Georgetown's Daniel Nexon characterizes Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's admonition of Russia's interventions in Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia provice as NATO writing "checks it probably can't cash." This prompted Matthew Yglesias to write:

It would be appallingly stupid for the United States or our other key allies to put anything whatsoever on the line for the sake of Georgia's efforts to reassert control over its rebellious province. The question of maintaining a good relationship with an important country, Russia, versus standing up for the independence of Russia's neighbors poses some tough dilemmas. But when the issue is Georgia's effort to rule over a province that by all indications doesn't want to be ruled by Tblisi, the dilemma really isn't difficult at all. We should just stay far, far, far away from this dispute and try to make it clear to our friends in Georgia that we don't encourage them to do anything stupid.

I think it's wishful thinking on Yglesias's part to pretend that this has nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy. Abkhazia isn't just some obscure, post-Soviet backwater conflict that emerged on its own. Russia's recent actions -- normalizing trade relations and sending hundreds of "peacekeepers" into the region -- were taken in direct response to Western recognition of Kosovo and talk of NATO expansion. Telling Georgia that it has to resolve this issue on its own before we'll even think about NATO membership is basically an open invitiation for Putin to continue meddling.

I agree that tradeoffs and concessions will have to be made with an increasingly assertive Russia, and Georgia's territorial integrity may be less of a priority than other goals. But being willing to make concessions is not the same thing as looking the other way when Russia responds to U.S. and EU policy by annexing territory from Western allies. I don't really see why de Hoop Scheffer saying that Georgia and Russia "should engage quickly in a high-level and open dialogue to de-escalate tensions" is some sort of bombastic provocation.

For the record, the Georgians have put quite a bit on the line to help the United States reassert control in Iraq with the hope that they might gain NATO membership in return. That gambit is starting to look "appallingly stupid."

With U.S. media oxygen consumed by the Hillary-Barack contretemps, few have paid much attention to a brewing drama in Iraq.

At issue is an update to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the U.S. and Iraqi governments, a document that legally defines the terms under which American troops can function in Iraq. The deal is being negotiated in secret, but a few preliminary details have leaked out. Patrick Cockburn of the Independent reports:

Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.

Obviously, these terms could change in the face of Iraqi opposition, and there is already talk of political workarounds such as making the bases officially Iraqi bases with U.S. tenants. Iraqi officials have also threatened to make other arrangements if their sovereignty isn't fully respected. An Iraqi lawmaker testifying on Capitol Hill yesterday urged the United States "not to embarrass the Iraqi government (by) putting it in a difficult situation with this agreement" right now. The Bush administration doesn't believe that Congress needs to approve any deal, however, maintaining that the SOFA is not a formal treaty.

Iran's former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was especially harsh in his criticism, telling fellow Muslim leaders at a conference in Riyadh, "The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves before the Americans, if it is sealed."

Former Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi offers a more measured assessent, but nonetheless condemns the secrecy surrounding the agreement:

A treaty of such singular significance to Iraq cannot be rammed through with less than a few weeks of debate. Otherwise, the proposed strategic alliance will most certainly be a divisive element in Iraqi politics. It will have the same disastrous effect as the treaty with Britain nearly eighty years ago.

The security situation is looking up these days. But a flawed agreement could be the spark that brings all the gains of the past year crashing down.

UPDATE: U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker flatly denies the Cockburn story.

Here in the United States, the military has a strong tradition of staying out of politics. Last week, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently reminded the Armed Forces of this duty in an essay for Joint Force Quarterly, writing:

The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times. It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway."

But that's not exactly the tradition in Zimbabwe, as Major-General Martin Chedondo the country's army chief of staff made clear on Saturday:

The constitution says the country should be protected by voting and in the 27 June presidential election run-off pitting our defence chief Comrade Robert Mugabe (against) Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC, we should, therefore stand behind our commander-in-chief."

Observers handicapping the upcoming runoff can take this as a sign that the army will do everything it can to prevent a Tsvangirai victory. Chedondo continued:

Soldiers are not apolitical. Only mercenaries are apolitical. We have signed and agreed to fight and protect the ruling party's principles of defending the revolution.... If you have other thoughts, then you should remove that uniform."

