That oil that goes through the region is only about one million of the 87 million the world consumes everyday………….

For the rest of the world, but Russia is becoming an increasingly important supplier to Europe and China, especially now that oil reserves in the North Sea, in the Middle East and in the Gulf of Mexico are not increasing, but has hit the Peak Oil situation earlier this decade.

Do you know what Peak Oil is?

I have no doubt NATO, EU, and the world as a whole will be sending a great deal of aid in the very near future. In the short-term I guess NATO and the EU should just attack Russia………….Really, what do you expect them to do!

Why would you attack your oil and mineral supplier eh? Unless your tanks and planes, and your entire economy, is running something else other than fossil hydrocarbon, you need another scenario.

Russia is not in a good long term position. While, nobody could stop them if they marched on in the short run. Russia’s invasion of Georgia will just united a much larger and expanded NATO. Further, while in the past the USSR could count on China and India staying on the side lines. I have my doubts that would happen in the long term. Especially, in the case of India……So, in short Russia is just fueling a united and expanded NATO. (With few if any Allies.) Let’s also remember the former USSR failed in the Cold War. Because in could not compete with the vast resources of the WEST. Russia just doesn’t have the $$$ to compete with a new and larger NATO.

I’m sorry but NATO is still relevant?

What did NATO ever do in this conflict? Other than lip service. Didn’t even send humanitarian aid.

The EU and NATO are now in total contradictory paths. The EU now depends on Russian pipelines and wants Russia to be part of it. The whole episode now consolidates more Russian control in those pipelines.

Scooter, that report is a different matter. The report on the possible coup was made by a mod in the SDF whose a Scot by the way.

DJ, after this episode probably not on the membership since it just bared NATO as nothing more than hot air.

This akins to what the Chinese did to Vietnam in 1979, and showed to the Vietnamese that when push comes to shove, their “ally” support is nothing more than political and hot air. Although that time it was the Soviet Union that was being done to, this time, its on the US and NATO.

The US and NATO is also caught in a bind here, since their Georgian “ally” is also proven to a loon, repressive—he did initiate that bloody offensive against separatist forces—and a pathological liar. The US and NATO should be more selective about their allies, especially the mental state of their leaders.

The outcome to this is that the Russian Federation now holds the oil lifelines to Europe (all modern wars has something to do with oil, not that bloody thing called principles) and the EU is not in a position to tick the Russian Federation off. And NATO’s interests and the EU’s interests (the EU wants to bring the Russians into the fold) no longer coincide.

Well believe it. And believe it that the Georgian president lost big here.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a9a19efe-689d-11dd-a4e5-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1

“The stretch of highway on Tuesday between Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi and the city of Gori, close to the front lines, told the unhappy story of a once-proud army’s demise.

Dozens of vehicles lay stranded, seemingly abandoned as panic gripped the retreating Georgian soldiers during the night. Equipment, including machine guns, was left in the vehicles and strewn along the road. There were few signs of fighting. Only one vehicle had been hit by enemy fire: an armoured personnel carrier was twisted and blackened, its turret tossed into a nearby field.

The rest of the destruction – two heavy trucks that had crashed into each other head-on, several tanks run into ditches and abandoned, tens of trucks askew in the road, doors swinging – was caused by elemental fear. The soldiers riding in them evidently knew that any military vehicle on the road was fair game for the dreaded Russian aviatsia. Walking back to Tbilisi was preferable to death.
It was the humiliating end of a spectacularly ill-conceived military adventure by Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president. He fed the panic on Tuesday by announcing on television – falsely, it turned out – that Russian troops were marching on the capital and ordered all his units to retreat.”

That concept is clearly not being entertained by the PLAAF, which is why its being offered for export.

Its both. A diesel electric being augmented by a nuclear reactor. Its not clear what sort of nuclear reactor is it, or it can be an RTG (radioisotopic thermal generator) like satellites use. First time for Russia, but not the first time the Soviet Union did that experiment though.