Many Western European governments, which had been cool from the outset to a unilateral U.S. project they regarded as gratuitiously provocative towards Russia, greeted the American decision with relief.

In a major speech in Brussels on Sept. 18, an obviously pleased NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen declared that “it is possible for NATO and Russia to make a new beginning and to enjoy a far more productive relationship in the future.” Outlining his vision of harmonized global defense architecture, the former Danish premier said that “NATO wants Russia to be a real stakeholder in European and international security … a partner in resolving the great issues of our time.”

A “new beginning” and partnership is both possible and desirable. The Ronald Reagan-Mikhail Gorbachev vision of a pan-European entente suddenly has a new lease on life. It appears certain that Russia will respond to the American decision by scrapping plans to deploy medium-range missiles in Kaliningrad, a Baltic enclave which borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania. It is to be hoped that Moscow will also take a second look at its nuclear cooperation with Iran. In addition, Moscow can further upgrade its already essential role in keeping the U.S. mission in Afghanistan viable.

While Washington should not expect great rewards for correcting a mistake – and the missile shield has always been a deeply flawed concept – Moscow would be well-advised to work with the U.S. when and where possible so as to maintain the cooperative momentum.

If this happens, the obvious next move for the Obama Administration would be to call off further NATO eastward expansion into Ukraine and Georgia, neither one of which possesses the qualifications for membership in any case.

There is a better option for Kyiv and Tbilisi than NATO accession: a declaration of neutrality. Such a move would promote peace, stability, and the reduction of tensions throughout Europe. It would also be a powerful expression of full sovereignty on Ukraine’s part.

U.S. policy on this issue has already undergone a significant shift—from enthusiastic advocacy of NATO expansion under former U.S. President George W. Bush to qualified support for Ukraine’s “Euro-Atlantic integration” on condition that Kyiv meets membership criteria. The shift reflects the more nuanced approach of Obama’s team, motivated by its evolving strategic priorities. A major new report by the American Institute in Ukraine points out: The quiet acceptance by a growing segment of Western decision-makers on both sides of the Atlantic that there will be no NATO expansion along the Black Sea coast any time soon is a welcome development. Encouraging an impoverished, practically defenseless nation – such as Ukraine – to join a military alliance against the superpower next door, thereby stretching a nuclear tripwire between them, had never been a sound strategy.

Obama’s challenge is to strike a balance between the desire not to be seen as appeasing Russia and the need to improve U.S.-Russian relations. He can square this circle and achieve a diplomatic coup by obtaining positive responses from Moscow now, while preparing his next move. That move should be to take NATO expansion definitively off the table.

This would be a low-cost decision, with pluses heavily outweighing minuses. Western Europe—especially Paris, Berlin and Rome—would support such a move even more enthusiastically than it has greeted the scrapping of the missile shield.

It would disabuse discredited Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili of any dreams of revenge, underwritten by the West, for last year’s failed aggression. It would help Ukraine redefine it strategic priorities in the aftermath of Yushchenko’s imminent departure after the Jan. 17 presidential election.

Above all, it would pave the way for a genuine Northern Alliance that includes Russia, Europe (European Union and non-European Union, including Ukraine) and North America, as all three face similar threats in the decades ahead.

Anthony T. Salvia, who worked in the administration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and also for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, is executive director of the Kyiv-based American Institute in Ukraine. He can be reached at salvia@aminuk.org. The organization’s website is www.aminuk.org. The privately funded U.S. non-profit organization focuses on American-Ukrainian relations, especially Ukraine’s possible accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance.

Since 1999 prospective Nato members have had to follow a roadmap known as the Membership Action Plan (MAP) to qualify for membership. At a Nato summit in Bucharest in April President George Bush pressed for Ukraine and Georgia to be awarded the MAP, but he was defeated by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany who argued that such a step would increase friction with Russia.

