What Putin gains:
- A recognition by the world that (Commulist) Russia is back and a force to reckoned with. So deal with it.
- Profoundly pound and hurt the Georgian people (i.e. a "make them pay" attitude),and thoroughly embarass President Saakashvili to them; lighting the fuse of his ultimate removal from office by his own people.
- His first country addition (Georgia) to the emerging new Soviet Union II
- Make an example of Georgia to stem the erosion. Sends a message to former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact countries that Russia is back and don’t even think about “going NATO”.
- Embarrasses NATO and disillusions NATO wannabee countries - Demonstrates to forner Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact countries that NATO may not come to their rescue.
- No more Georgian interference in South Ossetia (the 2008 earth equivalent of the Star Wars (movie) criminal ridden Tatooine spaceport called Mos Eisley - recall the infamous bar scene) to disrupt sensationally lucrative criminal activity, propped up by the Russian military. This includes but is not limited to proven sophisticated counterfeit printing of very high quality U.S. currency (found in circulation in the U.S. up and down the east coast) and weapons grade nuclear material smuggling in this area.
Author's Note: The Georgian authorities responsibly and miraculously stopped an illegal transfer of weapons grade nuclear material about three years ago "within" South Ossetia, the global clearinghouse for this activity. This success with the arrest of North Ossetian smuggler Oleg Khinsagov in the SO capital of Tskhinvali. See Note below for details. That opportunity to thwart future potential nuclear material transfers however, now appears gone with Georgia forever removed from South Ossetia. That should raise the biggest concern of all in all this mess to the West and a big wakeup call to those naively trumpeting "Russian Peacekeeping".
Nuclear Material Note:
Wikipedia notes Oleg Khinsagov is a Russian citizen from North Ossetia. On Jan. 25, 2007, he was sentenced by a Georgian couurt for 8.5 years for smuggling 100 grams of hghly enriched uranium. According to the Georgian authorities, in January 2006, Khinsagov together with a few Georgian citizens from the separatist region of South Ossetia was trying to sell 100 grams of highly-enriched uranium. He claimed that the material is only a sample and he has more than 3 kilograms of the substance in his Vladikavkaz garage. Georgian police arranged meeting of Khinsagov with their Turkish-speaking agent introduced as a representative of a rich Muslim organization willing to buy the sample for $1 million US. At the meeting held on February 1, 2006 Khinsagov was arrested with 100 grams of a substance in two plastic pouches. The chemical analysis performed by an American Department of Energy Lab confirmed the substance been a U-235 purity of 89.451 percent enriched Uranium that makes it a Weapons-grade material….the FSB (KGB successor) report provided for the Georgian investigators confirmed the substance been the highly enriched uranium and indicated it was processed more than ten years ago.
- Access (capture) to some of the U.S. latest military technology.
- A key opportunity to fully exercise and field test under live hostile fire, a rebuilt Russian military and technology platform/machine that has not been combat tested in 20 years.
Note: The Georgia action has already shown military/technology flaws (e.g. precision guided munitions, command and control issues, etc) which will be fixed – for the next invasion. The Ukraine is a much more potent military adversary.
BOTTOM LINE:
To Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, “Stans”, et al etc. (aka as Putin refers to them - the "Near Abroad" countries"):
The Russians Are Coming....The Russians Are Coming.
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