Saturday, August 16, 2008

Ceasefire

The Russians and Georgians have both officially signed a ceasefire. Well, the devil is in the details, and it will be interesting to see if this means very much.
Probably, Georgian refugees from South Ossetia and Abkhazia will not be going home to those places, ever again. Refugees returning to Gori and other places in Georgia proper will probably find heaps of ruins when the Russians finally decide to pull out.
Georgia, and every other Former Soviet Union state -- will think twice or three times about going against Moscow's wishes. At least that was probably Putin's idea, but it may not work out that neatly. Look for Ukraine and the Baltic States to try to get more protection out of Washington.

2 comments:

LFC said...

The Baltic states are in NATO, hence they have a security umbrella. (Ukraine a more complicated situation; i see Yuschenko is offering the benefits of Ukraine's radar facilities to anyone who wants them, in return for...?)

El Jefe Maximo said...

I know the Baltic States are in NATO, but I was thinking they might be after something more substantial than a treaty, exercises, troops in Iraq, or the "Baltic Air Policing" arrangement...such as a US or other NATO presence.

I saw that about Ukraine. Even Ukraine has that IPAP arrangement. I hope NATO doesn't do more than that. Personally, I think the US (and NATO) are overextended in eastern Europe as is.