Word: nato
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...southern tier, how the successor to the KGB stayed more plugged into intelligence from the area than the CIA ever hoped to, and how local leaders flew to Moscow to clear all important decisions. This was the context for Washington's push to get Georgia to join NATO...
...Rubicon, demonstrating that the Caucasus sit squarely and solely in Russia's sphere of influence. Moscow's long-term objectives in Georgia no doubt are to install a friendly government in Tbilisi (it has tried more than once to do that since Georgian independence), keep Georgia out of NATO, stop the flow of arms into Chechnya and take control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the only important export route from the Caspian that does not pass through Russia. For it is oil that will give Russia all the more leverage over the southern tier...
...Russia's outlook on the events in Georgia will be shaped by its refusal to fully accept Georgia's independence. Russia has long sought to re-establish influence in Georgia and prevent it from joining NATO (a move Russia sees as part of a hostile encirclement by the West), and also to prevent the oil pumped to Turkey from Azerbaijan and elsewhere in Central Asia from bypassing Russian control. Georgia claims that Russian planes have in recent days bombed the strategically important oil pipeline that transits Georgia. The pipeline actually had been inoperative since Aug. 6 as a result...
...Besides suspending the oil shipments via Georgia, Russia's military campaign has clouded the prospects for Georgia joining NATO anytime soon. (The carnage of recent days will probably reinforce the reluctance of European NATO members to induct Georgia as a member, despite strong U.S. support for Georgian membership.) And by extending its offensive into Georgia - dozens of civilians are reported to have been killed in Russian air strikes on Georgian cities - Moscow has also fired a warning shot at Ukraine, another former Soviet territory that shares Georgia's ambition to join NATO...
...Russian move could backfire, however, by reminding former Soviet territories and satellites just why they might want NATO protection. Azerbaijan will resume pumping oil across Georgia as soon as hostilities there end. Ukraine, angered that the Russian navy used bases in Ukraine to launch its naval blockade against Ukraine's ally and sink one of its ships, may step up its efforts to ease out the Russian military presence on its soil before 2017, when the current leasing treaty for bases expires. And the bloodshed in Georgia may spur Ukraine to intensify its own efforts to put its national security...