by Damozel | I have spent a certain amount of time trying to understand the conflict between Georgia and Russia, and wrote a piece providing some background into the conflict here. Elrod at The Moderate Voice---who is a historian---has posted an analysis.
[T]he implications so far are clear: the US, NATO and the EU have done nothing to stop the Russian advance. And Georgians increasingly feel betrayed by the West’s refusal to aid Georgia in this crisis. Considering the promise of the Bush Administration after Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003, which put pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili in power, Georgians feel the US has failed to live up to its obligations. After all, Georgia sent 2000 troops to help the US in Iraq. (TMV)
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's National Security Advisor---that "old Cold Warrior"---compares Russia's move to Stalin's and Hitler's and discusses what's now at stake for the US and its allies. He frames this as an act of aggression by Russia.
This is what he told The Huffington Post:
Putin is doing vis-a-vis Georgia to what Stalin did vis-a-vis Finland: subverting by use of force the sovereignty of a small democratic neighbor. In effect, morally and strategically, Georgia is the Finland of our day
The question the international community now confronts is how to respond to a Russia that engages in the blatant use of force with larger imperial designs in mind: to reintegrate the former Soviet space under the Kremlin's control and to cut Western access to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia by gaining control over the Baku/ Ceyhan pipeline that runs through Georgia.
But I'm always uneasy with analogies that don't precisely fit the facts.
The Russians have apparently provided military support to the rebels in South Ossetia and Abkhazia"(BBC News).--and they certainly seem disposed to take advantage of this opportunity. But they went into South Ossetia because they've had an obligation since 1992 under the Commonwealth of Independent States agreement to act as "peacekeeper."(BBC News)
The fact is, the Georgian president wishes to "unify" Georgia against the wishes of the people in the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which have declared their independence. (BBC News) The Georgian president launched a surprise attack intended to subdue South Ossetian separatist forces after agreeing to allow Russia to mediate the dispute.
On Thursday, August 7, the Georgians and separatists agreed to stop fighting and sit down for Russian-mediated talks. (BBC News) But before the cease-fire broke, Saakashvili initiated military action against rebel forces in South Ossetia's capital city of Tskhinvali in order, the head of the Georgian forces said, "to restore constitutional order" and "neutralize" rebel forces who were attacking civilians. (BBC News) [BN-Politics]
Charles King at The Christian Science Monitor argues:
American and European diplomats, who have rushed to the region to try to stop the conflict, would do well to consider the broader effects of this latest round of Caucasus bloodletting – and to seek perspectives on the conflict beyond the story of embattled democracy and cynical comparisons with the Prague Spring of 1968.
Russia illegally attacked Georgia and imperiled a small and feeble neighbor. But by dispatching his own ill-prepared military to resolve a secessionist dispute by force, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has managed to lead his country down the path of a disastrous and ultimately self-defeating war....
But this is not a repeat of the Soviet Union's aggressive behavior of the last century. So far at least, Russia's aims have been clear: to oust Georgian forces from the territory of South Ossetia, one of two secessionist enclaves in Georgia, and to chasten a Saakashvili government that Russia perceives as hot-headed and unpredictable....
Russia must be condemned for its unsanctioned intervention. But the war began as an ill-considered move by Georgia to retake South Ossetia by force. Saakashvili's larger goal was to lead his country into war as a form of calculated self-sacrifice, hoping that Russia's predictable overreaction would convince the West of exactly the narrative that many commentators have now taken up.
As noted above, the "unsanctioned intervention" charge doesn't seem
to be quite true (?)
On the other hand, the conservative British Telegraph argues that the Russians have been waiting for just this opportunity:
Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgia's President, might have been profoundly unwise to employ massive force against the pro-Russian separatists in South Ossetia last Thursday, but his lapses of judgement are not the point. The commanders of Russian forces and their political masters in the Kremlin hoped he would behave exactly as he did. The episode is a perfect application of what Russian military scientists call "reflexive control": the defeat of an adversary through his own efforts....
