Zakaria may be the best MSM foreign policy writer today. His book "Future of Freedom" written before the Iraq mess explains alot on why Iraq is a mess along with most of the rest of Bush's foreign policy.
Regardless, the point of this column was that contrary to some of the hysterical reactions Russia's move into Georgia may have been a serious strategic blunder on Russia's part.
"The attack on Georgia will go down not as the dawn of a new era of Russian power but as a major strategic blunder. Look at what has happened. Russia has scared its neighboring states witless, driving them firmly into the arms of the West...
Diplomats are now searching for ways to make Moscow pay some price for its actions, to weaken its standing in international bodies, suspend some agreements, break some joint enterprises. These are all worth looking into but it's also worth noting that we only have this leverage with the Russians because we have spent the last two decades building up ties with them. In fact, the real challenge we face in dealing with Moscow is that we have too few such ties and, as a result, too little leverage...The problem is not that Russia has been integrated into a world order that has failed to deter it, but rather that the country remains largely unintegrated—and thus feels it has little to lose by breaking the rules...A strategy that further isolates Moscow would only reduce the levers that we have to affect its behavior.
Imagine if we had kicked Russia out of the G8 and broken most ties with Moscow—as the Republican nominee, John McCain, and many neoconservatives have long wanted to do. Then, when the Russians attacked Georgia, we would have had only two options—appeasement or war.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/156350
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