The summit agreed a contradictory compromise, denying the two countries the MAP while stating they would eventually become Nato members. The summit instructed today’s meeting to review those decisions. With British and east European support, the Americans argued last night that the deadlock could be broken by pushing ahead on the membership path outside the MAP.
Germany, Spain, Italy and others disagreed, contending that there could be no Nato membership process without it.

“The whole discussion around the MAP has become so politicised that it has lost its sense. It has turned into something of enormous political symbolism,” said a senior US official. “We should just try to put it aside.”

The British have sought to bridge the divide by proposing that the MAP procedure remains valid, but that Georgia’s and Ukraine’s membership bids be processed through two separate commissions between Nato and the applicants.

The main European countries reject this. On balance they view Georgia as the bigger villain in the August war with Russia, regard Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili as untrustworthy, believe that political instability in Ukraine makes it unsuitable for Nato, and are anxious to avoid further confrontation with Moscow.

“There is no consensus,” said a senior Ukrainian official. “The MAP will not be given to Ukraine. The issue has been removed from the agenda.”
Rather than enhancing Nato security, both post-Soviet countries represent a security risk for the alliance, argues the west European camp.

Diplomats and analysts say that the transatlantic split is such that today’s session will produce a formula that effectively replicates the conflicting signals sent in Bucharest. They add that the Bucharest decision was a mistake that contributed to the Caucasus crisis in August.

The issue of Nato membership for the two countries is intimately linked with western policy towards Russia, currently incoherent and contradictory.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France earlier this month backed Russian calls for a major summit next year to try to redefine Europe’s “security architecture.” An international foreign ministers’ meeting in Helsinki later this week could see Germany, France, Russia, and Finland supporting the summit, which is also opposed by the US and Britain.

“We have good European security institutions,” said the senior US official. “The institutions that exist are sound. I am not convinced we need a new architecture.”

A senior European diplomat said the Russian proposals could be considered but that the Americans had to be involved in any discussion about European security.

“The first thing the Russians need to do is explain what they have in mind.”

With no clear thoughts on who started the war, the Senate was quick to pick a name for the hearing – “Russia’s aggression against Georgia”, which echoes America’s policy towards Russia in the Georgian conflict. To nobody’s surprise, the Georgian Ambassador to the U.S. was present at the hearings. However, there was no one from the Russian side and the only person attempting to present both sides of the spectrum was the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, William J. Burns.

He said that “Georgia’s decision to use force to reassert its sovereignty over South Ossetia against our strong and repeated warnings was short-sighted and ill-advised”.

This statement comes after Russia spent years telling Georgia that a military venture on South Ossetia would be suicidal for Georgia, and that Russia would protect the people of South Ossetia.

Perhaps not all Senators have a full understanding of what happened but in the end they seems to be aware they need to mend ties with Russia – a country which “can play an important role in the 21st century” as Acting Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Christian Dodd noted. He also said: “We want them to be a part of that cooperation.”

It seems that some in the U.S. are wondering whether it is worth risking the country’s relationship with Russia. Even though some U.S. officials continue the wave of criticism against Russia’s actions in Georgia, they admit they will have to find common ground.

President Medvedev revealed in a frank talk with members of the Valdai Discussion club how news of war in South Ossetia came to him, why Russia will not deal with drug-addicted Georgian president Saakashvili, what George W. Bush said in his latest phone call, and why he won’t let Russia turn into a state behind an iron curtain.
 
<b><i>’I'll never forget that night’</i></b>

“I was on vacation. They say, Russia was preparing for war – that’s a lie! The Defence Minister called me at 1 a.m. and said, the Georgians have told the Ossetians that they were starting a war. And while all those troops were moving towards South Ossetia, I took no decision and hoped those dimwits would have enough brains to stop. They didn’t! We held ourselves until they started firing rockets, shelling residential blocks, and shooting at peacekeepers. And only after that real attack I had to give an order to respond.”

“I’ll never forget that night. It was very hard to order the use of force, while knowing the consequences. We did everything right. And I’m proud of it. Our response was symmetrical and proportional.”

