The Russian invasion of Georgia has been in the headlines this past week and would be a welcome respite from the daily back and forth presidential election bickering if it weren’t for the fact that the winner of the election is going to have to deal with Russia and Vladimir Putin’s territorial designs on his neighbors.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Russians and their claim on the North Pole, as well as some of Putin’s actions that have turned him into a de facto dictator. The invasion of Georgia has been planned for a long time, given the size of the force that thundered into the tiny Republic on the day the Olympics opened. The Russians stirred up separatist feelings in the breakaway region of South Ossetia and handed out Russian passports to anyone who wanted one. That gave them the excuse that they were merely protecting their citizens, rather than invading a sovereign nation. David b. Rivkin Jr. and Lee a. Casey wrote last week, “The language of "protection" was once a favorite pretext for Tsarist expansion in the 19th century. It is also the same rationale that Germany offered for absorbing the Sudetenland in 1938. The Kremlin's current claims are no more credible than its tattered justifications for invading Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Afghanistan in 1979. Russian assertions that Georgian forces provoked the conflict by attacking Russian troops call to mind Hitler's story that his 1939 invasion of Poland was justified by Polish attacks on Germans. This is particularly ironic, given the Kremlin's penchant for comparing Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to Adolf Hitler.”  At the moment, Russian forces are in the middle of Georgia and the world has been assured that they are pulling out of the country. TV crews on the scene are reporting that the Russians are not going anywhere. Many expect this adventure to be a foretaste of invasions to come. I think Putin wants to retake all the former Soviet satellites that were lost when the USSR collapsed.

Russia has lots of oil these days, and as a result, plenty of money to fund its military adventurism. It was the lack of money and no way of getting any under the communist system that caused the USSR to implode. With the price of oil as it is, Russia has more power than ever. Western Europe and many former Soviet satellite nations are dependent on Russia for their winter heating fuel—Russian gas. Putin thinks he can keep those countries in line because he controls the flow of gas.  

Georgian ports on the Black Sea are a main shipping point of Caspian Sea crude from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. More than 500,000 barrels leave these ports daily, and plans are afoot to expand capacity by an additional 200,000 barrels a day. If Russia occupies Georgia, it will have control of even more of the world’s oil.  

There really isn’t much the U.S. can do to stop Russian imperialism militarily, but there are several other things that can be done to make them regret (a little) their actions. I don’t think this is a one time action and I believe that the Russians will continue to invade its neighbors. It is imperative that we have someone in the White House with a clue about what to do and how to handle the Russians. President Bush knows what he’s doing but he will be out come January. 

Clearly, there is only one candidate who has the experience and background to deal with the Russians. Indeed, there is only one candidate with any experience for that matter. On the job training for the most important job in the world isn’t an acceptable option.