The Russian Bear Awakens and Roars
A commentary by Scott Ashley & John Ross Schroeder
Good News Managing Editor & Good News senior
writer
While the world was distracted by the 2008 summer games in Beijing,
Russia suddenly invaded Georgia, a staunch Western ally and possible
future NATO member.
What's behind Russia's muscle flexing?
Russian policy,
since Joseph Stalin's time, has been to encourage Russians
to resettle in its satellite states. This created the current situation in Georgia
where two provinces—Abkhazia and South Ossetia (North Ossetia is part
of the Russian Federation)—have large ethnic Russian populations.
Russia
used these populations to foment unrest—including regular
artillery exchanges between South Ossetians and the Georgian military—to
essentially lure the Georgian government into a trap. When Georgian
troops moved into South Ossetia on Aug. 7 in response to recent
provocations, Russian armored columns and aircraft quickly poured
in to counterattack. Within two days they fully controlled the province.
But that wasn't enough. On Aug. 11 Russian forces drove forward
from Abkhazia, Georgia's other province with a large Russian
population, while others drove south from South Ossetia, cutting
the country in half by capturing its main east-west highway and
rail route. And while a cease-fire agreement was signed on Aug.
14 calling for both sides to pull back to pre-war positions, at
the time of this writing the Russians were digging in and appeared
to have no intention of leaving.
Russia seems determined to show
its former Eastern Bloc allies who's boss
in the region. As Josef Joffe, publisher-editor of Die Ziet and
a fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
at Stanford, wrote in his Aug. 12 piece in The Wall Street Journal titled "Welcome
Back to the 19th Century":
"Moscow has unleashed a cyberwar
against tiny Estonia, formerly a Soviet republic. It has threatened
the Czech Republic and Poland with nuclear targeting if they host
U.S. antimissile hardware on their soil that could not possibly
threaten Russia's retaliatory potential. It has exploited
small price disputes (normally resolved by lawyers screaming at
each other) to stop gas deliveries and thus show Ukraine, Belarus
and former Warsaw Pact members who runs [things]."
A strong
message to Europe
In Russia, these actions demonstrate that
Prime Minister Putin still calls the shots, though he has given
up the presidency to his protégé Medvedev.
With his
invasion of Georgia, Putin is sending a message not only to former
Russian allies, but also to Europe. Joseph Joffe states, "Georgia
is the 'last
of the independents,' so to speak, a critical conduit of oil
and gas that goes around Russia into the Black Sea and (with a planned
gas pipeline) via Turkey into the Mediterranean. It is no accident
that Russian planes are bombing throughout the country, and narrowly 'missed' pipelines.
The message to the West is: 'You don't really want to
invest in energy here.'"
Many European nations, Germany
in particular, are dependent on imported Russian natural gas to
power their economies and keep them from freezing in winter. Outside
of Europe and Russia itself, few people realize that the country
is the world's single greatest energy producer. It also controls
crucial pipelines to Europe and has already threatened to shut off
essential supplies.
With Russia controlling the oil and gas spigots,
Europeans are highly vulnerable. As Joffe puts it: "If Moscow
gains control over Georgia, it is 'good
night, and good luck' to Europe. All of its gas and oil bought
in Eurasia (minus the Middle East) will pass through Russian hands
in one way or the other."
The Russian military has been a major
beneficiary of Russia's skyrocketing
oil and natural gas revenues. According to The Guardian's
columnist Simon Tisdall: "Russia's bullish plans, unveiled
this week, to build up to six aircraft carrier battle groups and
upgrade its nuclear submarine fleet are part of a worrying trend.
They provide further evidence that Moscow's
military revival ... may in time pose some unwelcome challenges
for Europeans determined to believe the days of east-west confrontation
are over" (July
31, 2008).
What's on the horizon?
Without question Russia's recent
moves have made the world a more dangerous place. In his Aug. 17,
2008, article "Moscow Has Blown Away Soft Power" The
Sunday Telegraph's Edward Luttwak pointed out: "This
is not a game and participation is not voluntary . . .
The decision on whether to confront Russia is an enormously tough
one. But that decision will have
to be made. It means that Europe's holiday from
serious geopolitics is over" (emphasis added).
 Could
this threat transform Europe from mostly a powerful trading block
to the world's dominant military power predicted by Bible
prophecy? To learn more about that prophecy and its implications for
our time simply request or download our free booklet: Are We Living
in the Time of the End?
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