none
What exactly is the US’s strategic and/or national security interest in Georgia? And how are those interests similar to Kuwait?
Sam, ask yourself seriously: would the United States initiate a nuclear war over the former Georgian SSR? If it is not willing to go to that level, it has exactly ZERO it can do about a Russian takeover of that country. Because I guarantee you that Russia is perfectly willing to engage in whatever military actions are needed to retake Georgia if that is indeed their aim, and will rattle the nuclear sabres quite hard if NATO or any other western country gets involved.
They’re an ally, but we have no strategic interests there. My analogy was meant in reference to the “why don’t we just let Russia do what they want in their part of the world since the Cold War is over anyway” mentality argued by BrainGlutton.
Sorry, I misread something and responded in error.
Do you really think that Russia is willing to go nuclear over Georgia joining NATO? Or even re-taking Georgia? Georgia borders on Russia. Wouldn’t that be like crapping where you eat?
Russia will rattle its sabres, I agree. But do you really think that militarily it would take the fight outside of former USSR borders? I think it can take for granted that some of our nukes still work. I’m not entirely certain they can say the same for theirs. They’ve been kind of concentrating on looting the country for the past fifteen years.
I’m sorry, I realize I didn’t make myself clear. DSYoungEsq, neither Sam, nor ladyfox, nor I have been suggesting military intervention. We’ve been suggesting economic and accelerated political action.
And definitely not nuclear action… 
Well, I don’t know what kind of economic action is supposed to be effective against the Russians. The US is never going to be able to get the world to go along with any type of sanction regime against the Russians. What would you target? Russian oil and gas exports? Never gonna happen.
As for political action–we can make some diplomatic noise about it, but I don’t think the Russians are really going to care. Plus, we’d be undermining our current Iran strategy by doing so.
Are you contending tha the only options here are to engage in a nuclear war, or just let Russia run roughshod over the entire region?
If you’re going to frame the decision in those terms, you’ll find that there’s almost no aggression from a nuclear power that you’re willing to stand up to.
The U.S. is the largest economy in the world, and has by far the largest military. It also has a whole bunch of new allies in Eastern Europe that really want to be protected and would be happy to let the U.S. help.
The U.S. is short of manpower, but it’s not short of weaponry. Russia has already shown that it is afraid of the U.S. missile defense pact. The U.S. could send the message that aggression by Russia will be met by an immediate doubling of military aid to other Eastern European states. The U.S. could offer to provide better advanced weaponry to the Poles and Czechs and Ukranians. I’m sure there are many other measures that can be taken.
We’re entering a very dangerous period in the world. Russia is turning out to be an extremely bad actor. It has natural allies for much of its adventurism with Iran and China. These countries are starting to look like a new axis - an alignment of hostile powers willing to go toe-to-toe with the west.
If we don’t learn from history and nip this in the bud by standing up to this kind of stuff and making it clear that we’re not going to tolerate it, what will happen next?
This reminds me a bit of Hitler’s claim over the Sudetenland. The argument then, as now, is that Sudetenland is really full of Germans anyway, and it’s disputed, so just look the other way and let Germany do it. But it didn’t stop there, did it?
Perhaps South Ossetia makes sense to be part of Russia. Perhaps it’s too late to do anything about that - I’m not sure, and I don’t know enough about the situation. But let’s say the Russians were to be allowed to annex it - the only way to allow it is from a position of strength. For example, NATO could get Georgia to agree to let South Ossetia go, but with a strong statement from all of NATO that if Georgia agrees to this, the Russians will forego any other claims on Georgian territory, and any attempt to take any other territory in the country will be considered a hostile act on a NATO country and will be responded to accordingly. Follow that up with a move of soldiers and equipment into Georgia - the U.S. can relocate some from Germany if it has to. Set up a demarcation line with NATO soldiers as was done in Korea, so that the only way Russia can continue moving ahead is to actually attack NATO forces and trigger a response.
Now is the time to be strong and try to defuse the situation. Show weakness and appeasement now, and you’re going to see this kind of adventurism escalate.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but what Sam said. Hey, Sam, it’s nice to be on the same side for once. 
Oy! The Soviet Union did in fact have a great number of fanatics within the leadership. It’s how they managed what they did without a profit motive for the individual. In order to create a command economy at that scale you need to have incredible party loyalty on some level. The type of organizational principles being applied simply are not parallel between today’s Russia and Yesterday’s.
In the leadership, and initially, I agree. Among the workers and peasants, not so much. And over time, I think the fanatacism turned far more cynical, as it has done in China, where “Communism” is used as a title for something that bears no resemblence whatsoever to it.
ETA: Fanatacism is hard to maintain over time and in the face of reality and/or greed and/or powerlust and/or fear.
I’m just pointing out that it’s pretty difficult to sign a military alliance with a country that’s already in the middle of being invaded and not have it turn into a military intervention. What are we supposed to do? Tell Georgia we’ll fight for them if they get invaded by another country? And why should Georgia feel reassured by a military alliance if a precondition of it is accepting surrender terms from Russia.
The war’s already started. I don’t think Russia’s going to withdraw via diplomatic means. So our decision now is whether or not we want to get involved in a war with Russia.
I suspect that Russia will leave at least some of Georgia intact. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what I’m guessing. If so, that part of Georgia should immediately be admitted to NATO, and we should make it clear we’re serious about defending it, we being all of NATO, not just the US. I think Russia would back down. Then we start negotiating for the return of Georgian territory. Again, speaking from abysmal ignorance here.
ETA: and probably closer to what McCain wants than what Obama wants. 
The problem with immediately admitting Georgia into NATO for the purpose of ensuring their defense is that NATO doesn’t really want to get into a war with Russia. Yeah, the military alliance against the Soviet Union was the original point of it all, but it’s sort of evolved past that. Russia even has involvement in NATO measures through the Russia-NATO Council where they (supposedly) cooperate on a number of measures related to international security.
Russia will probably leave Georgia intact. I think they pretty much figure they can’t get away with taking the whole country. They’ll bomb the ever-loving shit out of it, and try to do as much damage as possible before they go though.
I’m thinking (and I admit, the stakes are pretty high to bet on a gut feeling, especially when it’s people other than me or us who are really at risk) that if we admit Georgia to NATO and present Russia with a fait accompli, there won’t be a war.
ETA: I guess I’m talking gamesmanship, which on the whole I don’t approve of. But in this case, what Russia is doing in Georgia is really pissing me off.
“We” tried to admit Georgia and Ukraine into NATO recently. It was the other members of NATO that didn’t want to piss of Russia who put them on a MAP to future membership. We can see how effectively that has worked out.
Well, apparently Europe didn’t piss off Russia, because Russia isn’t attacking Europe. As I tried to say, it’s a hell of a big bet for me to advocate with someone else’s security. I guess I can’t blame the rest of NATO for not going along, but I really hope that now that they’ve seen this, they will change their minds. Unfortunately, I fear that they’ll both blame it on Georgia and be more afraid than they were before.