He didn't need to add: "Or we will remove it for you."

Jamal Naji / MCT

Residents of the Iraqi city of Fallujah claim that U.S. Marines are trying to convert them to Christianity. McClatchy's Jamal Naji and Leila Fadel report:

At the western entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah Tuesday, Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure that he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand.

Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. "Where will you spend eternity?" it asked.

He flipped it over, and on the other side it read, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."

Quite a few locals say they have received the coins and the U.S. military is investigating the claims. It shouldn't even need repeating, but stories like this don't exactly help fight the perception of many Muslims that the U.S.-led war on terror is actually a war on Islam. This literal proselytization at gunpoint is understandably humiliating for the people on the other end and, if it is going on, the Marine Corps ought to put a stop to it immediately.

Zafarullah Khan/AFP/Getty Images

Pakistan's decision yesterday to pull out of the Swat valley, essentially ceding control of the region to local Taliban militants, certainly represented a shift in security policy for Pakistan's new government. However, as this week's FP Photo Essay, "Springtime for the Taliban" vividly illustrates, these militants are already operating quite openly in much of Afghanistan border region, and enforcing their own brand of frontier justice.

Most of the new Global Peace Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit isn't all that surprising. Perennial global list-toppper Iceland is apparently the most peaceful country in the world while Iraq is the most violent. Even the United States' rank, 97, isn't really much of a shock. It's fighting two wars after all.

But does Russia really deserve to be 10th from the bottom, behind violence-wracked states like Colombia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, DR Congo and Pakistan? Here's the explanation:

Russia scored low because of its high military spending, booming arms sales and poor relations with its neighbors, says the study, the brainchild of Steve Killelea, an Australian philanthropist and entrepreneur. Also hitting Russia's ranking were "high scores for homicides, jailed population, distrust among citizens, violent crime" and a lack of respect for human rights, it said. [..] While the study noted "increased stability in Chechnya," it pointed to Russia's "moderately tense" relations with its neighbors and extremely high arms exports.

Fair enough. Russia's not exactly Iceland. But as bad as things are in the North Caucasus and as repressive as Putin's government might have been, it still doesn't seem right to see it ranked five spots below Burma's genocidal junta.

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - MAY 14: South Korean Capital Defence Command soldiers take part in an anti-terrorism exercise at their Seoul military camp on May 14, 2008 in Seoul, South Korea.

ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/AFP/Getty Images

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said today that the Russian military is "gaining in strength and power like all of Russia."

To prove it, he marched troops, tanks, and Topol-M nuclear missiles around Red Square today. The event was reportedly planned as early as January, and Medvedev was so intent on making the Soviet-style show of prowess a success that he ordered Russia's air force to make sure no clouds rained on the festivities. So they carried out a cloud seeding operation in advance of the parade. Meant to mark the 63rd anniversary of the victory of Nazi Germany, it was the first parade of its kind in Red Square since 1990.

It is right to consider the images coming out of the parade as a bit disconcerting. But press reports from the scene seem a bit over the top, with stories of "glamorous" troops and "mixed messages." This ignores the realities of today's Russian military. Moscow-based defense analyst Pavel Falgenhauer provides a good reality check:

Russia still has large stocks of Soviet-made military hardware; most of it fully or partially out of order. Only a handful of ships, tanks, and jets are truly operational at any given time.... The task of reviving defense hardware parades on Red Square will face grave technical and logistical problems and in any event will most likely produce only a pathetic imitation of Soviet military grandeur.... One can only hope that ...  no ancient building will collapse as tanks and ICBMs roll into central Moscow to serve the vanity of Russia’s leaders."

Let's not get carried away with the Cold War nostalgia just yet.

STEPHEN JAFFE/AFP/Getty Images

Today is the fifth anniversary of the day George W. Bush declared "mission accomplished" from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, just 42 days after the invasion of Iraq. 

This morning, the Center for American Progress hosted a speech by Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha. Murtha, a Vietnam veteran, voted to authorize the war in 2003, but has since become one of its most strident critics. As he put it today:

I was skeptical about giving the president authorization to go to war in 2003, but I gave this president the benefit of the doubt. That decision was a mistake. In Vietnam, we never had a strategy to win. In Iraq, we never had a strategy.

