Archive for August 18th, 2008
AFP: No sign of large-scale Russian withdrawal
By Bertrand de Saisset
There was no sign here Monday of a massive Russian force withdrawal from Georgia although Russia media reported that an expected pullout of personnel and weaponry had begun. →
Stratfor: The Real World Order
By George Friedman
On Sept. 11, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush addressed Congress. He spoke in the wake of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, the weakening of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. He argued that a New World Order was emerging: “A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor, and today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.” →
The Irish Times: Head to Head
Is the conflict in Georgia a sign of renewed Russian aggression? Daragh McDowell agrees with the motion, but Seamus Martin disagrees
Russia deliberately provoked the war in Georgia as part of a wider strategy of bringing ex-Soviet states to heel, writes Daragh McDowell
TOL: Moscow’s Power Divide
The Georgian crisis shows that an emergent force could sideline both Medvedev and Putin.
WASHINGTON | Dmitry Medvedev inherited the post of president of the Russian Federation from Vladimir Putin, and while Putin moved down the pecking order and became prime minister, there has been a great deal of speculation about an eventual split between Russia’s two highest leaders. →