I know there’s a big party going on in Denver, but things seem to be equally hoppin over on the other side of the pond. Cheney is going over there, and that makes me worried. Russia says ’bring it on, bitches! We’ve got your oil/gas, and can turn it off anytime.

The G7 — Britain, the US, France, Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan — said in a statement released by the US State Department: “We deplore Russia’s excessive use of military force in Georgia and its continued occupation of parts of Georgia.”  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

It is pretty clear that Russia and Georgia are at war (see excellent background article here). It is not like there were no warning signs that Russia did not enjoy having its power challenged, as happened with the independence of Kosovo where the UN ignored Russia’s opposition and went ahead with support for the new republic over its objections. Then, a few weeks ago, I posted on the fact that it seemed that Russia was engaging in a new Cold War in an attempt to reclaim some global military leadership. The invasion of parts of Georgia in support of independent movements in Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia should be read in that context.

As usual, I find Michael Mann’s conceptualization of different forms of power useful to understand what is going on here. As Jonathan Steele puts it in the Guardian, this is not just an economic war, a "pipeline war", but a war of political influence. Political power, more than economic, might be at work here:  Read more 

I’m sure the folks in Yurp are glad this guy is going to be in charge of that tiny and unimportant organization called “NATO.”

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