Long time readers may remember the six stratagems proposed by the RAND Corporation in their plan to degrade and defeat Russia economically:
The RAND Corporation Blueprint For Forcing Putin To Over-Extend Himself
I hope that the U.S. or NATO or whoever commissioned this study didn't pay a lot for it, it's basically the strategy that Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan came up with in the early 1980's although the details do differ. The tactical components of the RAND plan are:
1. Arming Ukraine ;
2. Increase support for jihadists in Syria;
3. Promoting regime change in Belarus;
4. Exploiting tensions in the South Caucasus;
5. Reducing Russian influence in Central Asia;
6. Rivaling the Russian presence in Transnistria.
....MUCH MORE
South Caucasus:
From: Eurasian Geopolitics
From Abkhazia at the northwest end of the Caucasus Mountains, down through Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, including Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia, it's a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world (except for Lola).
It appears that Victoria Nuland has counseled skipping stratagem #3 for the time being so, as of a couple hours ago:
This gets especially interesting because Armenia as well as Russia are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), mutual self-defense, which last showed up on our pages when Kazakhstan requested help putting down the attempted coup in January:
....Armenia joined the EAEU to have a couple big friends (Russia; Kazakhstan) in the event Azerbaijan (backed by génocidaire Turkey) decides to roll over Armenia.
The Armenian government was therefore a bit taken aback when Kazakhstan invoked mutual self-defense during the attempted coup last January. Yerevan said they couldn't spare more than 100 troops and Kazakhstan said "Send 'em, we need help"
The CSTO and the EAEU have overlapping memberships.
May you live in interesting times.
And not in weird little Transnistria, which may be next on the hit parade.
