> "Harold Burton" hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:hal.i.burton-675165.21430028082008@comcast.dca.giganews.com...

>> In article 4ax.com>,
>> www.freedomtofascism.com wrote:
>>

>>> On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:36:36 -0400, Harold Burton
>>> hotmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>

>>>>In article <9121c4p8q0dka4ckslcbnk3ms01cm01q9k@4ax.com>,
>>>> www.freedomtofascism.com wrote:
>>>>

>>>>> Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military
>>>>> assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would
>>>>> be
>>>>> viewed as a "declaration of war" by Russia.

>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Interesting. why should the west care about a couple of provinces that
>>>>are simply trying to exercise self determination?

>>>
>>> The is the USA training the Georgia troops to attack Russians?

>>
>> Try again.

>
> The army paid for my college degrees and had some input as to content of
> courses, so I took several in Soviet Studies. Later, as a student at the
> National War College, I took another, and even got to hear one of the last
> speeches by W. Averell Harriman, the wartime ambassador. He opened by
> saying, "You can always trust the Soviet Union. You can always trust the
> Soviet Union to do exactly what is in their best interest." He then
> repeated that three times, so nobody could miss his point.
>
> One of the things that I learned was that the Soviet Union, always fearing
> invasion, devised the system of satellite nations to cement in their "Sphere
> of Influence," an area within which they expected to be the guiding, if not
> the ruling, power. Across the borders NATO had its own Sphere of Influence,
> and as long as things stayed that way, peace prevailed.
>
> With the breakup of the USSR some old, and some new, nations emerged, with
> new governments. Georgia was one of them and the province of South Ossetia,
> ethnically Russian, but part of Georgia, in the USSR, saw itself as getting
> autonomy, or being more aligned with Russia than Georgia.
>
> The important consideration, for the United States, is that Russia considers
> all of the participants in this to be within the now "Russian Sphere of
> Influence." In other words, the US, assisting Georgia, is looked upon as an
> intruder into the domestic affairs of Russia. Certainly former Soviet
> States, joining NATO, is looked upon as an unneccesary provocation, and
> while some of the western countries may be tolerated, the case of Georgia
> may be unacceptable.
>
> I would have thought that the US would have known this, but maybe not.
> Anyway, this is why, from the Russian point of view, the US is looked upon
> as the provocateur. They thought that the US would respect their "Sphere of
> Influence." In their minds, the US should not be there.