Clarity on Aggression
One of the more fatuous notions surrounding the Russia-Georgia conflict is the idea that the West brought this conflict about by a policy of strategic encirclement of Russia, described as “aggression”. Melanie Phillips fortunately comes up with a good counter:
Those who have been claiming that Russia is merely reacting to western ‘aggression’ in planting NATO on its doorstep fail to distinguish between aggression and self-defence. NATO is defensive; Russia is aggressive. The west does not want to invade Russia. Russia wants to invade other countries. NATO exists merely to defend free societies against attempts to destroy them, attempts in which Russia continues to lead the way.
That NATO has expanded and encroached on territory traditionally considered within Russia’s sphere of influence is undeniable. Such a fact however does not provide a legitimate excuse for Russian behaviour. The states in Russia’s “near abroad” are sovereign and independent. That they feel they need membership of NATO to protect that sovereignty speaks volumes about who is the real aggressor in this conflict.
Sphere: Related ContentSalami Tactics
After days of suspense with Russia’s “will they, won’t they?” withdrawal from undisputed Georgian territory the BBC now reports that they plan to leave a contingent of 500 troops in a “buffer zone” outside the breakaway republics.
In all likelihood this should have been expected. Even Russia is not bellicose or secure enough to think that it could have sent its tanks all the way to Tbilisi with impunity. The strategy it is adopting instead is a continuation of the salami tactics that prevailed during the Communist era. Rather than aiming for decisive victory you opt for small individual achievements that eventually accumulate into overall victory. Thus from a “peacekeeping” mission in an unrecognised breakaway territory, Russia has managed to increase its foothold in Georgia to occupying parts of its territory whose sovereignty is undisputed. From there it will be able to further increase its grip on the country until it reverts to the position of a satellite state within two decades.
The West must be clear on this issue: any Russian military presence in Georgia outside the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is unacceptable. There is no justification for their forces having any presence in such areas: if they are a peacekeeping force then their mandate extends only as far as restoring the status quo ante bellum. If they cannot do that then they must stop using the mantle of peacekeeping.
Georgia has been a significant ally of the West and a prime candidate for NATO membership. It shares our values and the West must be clear that it offers a positive alternative to the bullying chekist paranoia of Putin’s Russia. We may not have been able to stop the invasion, but we must ensure an equitable peace. There must be no acquiescing in this attempt by Russia to further undermine Georgian sovereignty. To do so would encourage Russia to commit further acts of aggression. The West must do everything within its ability to stop Russia establishing a foothold in Georgia proper.
Sphere: Related ContentRussia Resurgent, Part 1
The conflicting accounts of the confrontation in Georgia means that I have delayed writing anything about it until I had a clearer idea of what was going on.
Russia is responsible for both the proximate and permissive causes of this conflict. The immediate flashpoint was a roadside bombing committed by South Ossetian militia that killed five Georgians. This was the final straw in a long line of provocations aided and encouraged by the Russian government.
Russia’s claims regarding its motivations are patently false. Their actions in Chechnya and Kosovo betray the hypocrisy of their new-found concern for civilian lives and self-determination in the Caucasus; their peacekeeping mission had done little to keep South Ossetian militias from attacking Georgians; their estimates of civilian casualties have been wildly exaggerated; and Russian forces have been engaged in acts of ethnic cleansing, looting and murder.
Even if we accept Russian motivations, their response has been grossly disproportionate. Attacks beyond South Ossetia, the occupation of Gori, and the opening of a second front in the strategically important region of Abkhazia are completely beyond the scope of Russia’s stated objectives. Russia has been aiming to consolidate its grip on a former province, punish a leader who sees his country’s future with the West, and further monopolise energy supplies as a source of influence.
Commentators have been keen to liken the conflict to everything from the Falklands, through Kosovo, Czechoslovakia (twice) to the Hungarian uprising. While there is an element of truth in many of these analogies, they run the risk of simplifying the conflict. Clausewitz remarked that every war is unique. It has its own causes, its own dynamic and its own sides. Comparisons, though useful in the specific, cannot provide us with a clear historical precedent on which to base our response.
What is clear now is that we are faced with a resurgent Russia keen to assert its authority, and presently hostile to Western interests. Devoid of the cloak of Communism, this presents new challenges for policy-makers in their response.
Georgia is an ally that deserves our support. Saakashvili has been keen to institute economic and political reforms that have brought about a society freer than that north of its borders. It has been a key ally in the war in Iraq, and its loyalty deserves our support. The West must support those states that share its values.
So far, the response of the West has left much to be desired. It has been divided, ineffectual and dithering. As a result Russia has managed to act with impunity, and the West has been shown up as unable to defend the values it seeks to promote. The need for a new response is more pressing than ever.
