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‘m working on a political thriller in which the Chinese are up to no good. The scheme I’ve created for them to carry out is pretty imaginative and nefarious, but I just might have to reconsider it, because what they’re doing in the real world is much, much worse, according to the WSJ:

WASHINGTON — Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven’t sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

“The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid,” said a senior intelligence official. “So have the Russians.”

Power companies were unaware their systems had been breeched; U.S. intelligence agencies discovered Chinese and Russian footprints in what should be our most secure non-governmental computer networks. They found intrusions across the systems, and the frequency of penetrations and probings is increasing in frequency and scope, as water and sewage infrastructure are being hit, too.

Consider the latter for just a moment. Sewage treatment plants utilize a carefully balanced microbial process to break down sewage, so an attack on a plant that knocks off the balance and kills the microbes will eliminate the plant’s ability to clean sewage for several days, until balance can be achieved again. Until then, there’s no place to store millions of gallons of wastewater, so it must pass through the plant without treatment.

Plants like these line our rivers, and without them, water in the downstream city would become polluted and undrinkable. Knock out a strategic series of plants along a major river like the Ohio, and you could cause disease outbreaks and mass migrations from a string of major cities.

And that’s the tougher of these three scenarios; computer-spawned disasters in the power or water systems would be swifter, and it’s much easier to imagine the catostrophic results. Add to that the computer systems that run pipelines and industrial facilities and everything starts to snowball to the point when we’ll need a batallion of Jack Bauers.

The Bush admin spent $17 billion in secret funds to strengthen the defenses of government computer systems, and the Obama admin is currently reviewing this program and considering expanding it to include infrastructure-related systems. This is one area where a little government intrusion into the private sector is necessary – the utilities apparently haven’t gotten their act together – and normally should be encouraged, but as is their wont, Dems are not letting any crisis go underutilized:

Last week, Senate Democrats introduced a proposal that would require all critical infrastructure companies to meet new cybersecurity standards and grant the president emergency powers over control of the grid systems and other infrastructure.

I’m with you up to that pivotal “and.” Let’s not be granting this president any more authority to take control of the private sector than we absolutely must. I fear this is a debate that will occur without much public awareness, and that it will end with Obama having the authority to expand federal control over life’s essentials – water and power.

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C

ould Russia be taking Hillary up on her “Reset” (not “overcharge”) invitation?  Are they resetting glasnost and peristoika for the comfy familiarity of the cold war?  What do you read into this AP report?

A Russian Air Force chief said Saturday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered an island as a temporary base for strategic Russian bombers, the Interfax news agency reported.

The chief of staff of Russia’s long range aviation, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, also said Cuba could be used to base the aircraft, Interfax reported. …

Zhikharev said Chavez had offered “a whole island with an airdrome, which we can use as a temporary base for strategic bombers,” the agency reported. “If there is a corresponding political decision, then the use of the island … by the Russian Air Force is possible.”

Interfax reported he said earlier that Cuba has air bases with four or five runways long enough for the huge bombers and could be used to host the long-range planes. …

Independent military analyst Alexander Golts said from a strategic point of view there was nothing for Russia to gain from basing long-range craft within relatively short range of U.S. shores. “It has no military sense. The bombers don’t need any base. This is just a retaliatory gesture,” Golts said, saying Russia wanted to hit back after U.S. ships patrolled Black Sea waters.

At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey sees it as possibly that foreign policy challenge Joe Biden predicted his boss would get in the admin’s first six months:

It took John Kennedy more than a year to precipitate a military standoff with the Soviet Union over Cuba in the 1962 missile crisis.  It’s taken the Obama Amateur Hour less than two months.

James Joyner of the Atlantic Council is dismissive:

I’m sure Golts’ assessment is right here.  The Soviets did not have permanent bases in the area during the Cold War, so the strategic rationale for doing so now is hard to fathom.  Most likely, this is just a selective leak to the press to tweak the Obama administration.  

I tend to stand closer to Joyner here.  The Russians tried this once before when America had a young president who lacked deep experience, and they ended up giving JFK a leg up on foreign policy.  Unless the Russian memory fades to black around 1963, they will see the high-probability endgame of accepting Chavez’s invitation as the Bear shuffling back to the Mother Country, tail between its legs.

