Russia shows its paces

Gone are the days when Russia had sucked it up and resigned itself to a second fiddle role at the international front. Now, quite the contrary. Russia has started throwing its weight around and it has, in no small measure, come out to put a kibosh on the Bush Administration's idee fixe to actualise US global hegemony. To all intents and purposes, Russia has telegraphed a calculated and patent message to the US that Moscow will henceforth feel free to mount guard over its interests and further them in precisely the same way that Washington does.

Russia's recent onslaught against Georgia is a case in point. By mounting military swoop on Georgia, Russia has lent colour to the fact that it retains the initiative. On the night of August 7, Russian troops and tanks poured into Georgia and lobbed missiles on it after the Georgian army rolled out an offensive to regain control of South Ossetia, the Moscow-backed region which broke away from Tbilisi in the early 1990's.

Georgia, a supposed Western ally and applicant to NATO, is a fully-fledged US satellite. Its forces are armed and trained by the US and Israel. Georgian leader Saakashvili's links with the neo-conservatives in Washington are suspiciously close and intimate. Above all, it is Georgia that controls the oil and gas pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey that offers Europe a degree of independence from the operation of Russia's energy muscle. One million barrels of oil are delivered through this pipeline per day.