“There were many illusions in the early 1990’s and, as the country developed, many of them just got blown away. Unfortunately the latest events mean those illusions are no more. Illusions that the world is just; that a security system based on current political resource distribution is optimal and keeps the world in balance.”

“For me, as well as for a big part of Russian society, it was the loss of the last illusion – that the current world security system is reliable. We must create a different security system.”

“The world has changed almost in an instant after those events. It came to my mind that for Russia, August 8 is almost like 9/11 for America.”

“The war took the whole last month of my life, and there were more productive ways to spend it. We didn’t want it, didn’t want it at all! For 17 years we’ve being mending what had broken apart a long time ago. And they didn’t thank us for that – rather they started shooting at us.”

“Russia was not expected to react like that. Georgia got the idea: do whatever you want, Russians won’t meddle. That’s a diplomatic mistake that belongs to textbooks for diplomats. It’s a mistake, from the US side, from Georgia’s side – but for Georgia it’s also a crime.”

<b>George Bush would do the same</b>

“I have spent so much time speaking to world leaders on the phone over the last month, my ear wouldn’t work. You know – after an hour’s conversation…”

“When I talked to Bush on the phone last time I told him: you’d have done the same in a situation like this, just in a more harsh way. He didn’t argue.”

“Bush asked me: ‘Why do you need it? You’re a young president with liberal background!’ I don’t need it at all. But there are situations where image is nothing and real actions are everything.”

<b><i>‘I don’t want to live behind an iron curtain’</i></b>

“We discussed the rearmament of the Russian armed forces yesterday. We’ll have to change some priorities, but all the rest remains the same. We don’t need a closed, militarised country behind an iron curtain. I don’t want to live in a country like that. I used to. It was boring and dull.”

“They should have invited Russia into NATO a long time ago. Were they afraid? Now we’d certainly have fewer problems. That was a serious mistake. And the second mistake is that any country prepared to be rude to Russia gets the right to be in NATO.”

“If Georgia had a NATO membership action plan by August 8, I would have done the same without a second thought. And what would the consequences have been? They would have been way more complicated.”

“The situation was humiliating for Russia some time ago, and we can’t take it any more. It’s a difficult choice for us, but we can’t take it.”

“I don’t think the confrontation phase will last long. From our side, we’re definitely not interested in this. On the contrary, we’re ready to go as far as our partners will. If you look at the five principles [of Russia's foreign policy] I have named, one of them says we would like to develop friendly relations with the U.S. and other states, with Europe. We don’t want to create new alliances just to frustrate Europe and America. What’s the point? There isn’t any. Foreign policy should be pragmatic”.

“The concept that the U.S. State Department embraced is pure ideology. We all need to take effort and drive ideology away from foreign policy. The current U.S. administration’s problem is that they have too many sovietologists.”

“If you think that Russia has decided to change its vector of development, that’s not true.”

<b>Saakashvili is a drug abuser</b>

“When I first met Saakashvili as a president I told him our policy regarding the territorial integrity of Georgia remained the same”.

“He was fussing around like a pooch, saying: let’s meet and discuss, I will come to Sochi. I said: OK, let’s do it. I would be glad, maybe we’ll sign an agreement on non-use of force”.

“Then our close partner Condoleezza Rice arrived, and the boy became like a changeling. He stopped calling, and declared ‘We don’t need to meet in Sochi, maybe we’ll do it at the end of the year’. Well – that’s your choice. He started getting ready for war”.

“It won’t come as a surprise if I say that the decision on recognition [of the two breakaway republics] was of course made after the military action began, when we realised that there is no other way to protect the South Ossetians and Abkhazians, that once he has tasted blood, he won’t stop unless he’s dealt a good heavy blow.”

“The Georgian head of state is not just a man we won’t do business with. He’s an unpredictable pathological and mentally unstable drug abuser. Western journalists, that interviewed him not so long ago, know it! A two-hour-long interview on the high – that’s over the edge for a head of state. If NATO needs such a leader – go ahead.”

Asian ties bring stability to West
 
“We will do everything we can to diversify our energy routes to Asia, but with no harm done to our European partners. On the contrary, it will ensure greater stability. This is about oil deliveries, gas deliveries, and the development of nuclear energy.
 