There are two other scenarios:  They fly in a TU-95 or two for a “goodwill” visit just to test the Obama response, which, if we can tell much from his first 50 days, will be late, weak and confused – giving Putin a victory as his planes wing home.

Alternatively, it’s the New World Order, with Obama and Putin just playing with our heads.

Dang, I’m missing W.

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L

et’s get right to the point:  California will soon be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas and a cluster of nearby states will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York may soon join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states.  Hawaii will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

And when is all that going to happen?  Oh, around 2010 or so.  I just ordered Mandarin Chinese from Rosetta Stone.

The projected imminent fall of the U.S., a theory of Igor Panarin, a former KGB analyst and current dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats, is getting a ton of play in Putin’s captive national media – and increasingly, here.  There was a spurt of Drudge-driven posts back in November, and now the WSJ has picked up the story:

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

“There’s a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur,” he says. “One could rejoice in that process,” he adds, poker-faced. “But if we’re talking reasonably, it’s not the best scenario — for Russia.” Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

Panarin’s theory dates back to 1998, and was pretty far-fetched in those robust times.  The current economy makes you tug your collar a bit – but it’s also taken the “mass” out of our immigration problem.  Moral degredation could well do us in – but that’s in God’s hands, and if moral degredation is a nation-ender, the Russians better look in the mirror.

In a recent article in Isvestia, Panarin laid out his theory yet again and summarily dismissed Obama’s ability to deal with it:

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama “can work miracles,” he wrote. “But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

Well, I can agree with Panarin’s assessment of Obama as no miracle-worker.  White House spokesperson Dana Perino was more subdued; she declined to comment when asked about Panarin’s theories.  But that’s just fodder for the anti-Bush conspiratists.

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South Ossentia: It’s Just More Russia

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t’s been six months since Russia pried South Ossentia out of Georgia’s hands, supposedly out of grave concern for the well-being of the South Ossentians. So, as Dr. Phil would say, how’s that workin’ for ya?

Not too good, according to Spiegel.

Besides Russia, so far only Nicaragua has recognized the separatist republic. Foreign journalists are only permitted to travel in the tiny country when accompanied by officials from the foreign ministry in Moscow. Even the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union, which brokered the cease-fire between Russia and Georgia, are being denied entry by the South Ossetians and their protective power, Russia. For this reason, very little reliable information makes it out of the region.

This makes what recently appeared in Russian newspapers all the more surprising: that the republic is on the brink of social unrest, just as winter is beginning, because the government has allegedly embezzled Russian reconstruction aid funds, as the former South Ossetian defense minister and head of the security council, a Russian lieutenant general, explained; or that South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity fled spinelessly during the war; and that millions of rubles deposited in the safes at the national bank in Tskhinvali had gone missing and that Russian businesspeople are refusing to invest in South Ossetia while its brawny separatist leader remains in power.

In South Ossentia, any controversy is squelched by “state secrets.”  Any homes that are rebuilt are rebuilt through EU or American efforts, not Russian.  Money disappears.  Leaders flake.

In other words, Russia happens. Continue Reading »

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T

he Bear is back.  The Georgian village of Perevi on the western border of South Ossetia was for one brief day once again under Georgian control – as it should be – until earlier today, when hundreds of Russian soldiers occupied it.  Says AFP:

Interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said from 500 to 600 Russian soldiers moved into Perevi early Saturday in what he described as a “military operation” involving paratroopers, helicopters and armoured vehicles.

Georgia and EU monitors had announced Friday that Russian forces were withdrawing from Perevi, a mainly ethnic Georgian village of about 1,100 people on the western border of South Ossetia, which had been under Russian control since a five-day war in August.

Georgian police had moved into the village on Friday after Russian forces withdrew. About 20 Russian soldiers returned late Friday and Georgian police were forced out when the large contingent of troops arrived, Utiashvili said.

“They presented Georgian police with an ultimatum: get out or we will shoot,” he said.

The Russians have refused the requests of EU ambassadors in the region to visit Perevi, and the EU has called the Russians provocation a breech of the EU-negotiated ceasefire and demanded called on the Russians to pull back to the South Ossetia border.

