Вы правы насчет того, что слишком детальное обсуждение возможных шагов на открытом форуме может быть уже неполезно. (Другое дело, что нам доступен только открытый форум.)

Ваши соображения я понимаю.

Интересная свежая информация: в Америке скандал из-за того, что советник республиканского кандидата Маккейна оказался официальным платным лоббистом грузинского правительства. Как известно, Маккейн выступил с безпрецедентными угрозами России в связи с кавказскими событиями и тем поднял свой образ как "сильного парня", увеличив шансы на президентскую победу. Сторонники "теории заговора" среди демократов уже было говорили, что авантюра Саакашвили спровоцирована республиканцами ввиду выборов. Это очень поверхностная интерпретация, разумеется. Но вдруг Маккейн так публично обо...лся, когда информация о грузинских связях его помощника вылезла наружу. Пока непонятно, какой России от этого скандала будет практический "профит".

В дополнение к моей статье: я набрел на любопытный анализ техасской аналитической корпорации "Стратфор", сделанный прошлой осенью. Там гадали, какие глобальные шаги можно ожидать от Москвы (и сосредоточились на узле США-Иран, где Россия могла бы попытаться цинично сыграть, сначала поддержав Иран, а затем "сдав" его, но за стратегические американские уступки ----- этот анализ на их совести, и думаю, что он малореалистичен). Интересно другое: из каких общих предпосылок они исходили. Вот они, по их утверждениям: (1) цель России создать для себя "защищаемые границы", "буфер" и гарантировать свою безопасность; (2) она хочет делать это дипломатически, договариваясь с Западом, но (3) этот подход не работает, потому что Америка на паритет не идет и постепенно окружает Россию, имея конечной целью "стереть ее в пыль" (grind to dust).

Цитата (достаточно длинная, но стоит прочесть всю; выделение мое):

"The Russian geography is problematic. It lacks oceans to give Russia strategic distance from its foes and it boasts no geographic barriers separating it from Europe, the Middle East or East Asia. Russian history is a chronicle of Russia’s steps to establish buffers — and of those buffers being overwhelmed. The end of the Cold War marked the transition from Russia’s largest-ever buffer to its smallest in centuries. Put simply, Russia is terrified of being overwhelmed — militarily, economically, politically and culturally — and its policies are geared toward re-establishing as large a buffer as possible.

As such, Russia needs to do one of two things. The first is to re-establish parity. As long as the United States thinks of Russia as an inferior power, American power will continue to erode Russian security. Maintain parity and that erosion will at least be reduced. Putin does not see this parity coming from a conflict, however. While Russia is far stronger now — and still rising — than it was following the 1998 ruble crash, Putin knows full well that the Soviet Union fell in part to an arms race. Attaining parity via the resources of a much weaker Russia simply is not an option.

So parity would need to come via the pen, not the sword. A series of three treaties ended the Cold War and created a status of legal parity between the United States and Russia. The first, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), restricts how much conventional defense equipment each state in NATO and the former Warsaw Pact, and their successors, can deploy. The second, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), places a ceiling on the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles that the United States and Russia can possess. The third, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), eliminates entirely land-based short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles with ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles, as well as all ground-launched cruise missiles from NATO and Russian arsenals.

The constellation of forces these treaties allow do not provide what Russia now perceives its security needs to be. The CFE was all fine and dandy in the world in which it was first negotiated, but since then every Warsaw Pact state — once on the Russian side of the balance sheet — has joined NATO. The “parity” that was hardwired into the European system in 1990 is now lopsided against the Russians.

START I is by far the Russians’ favorite treaty, since it clearly treats the Americans and Russians as bona fide equals. But in the Russian mind, it has a fateful flaw: It expires in 2009, and there is about zero support in the United States for renewing it. The thinking in Washington is that treaties were a conflict management tool of the 20th century, and as American power — constrained by Iraq as it is — continues to expand globally, there is no reason to enter into a treaty that limits American options. This philosophical change is reflected on both sides of the American political aisle: Neither the Bush nor Clinton administrations have negotiated a new full disarmament treaty.

Finally, the INF is the worst of all worlds for Russia. Intermediate-range missiles are far cheaper than intercontinental ones. If it does come down to an arms race, Russia will be forced to turn to such systems if it is not to be left far behind an American buildup.

Russia needs all three treaties to be revamped. It wants the CFE altered to reflect an expanded NATO. It wants START I extended (and preferably deepened) to limit long-term American options. It wants the INF explicitly linked to the other two treaties so that Russian options can expand in a pinch — or simply discarded in favor of a more robust START I.

The problem with the first option is that it assumes the Americans are somewhat sympathetic to Russian concerns. They are not.

Recall that the dominant concern in the post-Cold War Kremlin is that the United States will nibble along the Russian periphery until Moscow itself falls. The fear is as deeply held as it is accurate. Only three states have ever threatened the United States: The first, the United Kingdom, was lashed into U.S. global defense policy; the second, Mexico, was conquered outright; and the third was defeated in the Cold War. The addition of the Warsaw Pact and the Baltic states to NATO, the basing of operations in Central Asia and, most important, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine have made it clear to Moscow that the United States plays for keeps.

The Americans see it as in their best interest to slowly grind Russia into dust. Those among our readers who can identify with “duck and cover” can probably relate to the logic of that stance. "

(Стратфор - независимая аналитическая группа. Их аналитические тексты платные, доступны подписчикам. Тот [url=]материал, который я цитирую[/url=http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/russia_problem], находится в открытом доступе.)