Three-fourths of NATO supplies are transited to Afghanistan through Pakistan’s Khyber Pass, located west of the NWFP capital of Peshawar. The Taliban has destroyed hundreds of NATO provision trucks, unleashed deadly attacks against NATO convoys and raided key supply depots. Emboldened by its success, the Taliban is now attempting to choke off the vital port city of Karachi, where the NATA logistics hub begins. The Pakistani military’s inability to drive the Taliban from the Northwest Territory combined with ISI support for the Taliban has made maintaining Pakistani supply routes too risky a proposition to sustain NATO growing operations in Afghanistan. The new Obama administration has continued its devastating Drone aerial attacks against Taliban strongholds on the Afghan-Pakistani border. But civilian deaths associated with the Drone attacks are fueling anger and anti-American sentiment on both sides of the border, while weakening the legitimacy of President Kharzai and President Zardari’s governments. For all these reasons opening a second supply front for U.S. and NATO operations emerged as “mission critical” to push forward President Obama’s Afghanistan surge campaign.

Pakistan’s deepening turmoil and U.S. reliance on a revanchist Russia to ensure its supply lines in Afghanistan are unsettling realities. But dragging the unstable nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan into the equation represents a dangerous expansion of the “Long War” in Central Asia. U.S. negotiations with these countries over transit routes, access to air bases and foreign aid packages started before the 2001 Afghanistan invasion. The regional maneuvering has ebbed and flowed with the intensifying U.S.- Russian rivalry over Central Asian oil exploration, pipeline rights and the volatile internal politics of each country. Given the contention between the U.S. and Russia in Central Asia’s renewed “Great Game” a valid question arises; why has Russia come to the aid of its nemesis, the United States?

Moscow has a strategic interest in preventing the Taliban from toppling the government in Kabul, either directly or by leading a coalition of forces. The Taliban’s return to power would virtually eliminate Russian influence inside Afghanistan, whereas today Moscow has significant ties with Northern Alliance forces, President Kharzai and pro-Iranian forces inside Afghanistan. Furthermore, America’s aggressive efforts in Central Asia have led to the establishment of U.S. military installations in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Moscow and China are deeply troubled by America’s expanded military profile in Central Asia. President Putin moved to facilitate the transit agreements, rather than risking the U.S. cutting deals with Central Asia regimes without Russian input. For his services to the United States, the Obama administration reciprocated by hitting the mute button regarding Putin’s shut down of natural gas flows to European countries in mid-winter; a manufactured crisis that allowed Russia to blame the Ukraine for the shortages while extorting higher gas transit prices from Kiev.

Beyond blocking U.S. encroachment in its security perimeter, Russia has a long-term security imperative of preventing the spread of radical Islam to its neighboring former Soviet Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. These countries on Russia’s southern border have large Muslim populations and indigenous radical Islamists organizations that threaten Moscow’s national security and hinder its efforts to keep the former Soviet republics within its sphere of influence. Inside Russia, the transformation of Chechnya’s nationalist movement into a jihadist juggernaut supported by its majority Muslim population led to a bloody 12-year succession struggle bordering on ethnic cleansing. There are 20 million self-identified Muslims in Russia, a number that has risen by 40% in the last 15 years. Russian sensitivity to its potential Islamic threat is real, and the destabilization of any of its Central Asian neighbors could be a lightning rod that ignites the fuse.

Obama’s new Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke will undoubtedly tout the benefits of U.S. anti-narcotics initiatives in Afghanistan to curtail the flow of heroin that is devastating Central Asia and Russia. Construction projects, infrastructure development, U.S. dollars and other accoutrements showered on the Central Asian republics will ease the regional economic crisis and revive the failed “Silk Road” strategy of applying American soft power in Central Asia. Of particular concern to Obama’s foreign policy team will be buttressing Tajikistan; the poorest Central Asian country, rife with weapons and narcotics smuggling, and tense ethnic divisions with its Uzbek neighbors that could collapse the nation into a failed state. Such a development would increase the difficulties of stabilizing Afghanistan and heighten US-Russian regional geo-political rivalry.

For the United States and Russia, expanding the War in Afghanistan to the Central Asian steppes, even with a benign act of securing transit routes is a risk they are willing to take to prevent the Taliban from taking power in Kabul. What becomes problematic is the possibility that Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar is not to contending for state power, but destabilizing the Kharzai government to the point where the Taliban can maintain control of a limited number of provinces while expanding its sphere of influence. Indeed, what seems more likely is that the Afghan Taliban is working in concert with the newly emerging Pakistan Taliban and al Queda in an effort to establish a rump confederation that consolidates their joint control of Southeastern Afghanistan, Pakistan ’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Provinces. In short, these forces are carving out a failed state of Pushtanistan in the ungoverned territories along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

On January 22, President Obama called Pakistan and Afghanistan “the central front of terrorism,” and spoke of the necessity of eliminating this global threat starting in Afghanistan. By securing Russia’s aid to open new supply lines for NATO and U.S. forces, he just might be falling deeper into al Queda’s deadly trap of extending U.S. forces across Afghanistan, expanding unpopular bombing missions, increasing cross border excursions into Pakistan’s Northwest Territories and exposing more American forces to attack on the Central Asian steppes. The battlefield in Central Asia is being stretched. No one is sure where it will end.