Interesting confrontation, eh?  The EU – which as you recall is also negotiating with the even more trouble-making Iranian regime – has made a major commitment here, brokering a cease-fire, monitoring it, and calling on Russia to pay attention to their calls to play by the rules, saying the old Bear’s actions are “unacceptable under all relevant instruments of international law.”

So far, no word from Moscow.  It’s winter and their gas pipeline is keeping Europe toasty, so they’ll take their time deciding what to do about the self-emasculated pipsqueaksfrom Western Europe.

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he other CSM has a chilly little story today rolling out the five foreign policy principles of Russia’s president, Vladamir Putin Dmitry Medvedev. Christian Scientists may have the patience to wade through the entire story to ferret out the five principles, but I know you, so:

1. Protect Russians wherever they are. What’s a Russian? Just someone with a spanking new Russian passport, like those the Russians are handing out like cheap vodka shots in Crimea, which is independent but happens to host an important Russian naval base?
2. Attend to Russia’s “privileged interests” – oil, gas, warm water ports – in Moscow’s area of influence, which we can translate as areas that used to be in the USSR but are not in Russia today.
3. Make sure the world is not “unipolar.” Hmm. That one kinda hits close to home. I’d sure like to see the tactics they’ve penciled out in support of that goal.
4. Do not be isolated. Russian boots tromping through Georgia, Russian policy chiefs controlling the flow of much of Europe’s energy resources – yeah, that’s keeping Russia out from behind its walls.
5. Oh, and in case you’re getting a little hot and bothered by now, let’s wrap up with principle #5: Comply with international law. Ahhh! All better!

The other CSM casts this news rightly:

Is this Cold War II? It’s more like a throwback to the 19th century, when great powers carved up the world like a pot roast.

That was an era in which Czarist Russia expanded into the Caucasus, Central Asia, and across Siberia. When America told Europe “hands off” in Latin America. When Europe’s monarchies sliced up colonies in Africa and Asia.

That era is over, or so the world thought.

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H

ere are some excerpts from reports posted on the Human Rights Watch Web site:

Human Rights Watch researchers have uncovered evidence that Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs in populated areas in Georgia, killing at least 11 civilians and injuring dozens, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called upon Russia to immediately stop using cluster bombs, weapons so dangerous to civilians that more than 100 nations have agreed to ban their use. …

Human Rights Watch said Russian aircraft dropped RBK-250 cluster bombs, each containing 30 PTAB 2.5M submunitions, on the town of Ruisi in the Kareli district of Georgia on August 12, 2008. Three civilians were killed and five wounded in the attack. On the same day, a cluster strike in the center of the town of Gori killed at least eight civilians and injured dozens, Human Rights Watch said. Dutch journalist Stan Storimans was among the dead. Israeli journalist Zadok Yehezkeli was seriously wounded and evacuated to Israel for treatment after surgery in Tbilisi. An armored vehicle from the Reuters news agency was perforated with shrapnel from the attack. (source)

And:

When Human Rights Watch entered Tskhinvali on August 13, the city was largely deserted. Human Rights Watch researchers saw numerous apartment buildings and houses damaged by shelling. Some of them had been hit by rockets most likely fired from Grad launchers, weapons that should not be used in areas populated by civilians, as they cannot be directed at only military targets and are therefore inherently indiscriminate. Also, Human Rights Watch saw several buildings that bore traces of heavy ammunition as if fired from tanks at close range. There was some evidence of firing being directed into basements, locations where civilians frequently choose as a place of shelter. (source)

Where are the howls of outrage from the American left, who are so deeply offended whenever one of our precisely targeted bombs goes off target and despite all our care, some civilians are killed?

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I

t is, in the end, all Bush’s fault.

Isn’t it always? 9/11, Iraq, gas prices, and now the Russian invasion of Georgia, to the Bush-hating left, there is a common cause for all this, and its middle initial is W. Here’s the position, as espoused by Fred Kaplan in Slate:

Regardless of what happens next, it is worth asking what the Bush people were thinking when they egged on Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s young, Western-educated president, to apply for NATO membership, send 2,000 of his troops to Iraq as a full-fledged U.S. ally, and receive tactical training and weapons from our military. Did they really think Putin would sit by and see another border state (and former province of the Russian empire) slip away to the West? If they thought that Putin might not, what did they plan to do about it, and how firmly did they warn Saakashvili not to get too brash or provoke an outburst?

