Another Fine Kettle of Fish!

When something terrible befell the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy, Oliver Hardy would exclaim, "That's another fine kettle of fish you've got us in," to his witless partner Stanley. The private conversations in Western capitols this week were probably in spirit with Hardy's sentiments.

As the forces of Russia begin to slowly observe the cease fire and move back at a snail's pace. The next phase of sorting out what went wrong and how to attempt to deal with the future begins.

Mark Safranski at Zenpundit leads off with this analysis of what is shaping up to be a failure to have any policy for the unexpected.

Russia Policy: Trying to Make A Virtue Out of Having Ceded the Initiative

I had actually intended to post briefly on the implications of the Russo-Georgian War for State vs. State warfare and 4GW but today’s reactions by the Bush administration and Senators McCain and Obama are a more important concern. The United States has no strategic policy in regard to Russia - and if the statements of the candidates for president are to be believed - we won’t have one in the next four years either....

Now to be fair, many of the actions taken by the President are sound and wise ones. Russia needs to feel significant pushback here and Bush is doing that very firmly and responsibly - and without much help from our allies other than President Sarkozy.....

Deciding what our long-term interests are in the region and what our relationship with Russia should be is something seventeen years overdue and presidential candidates who have no clue, left to their own devices, of what to do or, who take foreign policy advice from a paid agent of a foreign government, worry the hell out of me.

Other important blogs weigh in with the latest.

He Who Has the Biggest Gun from Information Dissemination

Flash Point: South Ossetia (14 August) at Small Wars Journal

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And concluding with this Does war work? from Kings of War

Update:

This just in from Thomas Barnett who draws from his first career as a Soviet expert, to offer these wise words. Bush, so far, has played it cool on Russia