The More Things Change...

...the more they stay the same:

Nicaragua on Friday became the first country other than Russia to formally recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, giving Moscow a victory in its battle with Georgia over the two breakaway provinces.

And Chavez gets in on the act, of course:

Last week, Ortega's ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Russia made the right move by recognizing the independence of the two breakaway regions. But Chavez hasn't formally done the same.

Chavez said he fully supports Russia's position and that Venezuela "would do the same if someone dared to attack us."

The Venezuelan leader has criticized Georgia and has called President Mikhail Saakashvili a "puppet" of Washington.

For those of you not paying attention during the 1980s, Ortega was the Sandinista President of Soviet-allied Nicaragua, against whom the Reagan Administration waged a proxy war with the Contras. Unfortunately, he's back in office, with support from would-be Venezuelan President-for-Life Hugo Chavez.

I would hope this sort of thing would put paid to the notion that Chavez and Ortega are any kind of reformers, instead of the thugs that they really are.

Let's Not go Overboard...

...on Russia, says Thomas Barnett, and I agree with him. Because to do so means throwing away the strategic opportunity to finish off Al Qaeda and, longer term, to Shrink the Gap:

I see essentially four million-man armies out there: U.S., Russia, India, China. A fifth wheel would be NATO (with the body core really being Turkey).

You put those resources in rough combination (frenemies competing and collaborating economically and security-wise) and there's no question that there's enough Core-wide resources to pool against the tasks of shrinking the Gap. You put them largely at odds with each other, then the hedging requirements will gobble up most of the important budget, and in the U.S. that means a Leviathan that continues to grab the lion's share of acquisition, keeping emerging SysAdmin capabilities as strict lesser-includeds.

And, later in his post:

From history's perspective, it can't get much dumber than this: our globalization sweeping the planet in the form of an international liberal trade order, but right at its apogee, the four million-man army nations find a way to turn on each other more than the collective problems and opportunities staring them in the face.

From an international businessman's perspective, this is potential tragedy in the making. From a grand strategic perspective, this is an unthinking America playing down to the lower-order dynamics generated by less-mature great powers.

In short, we should know better and act better and avoid this pathway.

But Americans are, by their nature, strategically short-sighted. We respond emotionally to events--this week's column (above).

The column he references can be found here.

Well, I am going to differ with Dr. Barnett here only in that he sees a greater likelihood of this strategic blunder occurring with a President McCain than with a President Obama.

I think Obama's open protectionism is more harmful here than McCain's occasionally strident rhetoric. It will not only hurt the very Gap nations we're supposed to be helping, along with hurting the U.S. economy, but it will also increase the likelihood of trade blocs forming.

I may be wrong about this, and I will be the first to say so in that event, but with Henry Kissinger advising McCain, even from the sidelines, I doubt very much a President McCain will make the mistake of going back to the Cold War. Never forget it was Kissinger who advised that old Cold Warrior Nixon to make the strategic stroke of genius that was flipping China to the anti-Soviet side, while also aggressively pursuing detente with the Soviets themselves.

Which leads me to a final question: if "only Nixon can to China," is the modern equivalent "only McCain can go to Iran"?

Grand Strategy and Russia

Several strategists I respect, including my former professor George Friedman at Stratfor and Thomas Barnett, are arguing that we've misplayed the situation with Russia and essentially driven them to lash out. It's worth noting that Tom Friedman has the same perspective in an op-ed piece today.

Now these gents are not Pat Buchanan, who never met a fascist he didn't like and couldn't help admiring how Putin put the smackdown on the Georgians! Rather, they are arguing from a standpoint of grand strategy that it is better for us to engage Russia than to isolate it over what is in the end a minor dust-up on Russia's periphery.

I have real problems with this, because my emotions get caught up in the "big bully Russia beating up small, heroic Georgia" storyline. There's a lot of fundamental truth to that storyline. But grand strategy is not about emotion, it's about a cool, dispassionate 10,000-foot view of what is in a nation's long-term interests.

Forget Putin's thuggery for a moment. It is hard to do so, but let's try to look beyond it just for a moment. Is it desirable for the United States to get into a new Cold War with Russia over a small nation of 4.5 million people? Is it even possible that our relationship with Russia can be salvaged at this point, after our mis-steps and Russia's even more numerous ones?

These are difficult questions to answer, and clearly beyond my pay-grade or, for that matter, Obama's. It's my hope that for all his stirring rhetoric that "we are all Georgians," McCain has some clear-eyed grand strategists (Kissinger, perhaps?) advising him on the bigger grand strategy concerns.

I wish I had something more definitive than that, but I don't.