Succinctly put, good Sir. I daresay that Mr Bush’s regime is about to go out with a whimper for there’s, in reality, very little short of the nuclear option that can wrest this conflict from Putin & Co hand.
I would not be the least bit surprised to find Russian troops occupying Tbilisi by week’s end – or earlier. And there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it – 'cept MAD.
Methinks the former KGB black-belt, chess-master is close to a geopolitical chess-mate. Not like the cowpoke in the WH was much of an adversary – no way in hell he’d punch above/about his weight.
Neocon-crumble. Can’t say it brings tears to my eyes…
Of course, we could always try some threatening military exercises in the area as priory (and I think seriously) suggested. The ought to scare the crap out of Putin’s Russia. :rolleyes:
Beyond that does anyone really believe Saakshvili went ahead with this genocidal attack without the ‘green-light’ from some of his erm…strongest backers? I find the idea highly doubtful.
It’s also almost risible that the MSM is calling this the “most one sided conflict in history.”
Panama, Grenada, Iraq, Haiti, the Dom Rep come rather quickly to mind…
Lastly, why does he get a straight line to CNN and has a EU flag in his backdrop? WTF? Almost as ridiculous as trying to call Georgia a part of the NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION.
Prediction: Russia is going to do pretty much what it wants in its own backyard and the Bush administration is the last one that that can try to bring-up the moral high ground (or any other) in order to try to stop them.
Homey please! The Masters of the Shock and Awe talking international morals! After butchering 500,000 to one million Iraqis later – and why?
The main oil and gas pipelines into Georgia come from Azerbaijan not Russia. I’m sure the Russians would love to run a pipeline through Georgia though.
Georgia was being continually provoked and threatened, and the provocation and demands were escalating, greatly aided by Russia. Russian forces were already on the border, ready to instantly respond. They had already instituted cyber warfare against Georgia to cut off outside communications. This was a complete set-up by Russia. Had Georgia’s government done nothing at this time, the situation would have continued to escalate until it became intolerable, then Russia would have invaded anyway. To blame this on ‘Georgian Recklessness’ is unbelievably naive.
I didn’t recommend any particular course of action - I laid out a number of possible responses. There are others as well. I already said that direct military confrontation isn’t in the cards.
But if you think a strong response is reckless and belligerant, perhaps you’d better inform Richard Holbrooke and Ron Asmus, who don’t seem to have gotten your message. For those who have forgotten, Holbrooke and Asmus were two of the highest foreign policy officials in the Clinton Administration. Holbrooke was Ambassador to the UN, and Asmus was Deputy Secretary of State. Not your typical neo-cons.
Here’s what they recommend:
Pretty much what I was saying - South Ossetia may be lost, but now’s the time to strengthen ties with other vulnerable states, bring in other forces to protect Georgia (he wants UN forces - I’d use NATO), draw clear lines in the sand and back it up, and pursue strong diplomacy in other areas. And by ‘strong diplomacy’, I mean threats. And so does Holbrooke. Serious economic and political threats. The U.S. may not have good military options in Georgia, but it’s got a pretty strong hand in a lot of other areas.
This is the time that the entire west - the U.S., the E.U., and others, to stand up and declare that enough is enough, that democracy will be defended, and that we’re perfectly capable of playing hardball if need be.
China is watching this carefully. They are the ultimate pragmatists - if they get a sense that Putin’s belligerence pays dividends, look for their behaviour to get worse. Iran and North Korea and Venezuela and the other bad actors around the world are also paying attention. How we respond to this is going to set the tone for our relationships with them for a long time.
I’m flattered that you think of me so much, but really, there are better venues for driveby snipes.
And you might want to take note of the fact that I blasted Bush vehemently yesterday in this thread. And I’m highly disappointed in Rice, unless there’s something going on behind the scenes. When this first broke, one of my thoughts was, “Finally, Rice will be of some use. She’s a major expert on Russia. Time for her to get in the game.” Apparently, she feels differently.
Actually, I doubt if it was Rice’s decision. I suspect someone in the administration, probably Bush, made the decision that they should continue with business as usual as some sort of message. That’s the only explanation I can think of. And if so, it was an amazingly boneheaded decision. Not surprising.
This editorial by the National Review almost exactly mirrors what Holbrooke and Asmus are saying. This is looking more like an emerging consensus as to what the correct course of action should be.
Maybe we haven’t forgotten the lessons of the past after all. Now the question will be whether Europe has the stomach for hard diplomacy.
