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i moved this thread to politics.
in principle, that the accusation would surface is not surprising...whether it corresponds to anything in empirical reality is another matter. fact is that given the controlled press that we operate with, it is also not terribly surprising that there'd be little information at this end about such actions as there may or may not have been in and around georgia.
the reasons why it's plausible are obvious: the neo-cons are motivated by a nostalgia for a cold war-style arrangement because it served to stabilize nation-states and reactionary political lines within nation-states first, and second because it enabled the diversion of massive resources into military expenditures, which (third) is of a piece with the neo-con understanding of power, of "political realism" as based in military capabilities. in neo-con land, the state is primarily an expression of military power.
the problem with the "war on terror" as a surrogate cold war is simple: it confronts nation-state oriented militaries with horizontally organized "opponents"--which the history of conflict since world war 2 has shown are problematic for vertically organized militaries (algeria, vietnam, etc)--and by extension the "war on terror" creates a host of legal and legitimacy problems around the use of military force because the "adversary" is not localized within another nation-state--which complicates the entire idea of war---which is the ultimate expression of neo-con conceptions of power. within this, other problems have obviously surfaced: manufacturing consent for this type of power is difficult if you cannot locate the Enemy somewhere, and the slippage between the notion of "terrorist" and the idiocy of the huntington thesis has caused more trouble than it's worth.
as a backward oriented bunch, the neocons seem to pine for a regular enemy organized in a regular way, preferably one with hardware adequate to justify cranking huge amounts of money into the patronage network around the military. for example, it's obviously hard to justify spending vast sums on new nuclear weapons if there's no way to assume symmetry at the level of hardware. without that, continuing the develop weapon systems slips into a first-strike doctrine, and that is politically problematic (even if you exclude the systematic incompetence of the bush administration itself, selling first-strike is a problem)....
so in principle, you can see an argument for why the administration would seek a way back into the good old days when nation-state level conflict spilled into symbiotic "standoffs" between blocs---good for reactionary politics and the network of corporate interests for which it stands.
but that doesn't necessarily translate into any particular actions--it just outlines why the accusation is plausible relative to the united states---and putin himself is in a position where this same type of scenario would be good for him--it's already functioning to build consent for his particular mode of authoritarian rule that he has not up to now been able to actually muster--so he has (and there are) internal political interests in the same scenario (same as it ever was, seemingly)
so whether this is just a useful fiction being floated in the context of weak reactionary administrations in the context of fading imperial powers or an actual description of what has happened on the ground is hard to say. it'd be interesting to research this, and to see what can be found--my suspicion is that you'd find this same basic story of stories duplicating at scale after scale...a hall of mirrors.
but that doesn't make it paranoia. it's just politics in the simulacrum. there's often no particular difference.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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