TODAY: EU Russia-Georgia report out! Tilted towards blame on Georgia; Russia claims vindication on who started it issue; denies report's accusations of Moscow violating international laws; PR machines crank up on both sides.  PACE to vote today on rights; Yushchenko says he will meet Medvedev despite recent freeze in relations; Medvedev to ditch Putin's wordsmith? 'Open hostilities began with a large-scale Georgian military operation against the town of Tskhinvali and the surrounding areas, launched in the night of 7 to 8 August 2008' - the Telegraph quotes the EU report which suggests the blame for starting the war lies with Georgia, whose actions in South Ossetia were unjustifiable under international law.  Reuters argues the report is 'likely ...

TODAY:  Georgia-Russia tensions simmer in advance of EU report; Council of Europe hullabaloo.  Russia edgy on Washington's new defense scheme; Obama forward looking; Kremlin does not feel Iran missiles justify sanctions.  Journalist in hiding over anti-Soviet article; no joy for beer drinkers and hackersAccusations are flying ahead of today's publication of EU-backed report on the war in Georgia which is expected to be critical of both parties.  The Times says that Georgia has preemptively accused Russia of spreading 'patently false information about fictitious attacks on Russian peacekeepers'.  Tbilisi has also claimed that the report has concluded that Russian troops were responsible for ethnic cleansing during the conflict.  Russia is bristling at motions in the Parliamentary ...

TODAY: US to modify or jettison missile defense plans? NATO chief to meet with Russian envoy; Lukaschenko sends out mixed messages.  South Ossetia denies book burning; think tank leader says Putin could be heading for Brehznev-style decades in power; Medvedev finds inspiration on blogosphere.The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House may abandon the Bush-era missile defense plans which have caused consternation in Russia.  AP sources quoted on the Washington Post suggest a compromise measure, tempered to Russian concerns.  RFE/RL has an entertaining list of the 'dissidents' President Medvedev might like to meet on his upcoming US trip.  NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Russian envoy to the alliance Dmitry Rogozin will hold an ...

The French think tank IFRI has published a 22-page report on the Eastern Partnership initiative (EaP) and Georgia which finds that significant problems and obstacles exist for the establishment of a successful neighborhood policy.  We still think the EU has the best chance of working on conflict resolution in the Caucasus, but there appears to be a lack of political will to do the heavy lifting.

The EU's markedly more visible involvement in Georgia allows a greater understanding of the wide range of activities that it was undertaking in the lead up to the 2008 war. With the introduction of the EaP in May 2009, the EU has an opportunity to breathe new life into its relations with the countries to its East rather than just "showing commitment" to them. The EaP must be used to its fullest extent by all ...

Registan.net has posted up a nine-page executive summary of a long report compiled by John Bumgarner of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit.  Steve LeVine at Oil and Glory talked with and analyzed the results...  which show that complicity with the government in the cyber attack on Georgia was highly likely, and, in fact, it could have been much, much worse (just as the Russian air strikes purposely bombed all around the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline without hitting it to prove the point.From Oil and Glory:Yet, the cyber attackers did not go in for the kill, Bumgarner told me -- they didn't attempt to cripple sites that could have caused chaos or injury, such as those linked to power stations or oil-delivery facilities, but merely those that could trigger comparative "inconvenience." "There was a political decision not to attack those critical infrastructures directly. They ...

So many people use conflict and its victims as political instruments, with little thought given to how these decisions, words, and rhetoric powerful impact the personal lives and families of thousands.  This has certainly been true in the Russia-Georgian war over South Ossetia, where ethnically diverse villages were scattered and intermingled like salt and pepper, rather than the clean division of borders we are often shown on the news maps.  This article in Time Magazine is commendable in that they take a look at the enormous human toll paid by families who had the misfortune to be located on the dividing line.

Izolde Bagayeva, 55, sits on a bench next to Fatima and talks about her family in Tbilisi. "When

...

Some people talk about Russia learning from the Iranian experience in the recent attack on an individual Georgian blogger - an impressive feat of hacking which actually succeeded in crashing Twitter and hampering Facebook with a DDOS attack of sniper-like precision.  Impressive maybe, but now the consequence is that more people are paying attention to this Cyxymu fellow as the latest internet celebrity ... even though some of his quotes show that he may not be the brightest bulb in the blogosphere."I am not happy that [my] blogs were attacked," said the blogger, speaking on his cellphone from outside the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. "But it is good that I get famous."I think Obama knows about me, because he likes Internet news." (...)Giorgy said the attack would not stop him from blogging and said he ...

Why would Turkey sign on to a massively expensive and redundant underwater pipeline that would eliminate the transit business at the lucrative but over-trafficked Bosporus Straits?  Because when it comes to Gazprom and Eni's South Stream, it is very different to say you support it than it is to actually build it.  Nabucco is likely to work, and looks like it will find the gas to fill capacity - but not before Ankara does everything possible to milk both sides for the maximum concessions.These editors at Zaman don't quite get the issue right, but there is enough perspective here to get an idea of the Turkish mentality on Russian energy politics (resentful of the perceived mistreatment ...

Joshua Tucker, a political science professor from NYU and blogger at the Monkey Cage, has this opinion piece in the New Republic:In short, little related to this war has changed; despite the Russian military victory, neither side can really claim to have gained much. So what are we to make of the conflict? Four explanations for why the war occurred seem plausible. First, it may have been a "mistake" on Georgia's part. It's possible Saakashvili guessed wrong, thinking he could grab South Ossetia and get back under the West's protection before Russia did anything. Second, the war may have been a "mistake" on the part of a Russia determined to remove Saakashvili from power. Perhaps Moscow underestimated what the international community's reaction would be and/or overestimated the capabilities of the Georgian opposition to Saakashvili. Third, as I have suggested previously on this website, the war ...

Given all the news this week of Russia and Italy's South Stream deal with Turkey in exchange for a nuclear power plant, I thought I would repost an article written by Robert Amsterdam last fall in Energy Risk on Turkey's political pipelines.

FROM OCT. 2008, ENERGY RISK:

Turkey's political pipelines

Turkey's strategic position at the crossroads of East and West has put it at the centre of a geopolitical tug of war, with energy supply a key driver. Robert Amsterdam examines the energy policies being brought to bear in the region

Turkey's role in global affairs is defined by its geostrategic importance as the bridge between Europe and the Near East. Following Russia's invasion and occupation of Georgia in August, which caused considerable energy supply jitters, Turkey was once again thrust into the spotlight as the European

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