Russia Invades Georgia as predicted in 2001 by Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon

So, I installed Ghost Recon, a great game from 2001 and played a few rounds last night. What made me dig through the CD case to find and install this 7 year old game? Well, the game is set in the future, starting in April 2008 to be exact. The game begins with Russia supporting the South Ossetia rebels, and then invading Georgia itself. While the story line doesn’t mirror exactly what is happening now, it is very coincidental in its back story.

The game itself is great, at least for its time. I really liked the squad based play. I liked sending the sniper to a nice spot somewhere to give me cover for my assault on a particular area, and having two other squads attack from different angles, which would either split the AI into smaller groups, or drawing them into a good position to be shot by one or the other squads. I really liked multiplayer. I wonder if I could find someone to play with these days. Until battlefield 1942 came out, I’d say that Ghost Recon was my favorite multi player game. I really liked using grenades and claymores for multiplayer games.

The game moves beyond Georgia, with the last level in that campaign being an extraction from the US embassy in Tbilisi, which is a pretty tough mission. If I recall correctly, it ends in red square in Moscow and you have to blow up several tanks. I figure I’ll play the game through again, just for the fun of it.

Back in real life, it is hard to understand this conflict. Georgia wants good relations with the EU and US, so it wouldn’t make much sense for it to target South Ossetian civilians as Russia claims. It seems to me that this is an excuse for Russia to flex its military muscle, but the world doesn’t like this sort of aggression. Look at the way the world looks at the United States in regards to Iraq, and that was a UN sanctioned war!

For now, the US isn’t involved, but Georgia is quite an ally with the 3rd largest number of troops in Iraq, at least until they were flown back to defend their territory. The US involvement in that is interesting. I would like to know more about this. According to the Deputy Chief of General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Anatoly Nogovitsyn at a briefing in Moscow, eight flights from Iraq, moved 800 Georgian military and eleven tons of cargo. I don’t believe much of what the Russians say, but this seems plausible. It seems that the US was involved in these flights, but I can’t confirm it. If so, what would happen if the Russians fired on or shot down a US plane? This thing could get out of control.