Murtha, who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, agrees with a majority of retired and active military officers that Iraq has left the U.S. military unprepared for future threats. He's also very concerned about China's military buildup, and thinks leaders in Beijing are watching the situation closely:

We must refocus our attention to the threats down the road. If you remember in World War II, we cut off the oil supply of the Japanese when they attacked. us. Now, I don't say that's going to happen with China. But one thing's for sure, if they misperceive our readiness to act, we're going to have a real problem.

While it's pretty unlikely that the Chinese are planning another Pearl Harbor (the line was absent from Murtha's prepared remarks so he may have ad-libbed it), it's fair to say that Iraq has decreased both U.S. military readiness and diplomatic standing.  

After five years, the administration seems unwilling to come to terms with what an embarassment "Mission Accomplished" was. As of yesterday, White House spokesperson Dana Perino was still insisting that Bush was misinterpreted. "Mission Accomplished," she claimed, only referred to "sailors who are on this ship on their mission" (though it's hard to believe that even she buys that line). However they try to spin it, "Mission Accomplished" will haunt the Bush administration as a symbol of the myopia and reckless optimism that characterized the early days of the Iraq war.

Steve Jobs's shop recently announced the $278 million purchase of a small computer-chip maker named P.A. Semi—a takeover that most analysts assumed was designed to shore up efficient chip technology for future versions of the iPhone.

But it turns out some of P.A. Semi's best customers are defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, and they're not at all comfortable with the company's new latte-drinking, yoga-practicing, peacenik boss. Rumors are flying that Apple will shut down production of a key processor used in "more than 10" different defense systems.

EE Times reports: 

Apple Inc. may have to face the ire of the U.S. Department of Defense following its planned acquisition of P.A. Semi Inc. The startup's PWRficient processor is designed into DoD programs in every major branch of the armed services, said one P.A. Semi customer who expects Apple will end production of the parts.

"We've had customers saying they are going to the DoD on this one," said a source in one of the several companies making embedded computer boards with the processor.

Lends new meaning to the term "iPod Killer," doesn't it?

Anthony Cordesman; Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Yesterday, I attended the Jane's U.S. Defense Conference, an annual gathering bringing together American and European defense industry representatives with national-security officials. The theme of this year's conference was "the outlook for policy and defense business under the next presidency," an appropriate enough subject for the day of the Pennsylvania primary.

There was an overwhelming sense at the conference that despite billions more dollars in defense spending, the United States is not adequately preparing for the threats of the 21st century, nor is it giving the "warfighters" the resources they need to achieve victory. Major General Charles J. Dunlap of the U.S. Air Force, for instance, worried that an overemphasis on counterinsurgency was leading the U.S. to ignore the possibility of warfare with a "peer country" (read: China). Former Under-Secretary for Defense Acquisition Jacques Gansler argued that protectionism and the prioritization of congressional pork projects were causing the misuse of defense resources, necessitating a law stipulating that "Congress should not be making defense-acqisition decisions." The State Department's Deputy Director of Policy Planning Kori Schake lamented the miniscule size of her own agency's budget relative to defense, saying that every one of State's problems could be "traced back to chronic underfunding."

Oddly enough in a discussion of current national-defense priorities, Iraq and Afghanistan hardly came up until near the end of the day, when the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Anthony Cordesman gave a briefing on both conflicts. Given the weakness of both countries' political institutions, Cordesman feels that the term "counterinsurgency" ought to be abandoned altogether in favor of "armed nation-building." Since Cordesman sees far more progress toward this goal in Iraq, I asked him if troop withdrawal there would increase the likelihood of success in Afghanistan:

If we can move forward in Iraq in ways that seem possible, we may be down to 10 brigrades by 2009. You can't suddenly move those brigades to Afghanistan. They require retraining. They will have to be re-equipped and restructed to fight a different kind of war on different terrain, dealing with a different culture with different values.

