Soviet Style Aggression By Russia Worries West

Invasion into Georgia Creates Fear Throughout America & Europe

Aug 11, 2008 Frank W. Hardy

Forty years ago this month, the Warsaw Pact troops, spearheaded by Russia, rolled tanks through the streets of Czechoslovakia and started the Prague Spring. Today new Russian tanks are rolling into the streets of Georgia in yet another invasion. Russia’s desire to regain the prestige and world power of those days has resurfaced the last few years. Her interference with Ukrainian politics and threats against the Czech Republic, Moldova and Poland are all symbols of this Soviet style national intervention of decades long past.

Russian Expansion

• Thaddeus McCotter wrote today in the Washington Times, NY Senator Charles Schumer noted, "Former KGB Lt. Colonel and current Russian strong man Vladimir Putin seeks to regain the power and greatness Russia had before the fall of the Soviet Union."

• Dr. Ariel Cohen, Ph.D. of the Heritage Foundation published Executive Memorandum #730 on March 16th 2001, Crisis in Ukraine Threatens Democracy and Undermines Regional Security. He said that the, “explosive combination of issues is forcing Ukraine back into the Russian orbit…. Russian President Vladimir Putin is encouraging Kyiv to subject Ukraine [to]… Re-absorption into a future Russian super-state….”

• Dr. V. G. Baleanu wrote in August 2000, for the Conflict Studies Research Centre, In the Shadow of Russia: Moldova and Ukraine, Russia instituted “…a complex of aggression by the use and manipulation of mass-media aimed to influence political circles and public opinion…contrary to Ukraine and Moldova's national interests.” Baleanu continued, Russia substituted “…military threat with aggressive financial-economic…threats combined with energy…blackmail to [damage] the young democracies of Ukraine and Moldova….”

• Dmitry Gornostaev of Kommersant, one of Russia’s national daily newspapers, reported on February 26th 2007, “…the Russian military has threatened…Poland and the Czech Republic… however; threatening rumblings from Moscow have only increased support…in Poland and the Czech Republic.”

The impact upon these nations is yet to be determined. Moldova and Ukraine have had severe hardships placed upon them by Russia’s use of natural gas as a weapon. However, the Czech Republic and Poland too have not been immune. Russia has twice threatened them with military force. BBC News reported on July 8, 2008, that the Russian foreign ministry said “…we will be forced to react not in a diplomatic fashion but with military-technical means." BBC's Adam Brookes commented that “…the Russians are trying to frighten the Czech parliament.”

The recent Georgian invasion appears to be the next step for Russia. The bombing of the port cities of Poti and Batumi along with strategic bombing of Gori and Tbilisi, implies Russia has other motives than the stated protection of ethnic Russians living in South Ossetia.

The BBC reported on August 7th, “Moscow is angry about Georgia's plans to join NATO, while Tbilisi accuses Russia of trying to destabilize Georgia.”

Samantha Shields of AFP reported on August 9th that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said in an interview with the BBC, "What they are doing is nothing to do with conflict; it is about annihilation of a democracy on their borders."

The fighting continues and people are killed. American Vice President Dick Cheney summed it best as reported by AP writer Paul Alexander today, "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences…"