I pretty much agree with all of this. Georgia knows S Ossetia is gone. They’ve conceded that much. The problem is that Russia continues to attack within territories of Georgia, and that needs to be addressed immediately by as many countries as is possible. This is not something to ignore, and is very threatening to other potential Russian interests.
There’s a reason that the presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, et al. are traveling to Tbilisi. They know that the outcome of this conflict will directly affect their security in the near future. They also know that if Russia gets away with this, they’ll be emboldened to utilize military actions in the future when things don’t go their way, since they’ve been threatening that very tactic for a long time.
Poland and the Czech Republic may be much more willing to renegotiate the terms of the missile defense shield after this, provided we promise to use it on the Russians.
Excellent National Review article, Sam! (by which, of course, I mean that I find myself in agreement with it!)
I’m not claiming that Georgia is lily-white in this. It probably was a dumb thing for them to send their military into S. Ossetia. A plebiscite both there and in Abkhazia would be a smarter thing to do. None the less, Georgia is a small, somewhat democratic sovereign nation being swallowed by a huge, pretty much not democratic, nation being run by a bunch of thugs and tools of thugs. I think Obama is on the right track in his view of diplomacy - both countries giving up a bit - Russia can have S. Ossetia and Abkhazia if those areas want to be part of Russia for all I care… I think Georgia may very well deserve to lose S. Ossetia for being stupid enough to run a campaign on a platform of getting full control of that region back. But we’ll never know what S. Ossetia wants, because there isn’t and will never be a plebiscite, at least not now, when it looks as if Russia has the area prtty much wrapped up.
But if all they want is those areas, their artillery has lost an awful lot of its focus since 1981, because they’re shooting purely Georgian areas as well as the secessionists. And based on the PBS interviews I saw tonight, Georgia has had it wih the Russians trying to boss them, and they intend to try to fight it out, presumably as guerillo fighters
And I’m sorry, but I don’t think selling military equipment to a new nation that doesn’t have any as “provocation.” Nor do I see the flying home of their own soldiers to their own country when said country is being attacked as being provocative. But, being overextended ourselves, we are certaingly not in a position to help out directly in a military sense. The rest of NATO or the EU will have to cover the bulk of it if
I have one small hope now. Russia, like Georgia, may have overplayed their hand. It would take a lot to get the EU to actually act as one. If Russia took little bites at the time, the individual EU nations would have happily found ways to rationalize doing nothing rather than risk Russian displeasure. By having witnessed Russia beat Georgia to bloody pulp long after Georgia cried “uncle” the EU is now forced to recognize the kind of game that Russia is wanting to play. This may actually have been enough to force the EU to respond cohesively now while strong diplomacy can actually effect some longer term stability if applied with some backbone and unity.
Probably not. But I like my dreams. Without them I have only nightmares that keep me awake.
And if you want to read probably the best news feed out there on this subject, read this thread. Particularly watch out for the poster fjd, he really has done a bangup job collating what’s going on over there.
Once again, the neocons reveal themselves to be long on ideology and bluster and short on knowledge and common sense.
Nobody would confuse me with an expert on the Caucuses, but even I can read a map: South Ossetia is located smack next to… North Ossetia, which is near Chechnya. Hm. Now there’s an interesting ethnic mix.
Ah but South Ossetia is just Russia’s proxy, right? I suppose it’s another commie cat’s paw, like Vietnam.
But Southern Ossetia has battled Georgia for independence twice in the last century. They did so in 1919-20: over 5000 died in the civil war. Then the Soviets swallowed the whole mess in 1921.
And in 1990 the local Ossetia militia (backed by the Soviets) fought the Georgians to a standstill. Cite.
This is a simple case of a rapacious country (Georgia) trying to crush the will of a province that only wants to reunite with their bretheran in Northern Ossetia, or so I proclaim with about as much justification as any other uninformed ideological blowhard (i.e. none).
I find all the modern conservative chitchat on brave fledging democracies like Georgia rather amusing: it seems odd that elections in one part of a country can trump the self determination of a province that has long wished to sever ties with the larger body.
Regardless, we might want to ponder what we’re getting into before we start handing out security guarantees like party favors. But hey, I’m not an expert: heck I had not even heard of Ossetia before last Friday.
Separately, if it’s all about oil, could somebody explain to me how a landlocked province is going to help Russia pipe its gas or crude to Western Europe? I suppose the answer would be that this is only Step 1.
Then again, I heard the same line in the 1970s: Russia had always wanted a warm water port, so naturally they would have their eye on Afghanistan. The fact that Afghanistan was landlocked didn’t seem to put that idea to rest.