Russia is pushing the limits of acceptable international behaviour. It is a society capable of constructive partnership with the West, but presently slipping under a wave of paranoid authoritarian nationalism. The West has to remind Russia of these limits while encouraging those elements of Russian society that offer a more positive vision than Putin’s. That requires a foreign policy capable of standing up to, and punishing, Russia where necessary while promoting reformist elements where possible.
Part 2 will some of the policy options available to the West for dealing with Russia.
Sphere: Related ContentMichael Walzer on the Georgian Crisis
From Dissent:
Sphere: Related Content1) This is an unjust war. That may seem obvious here in the U.S., but the Russians have worked hard to justify their attack, using the humanitarian language that everyone now uses to defend military operations in other people’s countries. It is important to address their claims, especially because they have received some credence in Europe. It is also relatively easy to do that since reporters and human rights activists have been allowed into parts of Georgia now under Russian control. As a result, we know that the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali has not been destroyed by the Georgian army. “Fighting appears to have been concentrated in two neighborhoods, while buildings in the rest of the city stood intact,” reports the New York Times (August 13, 2008). “Entire residential neighborhoods appear unscathed.” Nor is the Russian claim that the Georgians killed or injured 2,000 civilians credible. Human Rights Watch, checking the local hospital, has come up with the figure of 44 dead and 273 wounded in clashes between Ossetian separatists and Georgian soldiers—and one doctor told reporters that the majority of the wounded were soldiers (New York Times, August 15, 2008). The Putin government apparently believes that anything less than the Big Lie won’t be persuasive, and this Big Lie may be effective in Russia, where the government dominates the media. It shouldn’t be credited in the rest of the world. This isn’t a humanitarian intervention, and it isn’t a peacekeeping operation.
2) The argument that Russian soldiers made to journalists—that what they are doing is exactly what the U.S. would have done if Russia had armed and trained the army of a “friendly” Central American country—isn’t a defense of the invasion. Imagine the Russians sending equipment and expert help to the Nicaraguan army in the 1980s. Might we have responded with something much bigger than the contra insurrection? Yes, and we might also have justified whatever our armed forces did by talking about human rights and peacekeeping. But we would have been wrong. The military operation would have been unjust, and many Americans would have said that. Imagining this hypothetical invasion, I also imagine the scale and intensity of the protests.
3) The movement of Georgian soldiers into South Ossetia was reckless, certainly, but it wasn’t the reason—it was only the excuse—for the Russian invasion. The reason lies in American policy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the years since 1989, which the Russians have interpreted, not implausibly, as aiming at and achieving a significant reduction in their power and prestige. I don’t think that the policy was necessarily wrong, or wrong at all, but it was, like President Saakashvili’s Ossetian adventure, reckless. We never reckoned on a Russian response or planned for it or consulted with our allies about what might have to be done. Russia’s strategic aggressiveness in Georgia obviously took the Bush administration by surprise. Just like the Iraqi insurgency. Just like the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Just like the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections. Just like the fall of Musharraf in Pakistan.
4)What is happening in Georgia is a major defeat for America and for the EU as well. It demonstrates that these two great powers, publicly committed to the advance of democracy in Europe, are unable to defend the territorial integrity or physical security of democratic Georgia. But the invasion may not turn out to be a victory for Russia. The most heartening moment in the last week was the arrival in Tbilisi on Tuesday of the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, and Poland to stand in solidarity with Saakashvili. They are not ready to accept the reassertion of an old-fashioned Russian “sphere of influence.” And their public presence and resistance are more important than any American or European statements.
5)The European response has been particularly weak, and we have to worry that the weakness is due to European dependence on Russian oil—which would be greatly heightened if the pipeline across Georgia and Turkey were cut. I don’t think that the Russians invaded Georgia for the oil; I don’t think that America invaded Iraq for the oil. But oil is a factor in imperial politics, and the EU needs to think about a version of Russian domination that is commercial rather than political or military—an “empire” entirely appropriate to the twenty-first century. One response that the Russians would notice would be a large-scale campaign for conservation and a massive investment in alternative sources of energy.
6)We need a better foreign policy debate than this election campaign has yet produced, and the Georgian disaster would be a useful starting point.
The No Vote Affirms Democracy
The Irish “No” vote in yesterday’s referendum on the Lisbon treaty has sent European leaders on an elaborate finger-pointing exercise. Fears about abortion, neutrality and taxation are blamed as the proximate reasons for the rejection. Anything is blamed other than a dissatisfaction with the direction in which the EU is heading.