“I laugh when I read from time to time that Russia doesn’t have enough gas to provide even European needs. We know it’s not true. Russia is a big gas nation. If we see that there’s a market in the East, we’ll develop new fields. Be sure about that. Naturally, it must be balanced and must not cause economic disasters.”

‘To fight legal nihilism, we need to fight habits’

“My strong conviction is that unfortunately, there is no understanding of the value of law in Russia. I have devoted much time to studying this area both in theory and in practice. This problem can be found everywhere: in everyday matters, in business, on the level of state employees and even on the level of the state itself. That’s why during the election campaign one of my key points was fighting legal nihilism. We do have certain advantages here. Ours is a country with a developed law system, with good law schools; a country that has been developing within the European law system for three hundred years. So the foundation is not bad. The issue is really the habits that have been acquired – this is the most difficult thing”.

“We understand that it is possible to create motives for non-corrupt behaviour, it is possible to put corrupt people in prison, that’s not the most difficult thing, though sometimes it isn’t that easy either. It’s much more difficult to make people observe the law on an everyday basis”.

“Let’s imagine two scenarios. A Russian businessman and a businessman from the West are offered to pay for their contract in cash. The first question that most civilised and well-prepared businessmen would ask is, what does it all mean. “Will the tax people find out? Will I be filmed by a hidden camera? Will it all end in prison for me?” The motives of a large part of our own businessmen, unfortunately, would probably be different. I can speak about such things with confidence, because unlike my predecessors I was in business for ten years. This is not because they are criminals by nature, but because they don’t think that by breaking this law they are doing anything bad. “So what if no tax is paid on this money? The state isn’t perfect. Why should I share with this state? It doesn’t defend me, it’s trying to get something out of me”. And this is where the main difference lies.

“I don’t want to idealise anything. Many Western businessmen would take the cash. But their number is considerably less. And this will also depend on the traditions and habits in this or that country. I won’t name any countries, we all know who has what habits. The problem is that we have lots of such habits. That’s why I think legal nihilism is one of our most serious problems”.

The paper suggested that by attacking South Ossetia, the Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili had badly damaged a planned U.S. military operation against Iran. In the newspaper’s opinion Georgia was supposed to play the role of another “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for the U.S., i.e. an operational and tactical base for U.S.
aircraft that would be making bombing raids into Iran. Something akin to what Thailand was in the Vietnam war.

Thailand certainly benefited from the arrangement, and Georgia would have too, insists the paper, if its President hadn’t put his ambitions above the US national interest and ended up beaten, disarmed, chewing on his neckties and totally incapable of providing whatever the U.S. needs from him.

That’s why, according to Izvestia in yet another article on the matter, the U.S. response to the Russian retaliation was harsh in words but very mild in action. The latest on the issue suggests that Mikhail Saakashvili may be replaced any day now by direct order from Washington.

Having read the story in Izvestia I decided to try to figure out the extent of improbability and impossibility of the assumptions. As I was doing that, I remembered that early in August CNN had started showing U.S. generals who cried for more troops and hardware for Afghanistan which, in their opinion, was rapidly becoming a more intensive conflict than Iraq.

Shortly after that, a phone call came from a college friend who had just come back from Kandahar in Afghanistan, where he had seen American battle tanks being unloaded from a Ukrainian-registered Antonov-124 “Ruslan”, the heaviest and largest cargo airplane in the world. The friend asked if I had any idea what tanks would be good for in Afghanistan, and I said I didn’t. It’s an established fact from the Soviet war in Afghanistan that tanks are no good for most of the country’s mountainous territory. They are good for flatlands, and the main body of flat land in the region is right across the border in Iran.

Later in August there was another bit of unofficial information from a Russian military source: more than a thousand American tanks and armored vehicles had been shipped to Eastern Afghanistan by Ukrainian “Ruslans” flying in three to five shipments a day, and more flights were expected.