As always, there’s no effort to look at the other side. What would have happened if we hadn’t been friendly to Georgia? If we hadn’t offered military training and accepted their involvement in Iraq? If we hadn’t pushed to expand NATO to the former Russian republics slave states? My hunch: Putin’s KGB-based Russia would have attacked Georgia one way or the other.

But to the Left, the position is to see a crisis, dredge up a one-dimensional recitation of Bush policies and blame all the evil on Bush. And from that base assumption, everything the Bush administration does must be just as evil. More Kaplan:

Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly called Saakashvili on Sunday to assure him that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered.” We should all be interested to know what answer he is preparing or whether he was just dangling the Georgians on another few inches of string. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the Security Council, “This is completely unacceptable and crosses a line.” Talk like that demands action. What’s the plan, and how does he hope to get the Security Council—on which Russia has veto power—to approve it?

Again, what is the alternative? Would Kaplan prefer Cheney call Saakashvili and tell him, “Tough luck. We’re OK with Putin sending tanks into free democracies?” Is Khalilzad supposed to tell the UN no line was crossed when Russian troops poured over the borderline? That lifts appeasement to the level of acceptance and support and no American president, not even Jimmy Carter, has ever taken such a position.

Of course Russia must answer for its aggression because of course they crossed the line. Kaplan is right that there is no military solution; heck, the military options (short of nuclear holocaust) were gone as soon as Russian air strikes started because getting a military force into Georgia is a logistical nightmare – but not as bad as the idea of fighting Russian troops on the edge of the Russian nation.

Like many of us, when it comes to Georgia, I’ve gone a vaguely supportive, lightly educated follower of Saakashvili’s democratic revolution to a fairly well read interested party, but I’m hardly a policy wonk on the issues. With that introduction, here’s what I think:

We’re on the right side. Standing up for democracies is something we just have to do, even if they’re poorly functioning. We never supported Georgia to goad Russia; we did it to encourage more democracy in the region, including in Russia.

We should continue to push for NATO expansion. Kaplan says that if Georgia were in NATO, we’d be in a shooting war with Russia now, but that’s ridiculous. If Georgia were in NATO it’s much more likely Russian troops would not be in Georgia now. So, with the knowledge that we no longer need to or should support Europe with the sort of military actions that were anticipated when NATO was formed following WWII, we should continue expansive military alliances there, just as we promote economic alliances.

We should make Russia pay, literally, for rebuilding. They’ve got the money and if we force the issue at the U.N., they’re likely to be in the unfortunate position of having to veto the action, which would be a PR disaster for them.

We should work with nations dependent on energy from the trans-Georgia pipelines to secure broad legal protections for Georgia’s control over them, not Russia’s.

We should look to the other former Soviet vassal states and see what sort of support we can give them. Some are feeling very vulnerable today, and the creation of a united front of indignant outrage that includes these states and many, many others will send a message even to Russia.

We should not spill any blood over Georgia. Our support should be broad and deep but there’s no point in sending troops into anywhere we can’t sustain them.

Russia should be dis-invited from the G8 until they learn how to behave like a civilized nation.

We should pass quite a lot of anti-Russian legislation at the federal and state level. Public portfolios should be cleansed of any Russian filth. The Air Force tanker contract should to to Boeing because it’s the only bidder that doesn’t have partial Russian ownership. No banking or trade favors allowed.

And we should pass a law that no American president can ever again look a Russian president in the eye, see his soul and deem him trustworthy. That was, in fact, a very big mistake by George W. Bush

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W

hat’s at stake in Georgia today, as Russia seeks to secure its military advances? Let’s ask the country’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Most obviously, the future of my country is at stake. The people of Georgia have spoken with a loud and clear voice: They see their future in Europe. Georgia is an ancient European nation, tied to Europe by culture, civilization and values. In January, three in four Georgians voted in a referendum to support membership in NATO. These aims are not negotiable; now, we are paying the price for our democratic ambitions.

Second, Russia’s future is at stake. Can a Russia that wages aggressive war on its neighbors be a partner for Europe? It is clear that Russia’s current leadership is bent on restoring a neocolonial form of control over the entire space once governed by Moscow.

