SWJ has an excellent post today tying together the long WaPo piece on Russia and the car-bombing in South Ossetia.

The Volgi has been thinking about the car-bombing for a while, and although he hopes it doesn’t come to such a conflict, the fact remains the Russians are not very good at fighting the kind of guerrilla war that we finally figured out in Iraq. Moreover, given their flatly imperialist and racist attitudes, the kind of accommodation with locals that we worked out with, say, the Anbar Sunnis, is likely completely impossible.

The Russians have fought two wars in this style in recent years. The first was Afghanistan, largely recognized as a catastrophe for the Soviet Union on the order of Vietnam for the United States. The second was in Chechnya (1994–96, 1999–2004), which can be categorized as a victory for Russia, but essentially only came about by obliterating Grozny, the capital, and killing so many Chechens that the U.S. Holocaust Museum placed Chechnya on its Genocide Watch List. Russia was able to get away with this kind of slaughter because it took place within its own borders and it was mostly able to manage domestic and international reactions (with the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, who brought so many of these atrocities to light, a grisly coda).

Even given the supine attitudes in Europe and to a slightly lesser degree the U.S., one suspects that a war of annihilation against Georgia would bring down too much flak for Putin to contemplate. However, this bombing could herald a descending spiral in which these type of guerilla tactics call forth massive, indiscriminate retaliatory moves from the Russian army, and before you know it, you’re teetering on the brink of another Chechnya. Another reason for the U.S. and Europe to show some steel and insist on immediate implementation of the terms Russia agreed to, with full access to South Ossetia on the part of the EU monitors, Russian withdrawal from wherever they’ve agreed not t be, and police action, including the use of lethal force, against ethnic-cleansing-type mobs like those who’ve burned down ethnic Georgian villages. And plus, pace Frau Doktor Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, NATO membership should be discussed. Russia’s participation in the G8, WTO, etc., endangered, etc. All too often “soft-power’ advocates don’t even want to use the “stick” part of soft power. Which makes ’em doormats.

Remember: you’re not “warmongering” when you act tough and punish aggressors to deter further aggression. Si vis pacem, and all that.

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.