No Comment

Ronald for UN General Secretary!

We already know about the Big Mac index (which I have been using to show the propective expats that Moscow is expensive as hell) and now here is another thing from our beloved unhealthy-artery clogging food chain, McDonald's.

Meet the next United Nations General Secretary

It's known as the McDonald's theory of war, but has nothing to do with hand-to-hand combat for McMuffin (explanation for my readers in Muslim countries, it is just pig meat hamburger with semi-fried oily bread. No country with a McDonald's outlet, the theory contends, has ever gone to war with another...and now since every country has one, the eternal peace has ultimately landed on Earth!

Ronald McDonald during Russian-Georgian peace talks in Tverskaya McDonalds

The logic is thus: countries with middle classes large enough to sustain a McDonald's have reached a level of prosperity and global integration that makes warmongering risky and unpalatable to its people.

To ensure heart disease, obesity and diabetes all over the world (and peace, of course)

The Russia-Georgia conflict has finally blown this theory out of the water. Thomas Friedman, who invented the theory in 1996, said people in McDonald's countries "don't like to fight wars. They like to wait in line for burgers."

A typical Russian McDonald's

The Georgian conflict shows it's quite possible to do both.


Note for McDonald's lawyers: Turkish Invasion is not against McDonald's and actually adores the taste of Whopper. Dinc occasionally eats there and his mother doesn't know about it...

The reason for all wars

I have been sunbathing and adding some more healthy days to my life in Crimea for a while and a question arose when I was watching the semi-radiocative and green sea waters of Evpatoriya.

Why do the ever-glorious, ever-intelligent and ever-diplomatic European countries (and therefore their union, the EU) has succumbed to this irritating position against Russia? Didn't they know that being so dependent on anyone by anything so precious would eventually lead to this shame?

I have asked several locals in Ukraine and witnessed a debate on radio (strange to hear Turkish people discussing the fate of European energy policy instead of some gay-looking overweight people singing detuned over bellydance rhythms.)

The answer is simple:

Severely beaten by the oil crisis in 1970's and the start of 1980's, the European countries, sadly dependent on energy from their factories to their groundheated golf courses, were on the lookout for an alternative, cheaper and a more reliable energy source which is not dominated by a bunch of desert nomads, found an eager seller, Soviet Union.

USSR, through the end of the stagnation area, was also hit hard by the fluctuations in the oil prices because it needed the oil-driven hard cash to supply its over-ineffective and crumbling planned economy. It enjoyed the 70's oil crisis as the price of oil skyrocketed (they simply built more missiles with that income and left the citizens without toilet papers) but was unexpectedly beaten by the 1981 oil glut where the world was practically soaked in oil as the production exceeded the demand. That caused the oil dependent soviet economy to near collapse and urged the soviet central economic planners to look for an alternative import with a similar energy and monetary value, the natural gas. The supply was plenty in the remote and forezn lands of Siberia and godforsaken deserts in the south and the demand was high. As the country had its nuclear arsenal and countless armor to replenish, repair and build through the cold war arms race, the soviet policy was to sell that gas as fast and trouble free as possible and get the hard european cash. The europeans were also smiling as they built numerous pipelines to furnish their factories and celebrate their diminishing dependency on oil.

So the rest is history and so is the USSR, but why still so dependant on Russia where most of that gas lies under the post-soviet dictatorship puppy states like Kazakhstan or other -stan's?

So simple. Nearly all the pipelines that carry the gas from the USSR were built from their sources in Siberia and central Asia through the Slavic borderlands (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) to their hungry buyers in Europe, mainly because of the geography two big obstacles lay between, Black Sea and Caspian Sea. So dissolve the Soviet Union, paint new flags, elect new dictators but the gas must go through the existing pipeline system, which dramatically lays in Russia and gives him a say (a biiiig big say) over where it goes, how much he buys it and at what price he sells it. A very good deal indeed...

At first, everybody was happy as oligarchs scavenged the Russian energy sector in line with Yeltsin and Russians had pretty much more to worry about than a world domination by armaments or energy since they were plain hungry. As the dust settled and more nationalist and firebrand politicians handed over in Kremlin, they were already notified that the future wars wouldn't be fought with ballistic missiles but with something lighter than air, the gas which let the Mercedes factory in Stuttgart work or heat homes in Champs Elysees. They quickly bullied the semi-dictators in the neighboring -stan countries and secured "the source" and slowly raised the price and check the nonexistent reaction in European countries. As energy price, the main input into cost, increases so does the selling price and keeping competitive in the global market means that you cannot increase the selling price to infinity. One has to keep the prices somehow stable and inevitably go lower on margin. Lower margin means lower revenue, lower revenue leads to lower pay (or eventually layoffs) and these all causes public unrest. See what the policy of resting half of the energy upon Russians leads to...