Somehow all this, together with the series of articles in Izvestia, the information that all U.S. troops in Afghanistan are going to be reassigned and regrouped under unified command, the arrival of NATO naval ships in the Black Sea, the appointment of a man used to command troops in a combat environment as the new commander of the US Central Command and other bits and pieces. To my total astonishment, when they all fell together the Izvestia story started looking slightly more credible than before.

Today the U.S. media reported that there had been a leak from the Pentagon about a secret Presidential order in which President Bush authorized his military (most of which is currently on Afghan soil) to conduct operations in Pakistan without the necessity for informing the Pakistani government. The U.S. military in Afghanistan – or shall we say in the whole region neighboring Iran – is getting a freer hand by the day. And it is getting more and more hardware to play with.

Of course it’s quite clear now that Georgia has lost its immediate potential as a nearby airfield, but after all, the aircraft carriers in the Gulf are not so far away.

Believe me I’m not saying that the U.S. is going to start an all-out war against Iran tomorrow. But aren’t there indications that it may happen the day after tomorrow, a month from now, or on any date before the official handover of Presidency in the U.S.? Or, as some suggest, before the election?

I’m just asking the questions. But there are some people, like those working for Izvestia, for instance, who answer them with a “yes”.

Evgeny Belenkiy, RT.

The Texas Congressman has generated a devoted following that many have called a revolutionary movement. Dr. Paul even organised his own Convention in Minnesota, attracting 18,000 people.

While he has officially dropped out of the race for the White House, his message is one for change but definitely not the type offered by Obama or McCain.

“Obama is not for change. He beats McCain into sending more money to Afghanistan. And they both want to send troops and more money into Georgia,” he said.

Ron Paul said he has rejected a plea from the McCain campaign to endorse him, though he did call the republican nominee ‘the lesser of two evils.’

Instead he’s rallied behind third-party candidates like Libertarian Ralph Nader, who took the opportunity to criticise media coverage of the election.

“It’s demeaning to the media, to the American people and to our status around the world to engage in trivia about political gaffs,” he said.

The third-party presidential candidates plan to hold their own debates parallel to those organised for McCain and Obama, in response to the media blackout on their campaigns.

The mainstream media has dubbed Nader a ‘Perennial’ presidential candidate and a spoiler for taking votes away from the main candidates.

Green Party Candidate Cynthia McKinney also took the floor to declare her independence from the current political order.

“The politics of today is politics of conformity and of control. And basically the two-party system represents just that,” she said.

A was message echoed by Charles Baldwin who’s running on the Constitution Party ticket.

”It’s a broken system. The two major parties have not only a monopoly but stranglehold a on the political process system that choking the lifeblood out of our country,” he stated.

The four candidates share the same views when it comes to foreign policy. They condemn U.S. intervention in Georgia and the decision to send a billion-dollar aid package.

”Have you ever thought when you send a billion dollar aid that maybe there’s someone hungry in the United States or who needs medical care?” Ron Paul wondered.

McKinney said it was totally inappropriate for the U.S. “to send so-called humanitarian aid on a naval ship”.She also called NATO’s eastward expansion a dangerous move that could stir another Cold War.

The third-party presidential candidates have no illusions about sitting down in the Oval Office next January. Their goal is to change the two-party system in Washington. They call it the ‘beginning of the realignment of American politics’

The events of September 11 2001 sent shockwaves around the world as hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Centre, bringing the landmark buildings down, the Pentagon, and into a Pennsylvania field in the wake of a failed attempt by passengers to regain control.

The Empty space at Ground Zero in Manhattan stands as a memorial to the collapse of the towers, which killed nearly 3000 occupants and rescuers.

One of the films authors, Giulietto Chiesa, who’s also an Italian member of the European Parliament, says some of the facts concerning the tragedy remain very suspicious and that a lot of questions are still unanswered.

He says he was shocked by the absence of U.S. air defence on the day of the attack which let the hijacked planes reach the World Trade Centre.

He also finds it strange that, just three days after 9/11, U.S. officials were able to name all 19 terrorist involved.

