WHAT IS RUSSIA & GEORGIA MATTER ALL ABOUT?

Question

Please tell me what'a history & current happenings in russia & georgia matter.

Answer 1

Georgia's adventurism in attacking and attempting brutally to take  military control of the breakaway  region of south ossetia was the beginning of the war.  It is also the Georgian president's full belief on united states and hoped that the united states will give hand in the war.  Russia  has handled it with due care.  Russia  has asserted Russia's right to intervene in south ossetia in terms of its historical task of guaranteeing the security of the people of the the caucasus and its duty to repulse Georgia's act of aggression.  Now, the war is over, and russia pulled back the military from Georgia.  The Georgian president now learnt a lesson how to deal the sensitive subjects.

Answer 2

... First, let's be clear: there are two reasons only we care about Georgia: the oil pipelines that go through its territory, and the opportunity it provides to run aggressive policies towards Russia.

... OK, first, the oil angle.

Georgia does not have oil, but it is a transit country. This is valuable because it provides the only outlet for Caspian oil and natural gas which is not going either through Russia or through Iran. (See the maps and the wider context in that diary) And after a 15-year tug-of-war, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was inaugurated two years ago: it takes roughly 1 million barrels per day from the Azeri oil fields run by BP to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, via Georgia. That's over 1% of world production, and it is fully controlled by Western oil majors. There is also a smaller gas pipeline that follows the same route and brings smaller volumes of gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey.

These pipelines have been at the heart of the relationship between Georgia and the USA over the past 15 years, but, oddly enough, they have played a very small role in the current crisis. In fact, the BTC pipeline has been cut off for the past few days, not because of events in Georgia (which are in the north of the country, whereas the pipelines go through the south), but because of a bomb attack in Turkey before the conflict started, with claims by the PKK, the Kurdish movement.

The reason the current conflict is not about the oil is because, now that the pipeline is built, that game is, in effect, over. Now, the only thing that could stop the flow of oil is, other than localised attacks (like the one conducted by the Kurds, something that has long been expected, and which was mitigated by building the pipeline on a route that avoids kurdish territory) would be for Russia to actually invade all of Georgia and physically take control of the pipeline, ie an outright act of war not just against Georgia, but also against the US.

The reason for that is that, as part of the process to put in place the pipeline, Georgia invited the US military to set up a base on its territory, near the route of the pipeline. Thus, any attack on the pipeline by Russia would become an attack on the USA.

But the important thing to note is that this base was not set up by the current Georgian government, but by its predecessor, that of Shevarnadze, Georgia's previous president (and, if you remember, Gorbatchev's - and the Soviet Union's - minister for foreign relations in the 80s), which was kicked out of power by Saakashvili's bunch in the rose revolution a couple of years ago - more on this below. That base was seen as a defensive gambit, and was relatively small. Indeed, with Georgia still hosting Russian military bases (see the map I posted here), anything bigger would be ... interesting. Which is what's happening today.

But before we go into the internal politics of Georgia, the thing to note at this point is that it is oil that brought the West to care about Georgia, but that this was a settled situation, and no longer a source of conflict in itself.

Answer 3

Its about the US wanting to control oil again!

How many people must die for the greed of one nation and their continued ability to keep spending beyond their means

Answer 4

Petropolitics and power politics: see this:

    KIEV, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on Wednesday she is unhappy with the current tension between Ukraine and Russia over Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

    "Regarding tension between the Ukrainian authorities and the Black Sea Fleet, I'm strongly against that. I believe representatives for the Ukrainian authorities should behave properly so that Ukraine should not be drawn into military conflicts," she told a news briefing.

    "I want the position of the Ukrainian authorities to be deliberated so as the Ukrainian territory should not be involved in any military tension. This refers to the decrees on the Black Sea Fleet," Tymoshenko said.

    Tymoshenko also noted that Ukraine intends to stick to the international agreements on the stationing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Ukrainian territory until 2017.

    Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko last week signed a decree requiring tougher rules on Russian naval movements from the base in Sevastopol, as a reaction to the participation of Black Sea Fleet ships in the recent Russian military operation in Georgia.

Now, no world power can allow  a country to tell it how to position its fleet.  So if the Ukraine thinks it can follow the example of Georgia and become a pawn of the US under the guise of NATO membership they will have a rude awakening.  Know that Turkey is a member of NATO and is required to close off exit to the Black sea in support of another  

member of NATO coming into conflict with Russia. The people of Turkey refused to let the US use Turkish bases to attack Iraq, we will see if they let themselves be drawn into a tussle over US hegemony in

the Black Sea.  

As for oil contracts?  Excuse me but they can be cancelled at any time

e.g. Mexico nationalized the oil companies, Venezuela keeps close tabs on the multi nationals in its country, and the Iranians were going to take their oil back when Mossadeq was killed by the CIA and, yes, the US will risk war and even go to war  to keep the flow coming its way and on its own terms. ( note Iraq).  If you think that the US sponsorship of Kurdistan

as well as its grooming of Saakashvili has nothing to do with the Great Game for oil, then I think you are naive.