US Losing Geopolitical Wars Too

Sometimes a foreign perspective provides fresh insight into the situation at hand. Andrew Osborn of the Telegraph echo's some of my thoughts (see my post Obama's Failures in Foreign Policy) in his article Hillary Clinton talks tough with the Kremlin, but Russia has won the geopolitical war:

(US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) could only offer two pieces of advice to ordinary Georgians on how they could get the rest of their country back. Do not react to Russian provocations and grow your own democracy and economy so that people living in the two breakaway regions will one day want to reunite. It was sound advice but it was also a tacit admission that Russia had won the geopolitical as well as the hot war, that the territory is perhaps irreparably lost, and that there is nothing that anyone can do about it.

So, to review, in the waning months of the Bush Presidency, Russia takes advantage of the US preoccupation with the election to invade a key US ally, Georgia. After driving the Georgia army back, Russia's army then withdraws back to two key provinces in Georgia and proclaims them 'independent.' It is understandable that the US was able to do little directly to force the Russian troops to withdraw and to cease with the charade of the 'independent provinces', but it is not understandable that the US was not able to make this look bad and make other nations around the world condemn Russia for invading another nation, breaking it up, and then occupying parts of the pieces of a former nation.

Bloggers and journalists write considerable amounts about Obama's failures in domestic policy, but don't forget that under Obama, not only can other states invade and destroy our allies, but they can do so without feeling or looking bad about it. With Democratic President Obama in charge, our nation will lose the hot wars, the geopolitical wars, and everything in between, and that is not going to increase the security and well-being of us or our allies.