The Bush Administration, aided by a complicit Democratic Party Congress made a monumental strategic error in pushing NATO membership for Georgia at the last alliance summit. Coming on the heals of American sponsorship of Kosovo’s independence, Bush’s action could only be seen as a provocation. That Bush blatantly antagonized Moscow with no intention of defending Georgia if attacked by Russia constituted the height of irresponsibility. The U.S. financed, armed and trained the Georgian army, led by the political neophyte President Saakashvili. Yet despite explicit warnings from Bush and Sec. of State Rice that Georgia not attack its separatist provinces, Saskshvili couldn’t restrain his propensity for committing atrocities against South Ossetia-thus provoking Russia to arms.

Had France and Germany not resisted Bush’s imprimatur for Georgian inclusion in NATO, the U.S. and Western Europe would at this moment be legally obliged to attack Russian forces in Georgia. Coming at a time when the 26 nation NATO Alliance can’t ante up enough troops to defeat the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, NATO would have undoubtedly split over an armed intervention to confront Russia on Georgian soil. Once again, this comedy of errors so typical of the Bush administration’s reckless foreign policy has undermined U.S.-European Union relations and pushed U.S. – Russian relations to a breaking point.

For all President Bush’s rhetoric about punishing the Russians, little if anything will be done in his last five months in office. The U.S. still needs Russia as a partner to check Iran’s nuclear program, police loose nukes and proliferation, not to mention assisting the West in the “war on terror.” For its part, Russia has long since left the West, and while it may cooperate in these areas based on its own national interest, Russia increasingly regards the U.S. as a hostile adversary and will act accordingly.

Going forward Moscow’s political and military posture will become much more aggressive in what it calls its “Near Abroad.” Russia’s harsh warnings to Poland for accepting U.S. missile interceptors and the Ukraine over naval access agreements to Black Sea ports are illustrative of growing tensions between Moscow and the West. Russia will also attempt to accelerate its growing anti-U.S. energy alliance with China in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea basin to push back U.S. moves to consolidate access to energy resources.

While the media speculates about the resumption of the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia, the larger issue at hand is the growing potential for a new geo-political divide whose footprint is slowly but surely being called into existence; A new East-West energy divide that begins in the Middle East with Syria, Iraq and Iran and sweeps eastward through Russia and China, with an ambivalent India wedged in the middle. In the 21st Century “Great Game” in Central Asia, three countries share the majority of the region’s energy resources, namely Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

The essence of U.S-Russian geo-political contention in Central Asia is twofold: first, control of production of the oil and gas, and second, control of the pipelines which will transfer the oil to the Western markets. It is not insignificant in the grand scheme of the conflict in Georgia that three oil pipelines run through Georgia to the West, all circumventing Russia.

Ultimately, the Georgian crisis will be resolved in the short-run with face saving measures that mollify all sides. Russians troops will remain in South Ossetia and Abkhazia at pre-crisis levels as outlined in the French brokered cease fire agreement. Both provinces will formally remain autonomous regions of Georgia, although Moscow will exert greater political, economic and military leverage. Georgia’s prospects of gaining entry into NATO are all but dead in the foreseeable future. The fragrant blooms of Georgia’s Rose Revolution have fallen, leaving only the painful thorns of a divided and war-torn country trapped between the imperial ambitions of Moscow and the West.

Under siege, Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili appealed to the U.S., the UN and the European Union to broker a cease fire. But President Bush could do little more than issue a hollow statement that Russia’s actions “could damage future relations” between the two countries, and arrange for 2,000 Georgian troops in Iraq to be airlifted back home. Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, boldly stated that a “ceasefire would not be a solution” and suggested that nothing less than an agreement on the non-use of force against South Ossetia” was negotiable. Indeed, Russia’s goal is move enough troops into both autonomous regions to defeat Georgian forces and establish military dominance to ensure when talks begin on the status of both areas the Russians will hold all the cards.

Fully cognizant that the United States, NATO and the European Union will not send troops to support Georgia, Russia’s aggression brims with confidence. And why not. America’s feeble response is symptomatic of America’s diminished global position and its inability to change any of the facts on the ground in Georgia. The Bush administratrion had touted Georgia’s new democratic republic, pushed its inclusion in the NATO alliance, and supported building a strategic oil pipeline running from Baku on the Caspian Sea through Georgia to Turkey and on to Western Europe; all to the consternation of Russia.

In the present crisis, Russia not only enjoys a strong militarily posture, but maintains a substantial political footprint in both breakaway provinces. After the Soviet Union’s breakup in 1991, South Ossetia and Abkhazia declared their independence from Georgia. Both non-Georgian ethnic provinces held internationally observed ballot referenda that overwhelmingly supported independence. When the United Nations refused to recogize the breakaway republics, the Georgian government reluctantly negotiated regional autonomy agreements with both provinces. Both agreements allowed Russia to maintain peacekeeping troops on the ground along with Georgian and provential forces. Over 80% of the people of both provinces hold Russian passports and their autonomus governments closely identify with Moscow. North Ossetia remains a part of Russia.

Russia’s forceful re-emergence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia constitutes a strategic setback for the United States, and an ominous warning sign that relations between the U.S. and Russia are growing more acute. Russia has been chaffing at the opportunity to push back American advances in its own back yard. The U.S. consolidated former Soviet republics on Russia’s borders into NATO, concluded agreements to deploy nuclear weapons shields in Poland and the Czech Republic, and U.S. advances in the Caucuses and Central Asia to secure energy sources have revived the aura of a Cold War rivalry.

Russia’s global star is on the rise. Gone are the days of its chaotic experiment with democracy. Under Putin’s authoritarian grip, Russia is flush with petro-dollar reserves, its economy and standard of living has risen dramatically and it has reasserted its political muscle internationally. Over the coming weeks, Russia will not likely back off it’s hardline position in Georgia. They have drawn a red line at the Georgia-Ossettia frontier–one the West can only cross at great peril.