How to murder a small country
and get away
with it
with it
(A Russian convoy outside the village of Dzhaba in South Ossetia. Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia declared that war has started.)*Motive
Claim that the country to be invaded is oppressing a minority population, preferably located along a shared border.
Example: Nazi invasion of Poland,
3 September 1939
(A Russian mobile artillery unit fired toward a Georgian position outside Dzhava on Saturday.)Opportunity
Choose a time of the year when the attention of the world is otherwise occupied or in late summer/early fall when journalists are usually on vacation.
Example: Japanese invasion of China,
7 July 1937
(Russian air attacks struck two apartment buildings in Gori in what an official at the Georgian Interior Ministry called a major escalation.)Means
Take advantage of other great powers' fears that their involvement could escalate the invasion into a broader regional war.
Example: Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, 21 August 1968
(One Georgian soldier, his face a mask of exhaustion, cradled a Kalashnikov. We killed as many of them as we could, he said. But where are our friends?)
* Excerpts and photos from the NYTimes.
Labels: Georgia, history, war stories
posted by Da' Square Wheelman, at 3:47 PM
3 Comments:
. . . History is the instruction manual for the [present and] future.
Or alternatively - a classical definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing, but expect different results.
And I fear that neither the US nor the EU will intervene; except rhetorically. The EU fears Russia's Oil Weapon while the US is bogged down in the Middle East & Central Asia, not to mention Bush's Lame Duck presidency...
I agree with both Karl & Anon. Unfortunately, the lesson would-be invaders take away from this is that they'll succeed much of the time. On the other hand, the lesson appeasers should take away is that they'll succeed NONE of the time.
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