In the "if you don't know what you're talking about, shut up" way of things I must point out that access to the Black Sea by military vessels is restricted by convention and large vessels are a complete no no and so my whole send in an aircraft carrier viz Georgia was rather foolish [foolish one assumes for many reasons]. True, Turkey, which controls the Bosporus, could have ok'd such a breach of the rules - but not bloody likely and so my whole glorious plan was nothing but nonsense.
Not that it was meant seriously - well, it was meant seriously but only in a theoretical way. Certainly, with China just recently condemning the action and Russia's stock market down 5-10% since the action the benefits accruing to Russia from the misadventure are seeming a bit dubious. Still, NATO has been exposed [yet again] as weak and it's implied promises to the aspiring democracies of the former Soviet Union somewhat empty - and such a result may have been Putin's main objective in the first place. And Russian nationalism has been stoked, whetted if you will, by this aggressive policy, which both serves Putin's autocratic ambitions well and degrades the West's interests further. The whole point of my contention for calling Putin's bluff with a strong and immediate show of force was to forestall such a thing, believing it a dynamic which could lead to escalation down the road. With a weak NATO America looks isolated and therefore vulnerable - the Chinese choosing to play nice counters that a bit - but still, vulnerability tends to invite potentially dangerous ambitions against it.
