Robert Farley

Bob Woodward contends, sensibly, that the surge is only one of several developments in 2006 and 2007 that served to eventually reduce violence in Iraq. Those developments included the Awakening Movement, the truce declared by Moqtada al-Sadr, special operations against al Qaeda leadership, and a completion of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad. In response, Max Boot […]

During the recent war, the Russian Black Sea Fleet successfully carried out several operations, including the delivery of troops to an Abkhaz port, the destruction of Georgian ships, and the blockade of Georgian ports. In the weeks since the war ended, NATO has deployed substantial capabilities to the Black Sea, including American, German, and Spanish […]

Apparently, she would prefer for Alaska to have a foreign policy. See also Adam, Yglesias, and Tapper. While most folks are concentrating on the implications of this development for late night comedy, I’d like to sound a more serious note. This is hardly the first time this summer that a political leader in a former […]

Via ID, it appears that the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov is deploying from Murmansk to the Mediterranean. The expectation seems to be that she will operate (at least for a short period) out of the Syrian port of Tartus, which has been the focal point of negotiations between Russia and Syria for quite some […]

President Medvedev has agreed to leave Georgia, but the Army is taking its own sweet time: Russian forces detained 21 Georgian soldiers in the Black Sea port of Poti on Tuesday. On a day when Russian troops continued to dig in to positions across Georgia, the detention of the troops — who were bound and […]

With due respect, I think Tim is making two different arguments here; one valid, and one not. The less valid argument is that if Russia truly were a democracy (it’s currently something between democratic and authoritarian by most measures of such things) then it would not be employing violence against Georgia. Tim: Would Russia have […]

This New York Times article sheds some light on the question of US awareness of Georgian military preparations. At the State Department in Washington, Mr. Fried, the top envoy for the region, received a phone call on Thursday from Georgia’s foreign minister, Eka Tkeshelashvili, who said the country was under attack. The foreign minister said […]

Russia and Georgia have both agreed to a ceasefire, but the Georgians are claiming that Russia is continuing offensive military action around the town of Gori. It’s important to stress that Georgian claims should be treated cautiously; the AP report referenced here indicates that Russian tanks moved through Gori, destroyed some abandoned Georgian weapons, then […]

Over the weekend, the Russian Army cleared South Ossetia (and apparently Abkhazia) of Georgian troops. The air campaign that the Russian Air Force started on Friday continues, with reports of air strikes all over Georgia. The Russians have bombed the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which carries Central Asian oil through Georgia to Turkey. There is no indication […]