Despite repeated claims by President Bush and Secretary of The State Condoleezza Rice that such an attack couldn’t be predicted, he believes that there is some evidence authorities were warned about the terrorists plans beforehand.

“The people who organised 9/11 are people who knew the geopolitical and energy situation in the world very well. They knew exactly how the attack will change the future of the world,” Giulietto Chiesa said.

Dick Cheney denounced what he termed Russia’s war against Georgia. American political commentator Pat Buchanan pointed out that, while the Georgian conflict lasted five days, “We bombed Serbia for 78 days when it had not attacked us for the province of Kosovo.”

Cheney also warned that Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia could set a precedent.

“We know that if one country is allowed to unilaterally redraw the borders of another, it will happen and it will happen again,” the Vice President said.

Just over six months ago, Russia expressed similar concerns – but then it was about recognising the independence of Kosovo.

“We think to support the unilateral independence of Kosovo is wrong both from the moral and legal points of view,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in February 2008.

In spite of Russia’s warnings, the Serbian province’s unilateral declaration of independence was supported and recognized by the U.S. and more than 40 other countries.

Western politicians and media criticised Russia for what they called the invasion of a sovereign country. Again, terminology that would not be entirely out of place in a debate about the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which Russia opposed.

The irony was not lost on American comedian Jon Stewart, who took George Bush’s condemnation of Russia to pieces. “You can’t just overthrow a government, occupy a capital, knock over their statues…!” Stewart said with mock indignation on the Daily Show as he showed footage of the United States’ invasion of Iraq.

As the U.S. continues to attack Russia rhetorically, its inherent double standards are becoming ever more obvious.

In the words of Russia’s U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin, “the United States invented the term ‘regime change’, not Russia.”

Tensions between the United States and Russia have a long history, but one only need go back to the early nineties to see how our own government threw away its chance to have a better relationship with post-Communist Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In 1992, inflation in Russia was spiraling into the triple digits and the economy was collapsing. Economist Jeffrey Sachs, who was advising the government, offered a plan to get inflation under control which centered around stabilizing the exchange rate – a key element of a potentially successful anti-inflationary policy. To do this, though, it is necessary to have a good supply of foreign exchange reserves – i.e. dollars — and Sachs thought he might get a commitment from the United States to provide these reserves. He was wrong. He didn’t get the stabilization fund, nor the immediate suspension of interest payments, debt cancellation, or other aid he was seeking from the G-7.

Looking back on those events, Sachs later noted that “Richard Cheney, then the secretary of defense, and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, were drafting the controversial Defense Planning Guidance, which aimed to ensure long-term U.S. military dominance over all rivals, including Russia. . . ”

“I had supposed in 1991 and 1992 that the United States would be rooting for Russia’s success as it had been rooting for Poland’s. With hindsight, I doubt that this was ever the case.”

It seems that Washington was more interested in destroying the post-Soviet Russian economy than saving it. Whatever their intention, destroy it they did. It was one of the worst economic collapses in the world history without a war or natural disaster. The economy shrank rapidly, tens of millions fell into poverty, and life expectancy for men dropped from 65.5 years to 57.

At the end of 1998 the economy began to recover, getting a boost from the collapse of its overvalued currency and then the rise in oil prices – Russia is the world’s second-largest oil exporter. This economic expansion was the basis of Vladimir Putin’s political success as President from 2000 through this year, and a resurgence of Russian nationalism. Since 1999, Russia’s economy has doubled in size. Despite everything that is still wrong with the Russian economy, the contrast with Washington’s “shock therapy” of the 1990s was sharp.

Unfortunately Washington’s political strategy for dealing with Russia has been no more intelligent or benign than its economic strategy. The expansion of NATO was a key element. The organization was created in 1949 for the stated purpose of defending against an attack on Europe from the Soviet Union, but it was not clear that it had a legitimate reason for continued existence when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991.