As I have mentioned before, Europeans are the masters of diplomacy and they always (maybe until now) win at the end. First they tried to control "the source" by intimidating the dictators of -stan's but they failed since most of them are ex-KGB brutes and kept their post-soviet allegiances to Russia (maybe not to wake up dead the next day). So they tried the other thing they are best at, the technology, and hurry their companies to make partnerships with cash hungry oligarchs and dig deep into the Russian energy sector. The problem is the oligarchs are not only cash but also power hungry, leading them into bloody political battles against the government and eventually losing their companies, money and lives into mass nationalisations of energy sector. The western companies, bluffing with their global power, were ever confident that they wouldn't be disturbed through this extravaganza but they watched their CEO's expelled one by one.

There stood another chance for the idle diplomats: If the source does not obey, why not deal with "the tip" of the pipe? Enter Ukraine as the poor, shamelessly corrupt and decaying state which surprisingly houses the most of the pipeline highways from Russia to their eventual destination. The fire of unrest in Ukraine wasn't also hard to relight. The country is a battlefield endlessly for centuries and was left as a bomb in waiting after the collapse of USSR, with hardly the half of the nation yearning to be back in Russia, the big brother. As Ukraine showed slight interests of another role apart from a good puppy of Russia, Russians showed them the stick by closing the gas tap and leaving millions freezing in winter (as Ukraine is also as dependant on gas as Europe) The juicy bone for that puppy was "democracy" and a promise to be a part of the EU, away from the crushing grasps of the Russian masters. They bought it, painted their flags and made revolutions...but eventually they froze a couple of winters more and pay double of what they were paying on gas before the revolution. Here is "democracy" for you...

Losing "the source" and "the tip" may sound like a crushing defeat but there is no defeat in diplomacy (as soldiers die but diplomats prosper) Why not make a by-pass (although a bit costly to build) around the existing pipe? Buying directly from the source is always cheaper than a middle-man (Am I that good in economics?) and this time they had laid their eyes on Caspian fields, the new Arabia as they call it. The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline that would suck the fields dry from Azerbaijan to Turkish Mediterranean ports would need a steady and calm investing background and the Caucasus was the last place to seek those two with a thousand mountain nations cutting each other's throats for fun. So create allies and stick the existing allies together to create a passageway. The "already" ally is Turkey who is waiting for his minuscule share of the pipeline flow and the created ally is Georgia, an already failed state with numerous de-facto breakaway regions (surprisingly yearning to be a part of Russia) and half of its population living abroad to send money to families. So they also painted their flags, made demonstrations and elected a de-facto American spy as their president. Eventually they also froze in the winter as Russians doubled the price of gas, banned their imports and sent fellow Georgians in Moscow by cargo planes. But this time this was the time when the knife hit the bone so the Europeans and their grand master, US, supported the Georgians by public outcries and a visible facelift of the mediocre Georgian army. All this, of course, had nothing to do with the glorious nation of Georgia (who would be left to rot if they were a bit far away from the energy highways as the western powers did in Bosnia a decade ago) bu it was to secure the pipeline. As Russians toyed with Georgians not to fall into this trap, the Georgian president unleashed an uncontrolled and tragically unplanned fury against the breakaway regions who were dug in with their Russian comrades behind their back. The rest is also history, Georgians got slapped, got their Caucasian asses kicked and lost those regions forever. It is vae victis...the winner takes it all. Russia now directly threatens the by-pass energy line and also makes the Caucasus instable, severely disrupting the plans for an additional pipeline (dubbed Nabucco). I think I made it clear why the EU (or even US) cannot make any sanctions against Russia now...they are "still" bound to their bellies...shame.

The Georgian response to Russian Looting

Although there is an acting ceasefire between Russia and Georgia and a Russian promise (!) to leave the recentşy invaded Georgian soil, there are numerous reports about Russian and their crack sidekicks, South Ossettian militia, involved in intense looting in Georgian towns and villages where even toilet seats have been taken. So some Georgians with a sense of humor are continuing a protest near the Russian embassy in Tbilisi. They are bringing the items that are rumored to be looted to the walls of the embassy as a "gratious gift from Georgian people"

"For the Russian Army, from Georgian Nation"

Turkish Cobra's in Georgia

Russia has been blaming a number of countries for helping the rearmament and restructuring of the Georgian Army (which they have beaten in 3 days) for a couple of years and Turkey, although unknown to many Turkish that they have a flourishing weapons industry (to the limits that the american strategic allies permit), has seemingly supplied with the Cobra armoured vehicles.

