Georgia's Last Gasp

The Russian invasion of Georgia is the most fundamental change in the world since 9/11. We're looking at a complete collapse of two decades of Western foreign policy, not just in the Caucuses, but on Russia's entire periphery. The entire premise of the post-Cold War world is that Russia is weak, unable to project power outside its borders, and that the West - America - will protect the newly liberated former Soviet satellite states.

Russia has now demonstrated that it can bring 300 main battle tanks and 500 armored personnel carriers to any border on its periphery, with half those forces combat ready and moving within 12 hours and engaged in competent combined arms combat. Georgia is mostly mountains and gorges; the steppes of central Europe are a cakewalk in comparison. One week after defying Russia - tomorrow - the Georgian president will either be dead, facing war crimes charges in a Russian court, or being airlifted to exile in Turkey.

Meanwhile, the American President has not so much as left the Olympic Games in protest of the invasion and submission of an American ally. This is not a message that will be lost on the region.

The West will regroup to adapt to the earthquake this event represents in regional geopolitics. Those countries of the former Soviet Union now in the Western orbit - members of NATO and the EU like Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, etc. - will immediately begin a process of armament and reinforcement with American bases. America will now be the guarantor of Eastern Europe against Russia, as it was the guarantor of Western Europe against the Soviets.

The Europeans, led by the British, French and Germans, will initiate a process of trans-national consolidation of national armies - the development of a continental European army, under the aegis of NATO.

The global war on terror is over. We won.
The second Cold War has just begun.