WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States has ruled out the use of US military force in Georgia, but the Pentagon will almost certainly be looking for other chess pieces to move to check a more aggressive Russia, analysts say.
Will it rebuild and strengthen the militaries of Georgia and other countries on Russia's perifery? Reverse a drawdown of US forces in Europe? Rethink its military investments? Intensify missile defense efforts?
The answers to those questions will depend on how the current crisis unfolds, analysts say. Few predict a return of the Cold War.
But the Russian invasion of Georgia has already called into question the "entire premise" of a cooperative US-Russian strategic relationship, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned last week.
The Pentagon has cancelled upcoming military exercises with Russia, and NATO ministers warned Tuesday that there would not be a return to "business as usual."
"I think that the whole world is looking at Russia through a different set of lenses than just a week and a half or two weeks ago, so there are already consequences," Gates said in a television interview Sunday.
"I think they may not appreciate the magnitude of those consequences yet," he added.
Among the near term issues facing the United States and its allies is how to rebuild the battered Georgian military.
Trained and equipped by the United States for deployments in Iraq, it proved no match for the Russian military.
Frederick Kagan, a military expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said one reason was that Georgia and other similarly situated countries were discouraged from developing large military reserves, air defenses and anti-tank capabilities.
Their militaries should be rebuilt "to turn each of those states into a daunting porcupine capable of deterring the Russian bear," wrote Kagan, who is best known as an early advocate of the US surge strategy in Iraq.
He called for an expanded military advisory presence in "threatened states" on Russia's perifery.
"I think one area of US military spending that will definitely get bolstered by the Russian invasion of Georgia is spending on strategic defense, meaning defenses against nuclear weapons," said Loren Thompson, who heads the Lexington Institute, a non-partisan think tank.
In a situation like the conflict over Georgia, he said, the threat posed by Russia's nuclear arsenal "trumps any other consideration."
"Most US missile defense efforts over the last 20 years have been focused on countries like North Korea. That may now change," he said.
Other analysts, however, said nuclear deterrence -- not missile defense -- will remain at the core of the US strategy for dealing with Russia's nuclear arsenal.
But the United States may move to provide theater missile defenses to countries in Russia's shadow, they said.
It has promised Poland a US-manned Patriot missile battery and other unspecified military upgrades in return for hosting interceptor missiles for a US missile defense system aimed at threats from Iran.
Russia vehemently opposed the installation of missile defense sites so near its borders, but Poland quickly reached agreement on them with Washington after the invasion of Georgia.
The uncertainties created by a resurgent, oil-rich Russia also is likely to raise questions here about the broader US military posture, and whether or not to scrap plans to bring more US troops home from Europe.
Even before the current crisis, the US military had put brakes on the drawdown, opting to keep 40,000 troops in Europe for at least the next couple of years.
"The US decision to pull troops out of Europe was based on a belief that Russia had become democratic, and peaceful," said Thompson. "Many policymakers in Washington will now be rethinking whether that will be prudent or not."
Michele Flournoy, a former Pentagon strategist, said a new administration will weigh the tensions with Russia against US military requirements elsewhere.
She said the crisis over Georgia "is a signal that all is not well, and Russia is making choices that people think will take them down a very nasty road."
The Pentagon will watch Russia's defense investments very closely "and make sure we have hedges that position us to respond appropriately as necessary."
"But I don't think we're at the point where we upend all our planning assumptions, and put this new threat front and center," she said.
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