I also have to say that while troops are important... far more important are the aid teams and advisory teams... rapid turnover of deployments in a country where personal relationships are even more important than they are in Iraq, the inability to take aid workers out into the field where they are really needed... The problem isn't troop levels and it won't be solved by moving out of Iraq."

It seems ironic that the takeaway message of a national-defense conference was that what we traditionally think of as defense can only do so much. The next president's foreign-policy team will need to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time if it wants to begin to address the problems left over from the current one.

A study released today by the Rand Corporation finds that nearly 20 percent of military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq have symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression. For those interested in the math, that's some 300,000 soldiers. Only slightly more than half have sought treatment, telling researchers that they feared doing so would harm their careers. Here are some highlights from the first large-scale, nongovernmental assessment of the psychological and cognitive needs of military service members who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past six years:

• 19 percent of returning service members report that they experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while deployed
• 7 percent report both a probable brain injury and current PTSD or major depression
• The study estimates that about 320,000 service members may have experienced a traumatic brain injury during deployment, from mild concussions to severe penetrating head wounds. Yet, just 43 percent reported ever being evaluated by a physician for that injury
• Half of service members say they had a friend who was seriously wounded or killed
• 45 percent report that they saw dead or seriously injured non-combatants
• Over 10 percent say they were injured themselves and required hospitalization

The Rand study is highly focused on the monetary societal costs of PTSD and depression among returning service members. The study asserts that, in the 2 years after deployment, these injuries will cost the United States between $6,000 to more than $25,000 per case, or as much as $6.2 billion in total. Of course, an equally high cost is being borne by the families and loved ones of these soldiers. Sadly, it's unlikely anyone will ever be able to quantify that.

David Silverman/Getty Images

For the first time ever, a female Muslim Arab soldier has joined an elite Israeli Air Force unit. Upon completing a medic training course with top honors, she became part of the Airborne Combat Search and Rescue Unit 669, a premier unit that extricates wounded soldiers from combat zones in sensitive and highly classified operations.

Unlike Jewish young adults, most Arab Israelis are not required to serve in the military, but this soldier, from an Arab village in northern Israel, volunteered to serve. But Muslims and Arabs are prevented from serving in the elite Unit 669, which requires an extremely high security clearance, due to fears about conflicting loyalties should they have to serve in Palestinian areas or fight Muslim countries. So how did she get in? An investigation revealed that an error was made, although news reports have not described the nature of the error or who made it. (My hunch is that those details are confidential.)

Nonetheless, the unit's commander has been so impressed with the woman's exceptional ability that he is allowing her to stay. Although some on the Internet say she may end up betraying her unit, it may be that in this case an error ended up yielding the correct outcome -- letting in a talented, loyal soldier.

As today's marathon Iraq testimony continues to wind down, the overwhelming sense a viewer gets is that the whole event has proceeded according to script. The presidential candidates took the opportunity for free airtime, then took off before the hearings had even ended. Code Pink protesters were ejected from the room. And Amb. Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus stated that while enormous progress has been made in Iraq's security, cuts in troop levels should be avoided. One might even ask why, with everything these men have on their plates in Baghdad, they needed to travel all this way to perform this Capitol Hill kabuki drama.

Petraeus pushed for a 45-day pause in troop level reductions, saying that an immediate reduction would doom any hope of national reconciliation in Iraq:

This process will be continuous, with recommendations for further reductions made as conditions permit," General Petraeus said. "This approach does not allow establishment of a set withdrawal timetable. However, it does provide the flexibility those of us on the ground need to preserve the still-fragile security gains our troopers have fought so hard and sacrificed so much to achieve."

Never mind the fact the dubious proposition that Iraq's political progress will look much different in 45 days than it does now. It's no longer clear that the U.S. military can continue to sustain the level of commitment that Petraeus is talking about. In the U.S. Military Index, from the FP March/April issue, we found that nearly nine out of ten U.S. officers believe that Iraq has stretched our military dangerously thin, and less than half believe that we are prepared to fight another war on short notice. In light of this, how long will it be before factors other than what passes for Iraqi political progress begin to inform U.S. actions?

For more on the lack of progress in Iraq, check out Blake's new web exclusive, "Why the Surge Doesn't Matter."