Washington soon found reason to expand it to Russia’s doorstep, incorporating Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary; the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia; and Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Military contractors in the U.S. played a major role in greasing the wheels for the expansion, with lobbying efforts worth tens of millions of dollars. The new NATO members were required to upgrade their weapons systems, providing what Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa – who opposed the expansion — called “a Marshall Plan for defense contractors who are chomping at the bit to sell weapons and make profits.” He wasn’t exaggerating. In 2003, after lobbying for six years, Lockheed Martin got Congress to approve a $3.8 billion loan for Poland to buy 48 of its F-16 fighter jets. It was one of the largest military loans in recent memory.

The Administration’s proposed placement of U.S. missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic was seen by Russia as a further provocation. One can only imagine what the U.S. response would be if Russia made an arrangement to put such bases in Canada and Mexico. Recently the Bush Administration had been working to invite Georgia into NATO as well, although this was reportedly blocked by France and Germany.

The current friction over Georgia is a culmination of this failed strategy. It appears that the Administration’s building up of Georgia’s military and other commitments may have encouraged the Georgian government to try and settle its dispute over South Ossetia militarily, thus provoking the Russian military response. But this was an extension of a failed long-term strategy.

The Bush Administration now pretends it can bully the Russians by threatening to kick them out of the G-8 and deny them membership in the WTO. This not only won’t work, it is a dangerous delusion. Russia is, among other things, a nuclear power. Engagement and co-operation with Russia are a necessity for world security, progress on climate change, and other issues of great urgency.

It is one of the great intellectual ironies of our time that those who argue for “free trade” rely on empirically weak and often incoherent economic arguments and fail to make their strongest case: economic integration, when there is mutual benefit, can help to prevent wars and expensive arms races. The U.S.-China relationship is a good example. There is a faction of conservatives here, with allies in the military-industrial complex, that would like nothing more than a hostile relationship with China and a costly (but profitable for some) arms race. But for now, at least, they are sidelined because China is a major recipient of U.S. foreign direct investment, a huge trading partner, and in recent years has accumulated hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. treasury obligations.

The United States has relatively very little in the way of commercial relations with Russia, and therefore there are not powerful business interests here to counteract those whose primary goal is the projection of imperial power, or making money from arms sales. The Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, has been consistently bellicose towards Russia and had previously – long before the current military conflict — called for expelling Russia from the G-8.

Eventually, our foreign policy establishment will have to adjust to the realities of the 21st century, in which Washington cannot simply tell the rest of the world what to do. They will learn to accept a multi-polar world where diplomacy, international law, and negotiations play a much larger role and military force and threats are much less significant. The question, as always, is how much Americans and the world will lose in blood and treasure before that happens.

In the meantime, the media coverage of this latest conflict shows how far we have to go before common sense can prevail. Appearing on Meet the Press on the Sunday following the eruption of armed conflict, David Broder, a Washington Post columnist who is the embodiment of inside-the-beltway conventional wisdom, said that this was “particularly a moment where John McCain can claim to have been prescient, because . . . he draws a very sharp line when it comes to Russia. .”

“Obama’s basic message on foreign policy is it’s better to talk to our enemies than to get ready to fight them. And here’s a case where, clearly, talking did not dissuade Russia from this act of violence.”

It was Broder’s four-hundredth appearance on Meet the Press.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

Deputy Chief of Russia’s General Staff Anatoly Nagovitsyn showed photocopies of the passport to media in a press briefing on Thursday.

“There is a building in Zemonekozi – a settlement to the south of Tskhinval that was fiercely defended by a Georgian special operations squad. Upon clearing the building, Russian peacekeepers recovered, among other documents, an American passport in the name of Michael Lee White of Texas,” said Nagovitsyn.

Neither the owner of the passport nor his remains were found at the scene, despite a thorough search.

“I do not know why he was there, but it is a fact that he was in the building, among Georgian special forces troops,” Nagovitsyn said.

The briefing was delivered on the same day Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told CNN, “We have serious reasons to believe that American citizens were right at the heart of the military action”. Putin said the conflict in South Ossetian may have been planned to benefit one of the U.S. presidential candidates.