[Russia] aims to show [its neighbors and NATO] that Russia has (in Putin's words) "earned a right to be self-interested" and that in its own "zone", it will defend these interests irrespective of what others think about them....
That seems quite possible and perhaps the Russians really are opportunistic enough to exploit the situation.
At any rate, the consequences for Georgia seem likely to be disastrous regardless of what happens. Charles King points out: "Like the Balkans in the 1990s, the central problems of this region are about the dark politics of ethnic revival and territorial struggle. The region is home to scores of brewing border disputes and dreams of nationalist homelands." He says:
South Ossetia and Abkhazia are now completely lost. It is almost impossible to imagine a scenario under which these places – home to perhaps 200,000 people – would ever consent to coming back into a Georgian state they perceive as an aggressor.
Armed volunteers have already been flooding into South Ossetia from other parts of the Caucasus to fight against Georgian forces and help finally "liberate" the Ossetians from the Georgian yoke.
Despite welcome efforts to end the fighting, the Russo-Georgian war has created yet another generation of young men in the Caucasus whose worldviews are defined by violence, revenge, and nationalist zeal. (The Christian Science Monitor)
The question remains: what should we do about this?
Brzezinski recommends that the entire international community threaten Russia with "ostracism and economic and financial penalties" and potential "isolation in the international community...though one would hope that other Russian leaders, including its business elite, will have cooler heads and be more aware of Russia's own vulnerabilities." Russia is not in a position to engage in another Cold War, he says.
As to John McCain's suggestion that the US be expelled from the G8, he said: "The G8 is an impotent fiction anyway."
But will any of those suggestions work? At The Moderate Voice, Elrod is coldly pragmatic about our government's impotence to interfere with "Russia’s vigorous expansionism and authoritarianism." Although neocons such as McCain are keen on calling Russia out on this, we are of course already stretched very thin. We're already pretty bogged down with the two wars we are already in.
He argues that economic sanctions are useless. "Russia controls so much of the oil and natural gas in the region already." (TMV) As to the UN Security Council passing a resolution condemning Russia, he points out that Russia's veto makes this unlikely. In fact, he says, there's little we can do.
Sabre-rattling by the neoconservatives has never looked more buffoonish than now. Even with the aid of a united Europe, we hold no cards against a resurgent Russia in the Caucasus....
It’s ironic that after eight years characterized by two wars in Muslim countries, the Bush Administration has been kneecapped by a conflict having little to do with the War on Terror. The West - and America in particular - has been rendered impotent in this crisis. We can only hope that Russia does not occupy all of Georgia, depose Saakashvili and take over or destroy the BTC pipeline....
The Telegraph says that this latest move reflects Russia's attitude toward the west..
[It] is exasperated with the West and also contemptuous of it. In the Georgian conflict, as in the more subtle variants of energy diplomacy. Russians have shown a harshly utilitarian asperity in connecting means and ends. In exchange, we appear to present an unfocused commitment to values and process. Our democracy agenda has earned the resentment not only of Russia's elite but of the ordinary people who are delighted to see Georgia being taught a lesson.
Whatever the case, it's clear that we're now in a position where we don't have the capability to force compliance with our wishes.
My own fear is of politicians---looking here at Obama and McCain as well as Bush--- who will issue threats and engage in bellicose rhetoric without fully understanding the situation in Georgia.
After Iraq, you would think both the media and the political establishment would be careful about jumping to conclusions without first acquiring a detailed knowledge of every angle of the dispute. But the American right is so fearful at all times that it is permanently in a defensive and bellicose stance. Anything scary or threatening produces threats and saber-rattling before the facts are really fully known and digested.
And that's what scares me.
Memeorandum has blogger reactions here.
RECENT POSTINGS
Georgia Declares Itself to be in a State of War Against Russia; Conflict Expands
Admiral Fallon Discusses US foreign policy on BBC's Newsnight
Here's a pretty compelling argument from the Georgian president himself. Of course I would want to fact-check details before I swallow his version whole, but like I said, compelling.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121841306186328421.html
Posted by: Adam | August 11, 2008 at 07:52 PM