Here’s an alternative to the Sam Stone plan.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
Don’t encourage small countries residing next to powerful neighbors to play high-stakes security games on our dime.
After repeated flouting international law and norms, expect Russia to do the same.
Then grow up and resign yourself to Balance of Power/Sphere of Influence/Kissinger-style diplomacy. Cede Ossetia and AkbanOnedayImightbeabletospellthatProvince and accept the Finlandization of Estonia, Georgia et al.
Don’t make bluffs without thinking a couple of steps ahead.
I’ve been paying a lot of attention to, at least, what’s been happening in Norway lately and while there’s a lot of tension, there’s also a lot of anger. Not openly or politically, but expressed in the perspectives of journalists and people talking off-the-record. While the press are of course airing variations upon the nuance that “Georgia had this, or at least should have seen this, coming”, there’s also a lot of people - people who have distinguished themselves as pragmatists in the past - who aren’t willing to view this as an isolated and coincidental incident coming from Russia.
To neatly summarize the mainstream Norwegian view on Russia, three lines from a Kaizers Orchestra song come two mind:
*Eg løyser mine konflikter med min bang-bang
Alt som kommer i mellom min vin og min sang
Akkurat som russarene har eg alltid noge på gang *
(Roughly translated by me;
I solve my conflicts with my bang-bang
All that comes between my wine and my song
Just like the russians I’ve always got my hand in something)
And I expect that if you find this mood in Norway, you’ll find it in Sweden as well. And doubly so in Finland. Denmark, I don’t know. There’s a lot of dissidence, of course, because at this point there’s not enough information, it’s all stilly very fresh and there’s still a “good chance” that this can still turn out to be an isolated occurence by Russia. That Russia has only become tired of being baited by Georgia and this is merely the realpolitik equivalent of a “bait, slap and don’t do it again” to Georgia. Behave! in other words.
Still, times might get interesting very soon . . .
Snark deserved, but by way of clarification Finlandization is not the same as “Ceding”. And if South Ossetia wants to vote to secede from Georgia, I can’t see what principles of democracy and freedom should bar them.
(As it happens, I’m pretty skeptical of arguments for national liberation. But if a province wants to hop from one bordering country to another, and such actions are consistent with Realpolitik, then they should probably receive the green light.)
Damn right they did. What they did not do was roll several armoured divisions into Serbia proper. And the attack on Serbia was about supporting Kosovan self-determination, after a decade-long UN effort to stabilise the former Yugoslavia. It was not about annexing a lump of one sovereign country to add to another, without making any attempt to involve the international community in seeking alternative solutions. I’m sure you’ll also recall the prolonged agonising and waffling that went on before anything happened in Kosovo, and how controversial was (and still is).
If Russia had restricted itself to beating the shit out of Georgian troops in South Ossetia, and bombing Georgia itself in order to make it comply with some specific list of demands (e.g. independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia), then people would not be making nearly as much of this - it would be, frankly, just more of the same old shit, and it would probably be perfectly legal given that the UN has approved the Russian presence in South Ossetia. However, that’s not what Russia did.
It launched a war into undisputedly Georgian territory with no end in sight, and no list of objectives the Georgians can accede to - making one suspect that there is no objective other than to smash Georgia into pieces and turn it back into a Russian vassal state, while giving Putin another Chechnya-style nationalist boost. They now seem to be finally issuing a list of demands, which basically amount to Georgia pulling their troops out of anywhere the Russians don’t like them.
However, as I said earlier, it’s easy to get all worked up about these sorts of things - information is still limited, responses are still being worked out, and the consequences of what is happening are not clear. I very much doubt this is going to be the start of WW3, or will have much immediate impact at all in the short term. If it does anything in the short term, it will strengthen Russia’s hand vis-a-vis Europe by giving them effective control of all the pipelines by which gas/oil from Central Asia can get to Europe (to answer Measure for Measure’s question). In the medium-long term it will either tip the scales Germany’s way (more cuddling up to the Russians) or (IMO more likely) strengthen support for those countries that have always been suspicious of Russia). What it will certainly do is piss all over America’s chips - the whole post-soviet strategy for Central Asia is now a wreck.
It also wouldn’t surprise me hugely if the South Ossetians/Abkhazians start to regret this, since Moscow will now stop treating them as favoured clients in need of winning over, and instead extend to them the usual ‘benefits’ of being garrison areas on the frontier. It also wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if that plays out in the long term as a united Ossetia trying to get loose from Russia.