It is actually a badly reshaped Humwee by Turkish taste

In my recent post about the Chechen dominated Vostok Brigade's involvement in the South Ossettian war, I have used a photo in which a bunch of Russian tanks rolled by a ruines Georgian armoured vehicle. An anonymous reader* has commented that that vehicle was indeed one of the Cobra vehicles supplied by Turkey.

The Georgian Cobras parade the Tbilisi streets before they got hammered by Russian tanks

It seems that they had a severe beating by the Russian tanks...It is mentioned in wikipedia that 15 Cobra's have been delivered to Georgia for a sum of 3 million $, so the wreckage in the photo in that post is around 200,000$ worth...

*Update: The anonymous reader has been found to be a good friend, Hazim, who has been an avid contributor to this blog by his valuable feedback and suggestions.

Bad Bear

Vostok in War

This photo was taken in South Ossetia. It is now known that The Russian Special Forces Brigade dubbed "Vostok" has joined the war. The Russian tank on the right has a graffiti "Chechnya" on the back, focusing on the ethnic composition of the brigade. The soldiers also inscribed "Yamadaevtsy" near the tanks, meaning that they belong to the unit once commanded by the Chechen war-hero Dzhabrail Yamadaev who defected to Russians on the Second Chechen War and led the pro-Russian forces against the separatist Chechens.

Note: Dzabrail Yamadaev was awarded as Hero of the Russian federation by Putin after his assassination.

David vs Goliath

Many of my readers are bombarding me comments about the (still ongoing) South Ossetian War and wonder what I think about the war that ravaged the poor georgian boys in american marine uniforms (with a post stamp sized georgian flag embroidered on their shoulders).

Georgians in American uniforms...but these are not from Atlanta,GA

First of all, we all knew that something like this was destined to happen some time. Even after Putin’s sovietique outburst in Munich in 2007, the curtain call for the dissident post-Soviet republics (especially the ones with colour coded and Soros funded rave-olutions) was almost due. Putin, backed with tremendous income from ever rising price of energy (of which Russia is enjoying a critical percentage) and increasing military spending (that replaced rusting Cold War era Sukhoi jets and clumsy APCs of Afghan War issue).

The point that Putin underlined in that speech was the impossibility and insensibility of a monopolar World in which USA (the monopole itself) would singlehandedly shape the economic and political shape through its willing. He added that “Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished...and no less people perish in these conflicts – even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!”. So it is perfectly clear that Russia doesn’t want any more trans-atlantic bullying in its homeground and is ready to retaliate...even by force when and where necessary.

Saakashvili and EU flag...

A photo from the good old days of the alliance

Given Russia’s (including Soviet Union’s) inscalability of response to any domestic or near domestic disturbances (every time they interfere a country they leave ashes and corpses behind. For example: East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary...etc) and over sensitivity over its international reputation, any leader of a neighboring country with a smallest hint of sense and international relations would back down or try to find a moderate approach to this “ravaging Bear” (aka Finlandization). And now enter Saakashvili, hero of Georgian “Rose Revolution” and a staunch ally of EU and US (even to display their flags during the televised speeches with local flags although Georgia is not a member of either –and never will be) started to show the world and especially the troublemaking and separatistbacking evil Russians that the world is on their side and they have spent enough Soros money on buying the tanks (that would otherwise feed that half of the population that is now living under poverty lines of Zimbabwe)and armaments that the US has long disposed as scrap. But poking the bear with a stick that a virtual ally has given you is not what it seems to be from the marbleclad offices in Tblisi.

Saakashvili testing the new Georgian firepower

So what is South Ossetia and what does this conflict arise from? Simple...Georgia has not been a place that you would want to live in your retirement for almost 20 years (roughly all the time they have been “independent” from Soviet Union) because the government forces has been constantly fighting, pillaging and massacring the ethnic people and de-facto regions within the country and always beaten by those ethnic militiamen and driven back with the local Georgian deads they could carry from those lands. Georgia (Sakartvelo in Georgian, so do not think it is your Coke flavoured Georgia State) is a country in West Caucasia and has been a gateway to the Caucasus Region with its rich farmlands and an accumulated christian orthodox culture. Those two has made it a simple battleground between Turkey (Ottomans then), Russians and other thousand mountain tribes living in that region. It has prospered well but was foolish enough to ask for Russian Empire’s help against Persian threat which at the end made it a Russian province and eventually a Soviet Republic. This small and industrially insignificiant republic not only supplied the soviet dinner tables with Borjomi soda and wines but also many top-brass communist leaders such as Stalin, Beria and Odzhonikidze.

