire tunnel, not just the northern adit.

Putin

Are we ready to "rub up" against the bear?

In a word, yes. First off Russia is REBUILDING its Military, it is however still a LONG way from done, further it WOULDN'T just be the US in opposition if Russia decided to invade Georgia, by treaty ALL of NATO, including Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, the US, etc would be up in Russia's face. So would quite a few of the breakaway republics.

Franklly Putin represents a return to old school communism in many ways to Russia and MOST of the breakaway republics realize this and want nothing to do with him because of it.

In terms of Russia's economic recovery, remember a LARGE part of that has to do with two factors, western aid (MOSTLY the US and Britain) and the strength of the Euro. A major war in Europe against Nato would cut off that aid, and pretty much demolish the value of the Euro, atleast temporarily.

Putin is foolish, and arrogant, possibly even megamoniacal, but he isn't stupid. He'll flex muscle, bluster and bluff, but I doubt VERY seriously that he will risk a war he knows he can't win.

@RW

Having been upto the Russian/Georgian border not sure how useful the tunnels are.

To get anything serious across you really need to look at the edges of the Caucasus range i.e Azerbajan or Abkhazia.

Been along the Georgian Military Highway and upto Racha and the state of the roads up there is terrible.

Re. Georgia getting the regions back:

Really the majority of the non-Georgian population of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are so p***ed of with the Georgians that letting them back is unlikely, check out Jon Steeles book "War Junkie"

As to organised DDOS was in contact with a journalist from Estonia when it all went down and get the idea it was local Russians and individulas, no need for a big master plan from the Kremlin!

NATO

...are supposed to maintain peace for their member states. So why the hell are they off courting countries like Ukraine and Georgia?

Who will have to pay for the enhancements to those countries military infrastructures? The wealthier existing members perhaps? NATO are always moaning about not having enough resources to meet requirements - how will spreading those resources into more poorer new member states help?

How does it enhance our security to piss off our closest potential enemy and the ONLY source of enough gas to keep our homes warm in winter? Putin has already indicated he would be quite happy to flog all their gas to China and Japan. And as the Ukranians have already found out, Turkmen gas has to pass through Russia anyway.

Response to Destroy all Monsters

Quote -- "risk a war he knows he can't win"

I'm sure there won't be war, but I would not be so sure about the "can't win".

Russia is at the fuel spigot. We are not. NATO is busy losing hearts and minds in Afghanistan, the US military is down the tubes and probably soon embroiled in its third (Iran)/fourth (Pakistan) war, the US economy is tanking bigtime already. Let's not forget that Russia is directly adjacent to Georgia and does not need Diego Garcia to do bombing runs. And they like to flatten things.

And what the hell do we care about Georgia anyway? Remember that there was an understanding that NATO would not be extended eastwards if the wall came down? And now, NATO is angling for Georgia! The question of who actually is the megalomaniacal is very open indeed." --- END QUOTE

First off the US Military is a LONG way from down the tubes. While we are heavily committed elsewhere it is within our capabilities to shift assets far more quickly that most people realize.

As for Russia being at the fuel spigot, true, but what MOST people tend to forget is that the Alaskan oil reserve alone is almost as much oil as the entire Middle east possesses, when you add in the reserves under Texas, Oklahoma, etc we are capable of EASILY pumping enough to meet our needs and then some for well over a decade and the infrastucture is in place to start that kind of production fairly quickly (it takes about 3 months to bring an old well back online with limited production, 6 to be producing at capacity and there are THOUSANDS of old wells that were capped off in the 80's in Texas alone.) The fact of the matter is we dont NEED foreign oil at all, its just more convient, and in the long term more strategically sound to use someone elses reserve than to use our own.

As for Nato expanding, MOST of the countries that have been added or are under consideration came to NATO, NATO didnt seek them out. The reason they came to NATO is BECAUSE of Putin's and Russia's resurgence in expansionist attitude. These coutries WANT freedom from Russian domination. Should we tell them no? Gee thats a great way to reinforce Russia at a time when the return of cold war is a very real possibility, GREAT PLAN that.

In response to problems in the US economy, yes economically we aren't in the best of shape atm, NO ONE outside the member states of OPEC is really and that includes Russia and China. High oil prices have hurt everyone, devaluation of the US dollar or for that matter any other MAJOR currency affects global markets.

I stand by my statement, IF it came to a war, Putin COULDN'T win. Not JUST because of the US though we would likely play a key role, but also because many former soviet satellites would jump Russia in a heartbeat, both for their own security, and also in many cases for a bit of revenge. Putin would be giving them the excuse they need and the allies they would have to have all in one fell swoop and I seriously doubt he is stupid enough to not realize it.

As for someone else blaming the resurgence in cold war politics on Bush in part, I would remind them that Bush has been very much busy elsewhere. The vast majority of THIS can be laid directly on Mr Putins power hungry little lap TYVM.