WPR Blog Archive

Apparently, not only are Russian forces protecting South Ossetai and Abkhazia from aggression, they’re also protecting the EU observer mission that deploys today: “To some extent EU officials are frightened by the very mechanism of the transfer of power, as well as by how they can keep the situation in the region under control,” [Russian general Anatoly Nogovitsyn] told Interfax on Tuesday. “They requested that Russians ensure their security there.” Seriously, though, the mission is taking gradual control of the buffer zones around the two provinces, in advance of Russia fulfilling its promised withdrawal from Georgian territory by Oct. 10. […]

I know he’s got an awfully long and crowded bandwagon these days, but the thought occurred to me the other day that one of America’s great strengths is that it can produce men like Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. Here’s a speech he gave at the National Defense University the other day that’s worth reading in its entirety for the lucidity with which he treats the challenges facing American hard power and how to respond to them. But maybe what’s more striking than the lucidity is the reassuring logic and, above all, lack of hysteria: The defining principle driving our […]