A typical Caucasian landscape: Mountains and Russian troops

As with all Caucasian republics, Georgia also has a very deep diversity of nations living inside its borders and some has been granted autonomy (= made an Autonomous Soviet Republic) just a couple of years before the dissolution of Soviet Union, maybe then just to ease the ethnic tensions. As the flame of independence set in Georgia in 1990, like all other republics, it claimed the existing interior soviet borders as its own international ones and ultimately erasing the existing autonomous borders and aggreements that would give some extra rights to big ethnic groups like Ossets, Abhazs and Adjars. This erupted into a full-fledged civil war that would last for more than a decade with sporadic battles (most of which the Georgians lost since the separatists were better armed by and even fought with their Russian comrades –including the then-Russian conscripted Chechen roughriders that would later insurge against Russia under Shamil Basayev) Then nobody except Russia cared for that ill-fated country because it was a country that was led by a bunch of ex-Soviet and ex-KGB mofioso and impoverished to Tadjikistan levels.

The locals suffer as their Khruschovka houses are hit by missiles

Another Georgian military tradition: Leaving destroyed tanks for souvenirs

The civil war ended with all sides acknowledging the de-facto autonomity of the ethnic groups and relative peace resided (because nobody has enough will and firepower) until a bloodless-coup led by a young, handsome (!) and English speaking lawyer, Saakashvili, stormed the parliament building and declared a new dawn in Georgian history. Now the US president would be the guest of honour in the birthplace of Stalin and the EU flags would be state sponsored decoration for the Tblisi avenues. The reason was so simple: The World (meaning= World minus Russia) was becoming increasingly dependent on energy and it was disastrous to be dependent on a semi-predictable dictatorship of soviet style (aka Russia) for the sole ingredient of modernity: petrol and gas to power the pistons of capitalism alive. So alternative routes were to be designed and Caucasia, the strip of mountaneous land between Caspian Sea (the aquous conjugate of Arabia) and the Free World, would be the new transit ground for the energy that is not Russian dominated. Sadly, Nearly all of Caucasia is Russia itself or Russian dominated (Armenia needs Russia for its neverending crusade against Armenian populated Nagorno-Karabagh region in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan needs Russia to protect this land from Armenia, ironically) and only Georgia with its relatively foreign dependent leadership would present a good passageway. So was the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline was created to safely transfer the Baku oil by BP through Georgian plains to Turkey, right under the nosetip of Russia. I wouldn’t believe that Russia was too happy with this.

So what would “Realpolitik” do in such case? Look for a soft belly? Right. Georgia is a soft belly itself with a lot of ethnic de-facto republics which keep Russia as a caring savior and Russia doesn’t need to look further for a reason to salve threats to the BTC line that is passing just some kilometers away from the Osset lands. Nearly half of the Osset nation lives in Russia (ingeniously dubbed North Ossetia) and it is so easy to claim that the Southern brothers would yearn to live with their Northern cousins under the tri-color banner of the glorious federated nation of Russia. So I would stay away from the Southern Ossets if I wanted to stay away from Russia.

For a couple of years, Georgia has been pumped by a lot of Soros money and funding (a lot of which ended in the corrupt politiicans pockets) and the military spending was flashing for an upcoming conflict. The conflict came with a friebrand Saakashvili, stating that the unity of Georgia was at stake (because the Ossets have joined their Abhaz brothers to already declare independence in accordance to the Kosovo model but kindly rejected by the two-faced politic reality of the UN...another fact that infuriated Russia) and stormed their capital Tshinvali.

Nobody expected a quick victory (except Saakashvili himself) and Russia sent its crack troops already stationed on the border in case (which have been infiltrating and seldom arrested while spying in Gerogian territory). As their military tradition the Georgians fought, pillaged and killed some local pensioners and then had a hard beating by the furious local militiamen and Russian troops to fly back to Georgia itself. The funny thing is that the Georgians played the heroic defenders of the Motherland as the ravaged troops (in American uniforms) ran amock the streets like wounded Viet-Cong. The Bear was poked and it hit back with a vengeance.

"Wipe them out...all of them"

This is the story of the war so far as it seems today. As a summary, Saakashvili, backed with a bunch of blank promises by the West, wanted to end the insurgency and separation inside Georgia with a quick blitzkrieg against the illprepared Osset militiamen and thought that Russia would back down against Western diplomatic and economic pressure and keep its might behing the Kazbet mountains. Just the opposite, his army beaten, main cities bombared and the promises broken, Saakashvili now faces rising opposition inside Georgia as the death toll increases. Let’s see if the “playing the not guilty” will work...