Saakashvili paints a story in his WSJ op/ed today of a compromise-seeking Georgia, an aggressively expansive Russia and a Europe that cried for negotiations and diplomacy, but took no overt action. Sound familiar?

Saakashvili was kind to us because he was writing in the WSJ to American opinion leaders, but he could have included us with the Europeans. President Bush has visited Georgia and praised it as a showcase of how democracy can bloom where totalitarianism once reigned. (Of course, that vision was tainted by Saakashvili’s heavy-handed treatment of opposition in Georgia’s last election.) We’ve cast our lot with Georgia, encouraged its participation in NATO, and stood by its president. Now Georgia is turning to us … and not finding much beyond words at this early hour.

The NYT’s focus this a.m., natch, was on the sort of criticism of America Saakashvili avoided.

Georgians around Gori spoke of America plaintively, uncertainly. They were beginning to feel betrayed.

“Tell your government,” said a man named Truber, fresh from the side of the Tbilisi hospital bed where his son was being treated for combat injuries. “If you had said something stronger, we would not be in this.”

He had not slept for three days, and he was angry — at himself, at Georgia, but mainly at the United States. “If you want to help, you have to help the end,” he said.

What can we do? What should we do? It’s a question that will play itself out in our election. Today, both candidates have pretty much the same position (after Obama ratcheted up his rhetoric from his early bland mumble-mouth position – see Gateway Pundit for more).

If we take this back to the Cold War, where we fought Soviet expansionism through proxies, which candidate would be more likely to provide Georgia with arms and training? McCain, of course. If it’s to be a diplomatic war, which candidate would be more likely to be able to put together an international condemnation of Russia with sufficient teeth to influence Moscow?

Good question. Obama is the international darling so the answer should clearly be him. But would his appointments be the ones that could carry out such a task? So far, it looks like Obama foreign policy will be that of Madeline Albright, which doesn’t bode well. McCain has the pugnaciousness to bare some teeth and has been drawing on a kitchen cabinet of foreign policy pros from Kissinger to Kristol that in my opinion are much better suited for this sort of affair.

Lots of questions … but one’s already being answered: The American left is going to duck the issue. Tigerhawk did the digging:

Well, as of this morning, you can find no mention of the war on A.N.S.W.E.R.’s home page. The group is addressing many other pressing matters, but apparently not the unremitting attack on Georgia. Code Pink? Nyet. Democracy Now!, which is a left-wing media group, has lots of news about American wars on its web page but nothing about Russia or Georgia. Nothing from the comrades at Peace Action. Stop the War Coalition? What war? You can search the home pages of left-wing groups until the cows come home and not find anything on the Russo-Georgia war.

For its part, Daily Kos poses a survey question this morning. No, not about Russia and Georgia, but about how the summer weather’s been this year.

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O

nce you get past the shock of this bit of news, it’s not hard to get to what’s up:

Russian bombers have stepped up provocative flight exercises off the Alaskan coast, reminiscent of Cold War incursions designed to rattle U.S. air defenses.

U.S. Northern Command, which protects North American airspace, told The Washington Times that TU-95 Bear bombers on 18 occasions the past year have skirted a 12-mile air defense identification zone that protects Alaska. The incursions prompted F-15s and F-22 Raptor fighters to scramble from Elmendorf Air Force Base and intercept the warplanes. The last incident happened in May. (Wash Times)

The story explains that the aerial roughhousing began when Vladamir Putin has president and continues under Dmitry Medvedev. No surprise about that; we all saw through that charade a long, long time ago.

Although Gen. Renuart downplayed the incursions, other air-power authorities said Vladimir Putin, as Russian president, began flexing his military’s muscle last year as a message to Washington.

“Putin is trying to get the military rejuvenated and trying to show they are a military power,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney, who commanded NORAD’s Alaska region. “He’s doing it for a whole host of things. It’s really muscle-flexing.”

Notice the present tense references to Putin.

So what’s the bottom line?

Oil.

The Russians are loaded with it and once again have money to spend on their military thanks to soaring demand and prices. All the more reason to try to get oil prices down.

And now Obama, besides being just plain obtuse on energy policy, has a policy that plays into the hands of the Russians. His focus on alternative energy has a good shot of dropping oil prices significantly … by about 2060. An awakening Ivan the Bear adds a bit more incentive for faster solutions.

hat-tip: Jim

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