Very interesting to see the international reaction to Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia is a gap state — a Central Asian dictatorship best analyzed in terms of functionally similar countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and the Kyrgyz Republic — and its invasion of Georgia was an attempt to increase the amount of wealth it could extract from the Core. It appears that the Functioning Core is closing ranks, and expressing its near-unanimous disapproval of Russia’s use of war as a tool of politics.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s an [incompetent](http://alectionary.com/archive/2008/08/18/russias-evaporated-soft-power.html) when it comes to foreign policy, and the Georgia debacle is no exception. If you look close at the map, you see that he has even brought Serbia and Kosovo together!
Kosovo is the province of Serbia. Well known fact of geography.
Please explain who is really incompetent – you or Putin.
The Georgians have killed about 2000 of Ossetians during of conflict.
Russians just stopped the genocide.
What is Russia’s position on Transnistria?
No one recognizes Transnistria, though Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia recognize each other. [1] Thus T is somewhat similar to status to NKR [2].
Since I posted this map, Kazakhstan has said it is too early to discuss the situation (making Russia surrounded by skeptics), while Belarus seems to be siding with Russia (which is more than I expected).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disputed_status_of_Transnistria
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh_Republic
How do you create your maps and your other visual aides? And when I say “visual aides I’m talking about the various illustrations that are in your book, and which we also see on this blog?
What Seerov asked.
Akuna is repeating Russia’s nonsensical — and now retracted — claims against Georgia. They were first raised to cover the ongoing ethnic cleansings of Georgia from Georgian territories. [1]
As for the kind words on the graphics — when I’ve been very ambitious [2] I’ve used OpenClipart [3], OpenOffice [4], Inkscape [5], and Paint.net [6]. In this one I took a map from Wikipedia, cropped it with Paint.net, and then uploaded it to my blog.
[1] http://www.realclearworld.com/news/ap/international/2008/Aug/28/georgia__s__ossetia_ethnic_cleansing_nearly_done.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/11/30/inside-the-black-gangster-disciple-nation-crack-cocaine-gang-corporation.html
[3] http://www.openclipart.org/
[4] http://www.openoffice.org/product/draw.html
[5] http://www.inkscape.org/
[6] http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/index.html