To place the blame so squarely with such disparate and supposedly “fatuous” issues is to miss the point. There is deep discomfort among many about the very nature of the treaty and the wider institutions of the European Union. That the No Campaign’s supposed “fear-mongering” was successful is a condemnation of the impenetrability of the treaty. The attempt to pass the treaty by making it so ambiguous, confusing and inaccessible backfired: it made it near impossible to rebut the concerns raised by opponents.
The issues on which the Irish voted were tangential to a larger issue: the arrogance of the institution as a whole. The Lisbon treaty represented the EU at its worst: unaccountable, inaccessible and undemocratic. Many Europeans feel that their leaders are pushing for a European project that is moving too quickly and in the wrong direction. The failure to accept the French and Dutch “no” votes, and the resulting refusals for others to hold referenda on Lisbon, represented an EU that did not care about the opinions of its citizens.
It does not have to be this way: the sensible route for reform in an enlarged EU is to ditch the dream of federalism and work on a smaller, more accountable institution. I doubt anyone believes that the EU is best in its present state. What the No voters object to is the top-down and “more of the same, but better” attitude of reform at present.
Sphere: Related ContentIn the Name of Academic Freedom
Reading The Week today I came across a surreal article that reported a Professor Priya Venkatesan is suing students of Dartmouth College for what amounts to robustly questioning her opinions. The natural response to such an article was a healthy dose of skepticism combined with disbelief. I ventured on to find out a bit more about the case to see whether or not this was misrepresentative scandal-mongering, or a situation so daft you couldn’t make it up. An interview with the professor herself bears out the accusations. Her complaint stems back to an incident in which a student challenged a theory of eco-feminism that she was presenting, and was applauded by classmates (predominantly female) for the effort. After this ‘disturbing’ exercise of independent thought and research, the Professor felt the need to take a week off to ‘recover’, and is now taking legal action as a means of restitution. The history of frivolous litigation has hit a new low when a professor sues her students for disagreeing with her. Professor Venkatesen not only deserves to lose the case, but ought to be banned from holding any form of teaching position whatsoever for her shocking attitude towards academic freedom, debate and inquisitiveness.
I say “teaching” rather than “academia” as I am not fully qualified to question the intellectual capabilities of Professor Venkatesen. I have no desire to dismiss her PhD or other academic pursuits, and I have little specialist knowledge of the areas and disciplines she covers to be able to mount a full of criticism of her theories. Academic skill and teaching ability are not linked: I have been taught by Professors who are fantastic teachers as well as gifted academics, but I have also sat in lectures by distinguished professors whose utter inability to teach resulted in lectures on fascinating subject matter becoming as interesting as watching paint dry, as engaging as a concrete wall, and as rewarding as going to the dentist. The question at stake is not her intellectual capacity: she is probably an intelligent and successful academic (even if she cannot construct a sentence properly). The issue is whether or not she is fit to teach undergraduates, and, based on her own words and the experience of others, one can only conclude that she is not.
The first, and most obvious, reason is that she is a poor lecturer. She has been reported to have gone completely off-syllabus on several occasions. She is alleged to have used an introductory first-year (US) course to lecture students about her own academic interests and theories rather than teaching students the course they were supposed to receive. Furthermore, she has a significant number of complaints made against her by students that she responded to by means of intimidation. In the words of her former students:
Aside from the fact that I learnt nothing of value in this class besides the repeated use of the word “postmodernism” in all contexts (whether appropriate or not) and the fact that Professor Venkatesan is the most confusing/nonsensical lecturer ever, the main problem with this class is the personal attacks launched in class. Almost every member of the class was personally attacked in some form in the class by either intimidation or ignoring your questions/comments/concerns. If you decide to take this class, prepare to NOT be allowed to express your own opinions in class because you have “yet to obtain your Ph.D/masters/bachelors degree”. We were forced to write an in-class essay on “respect” (and how we lacked it) because we expressed our views on controversial topics and some did not agree with the views of “established scholars” who have their degrees.
Additionally, your essays will (at most) receive 2 lines worth of feedback, along with a miserable letter grade.
All in all, there are much better ways to understand science, technology, and society than to suffer through ten weeks of emotional battering.
What this further indicates is an attitude utterly unacceptable for a teacher in a learning environment. She possesses a narrow-minded and condescending view of her students and detractors that innoculates her against all criticism and stifles debate. She dismisses her students as narrow-minded bigots with some ineffable “agenda”. She claims that she didn’t like their ‘arguing with me about every point that I was making’, dismissing them on the grounds that ‘frankly, they don’t even have a BA’. Any student of logic will know that this is an ad hominem fallacy that has no place in sensible debate. She claims that such questioning ‘totally undermined the whole academic system… because it never became about the students meeting my expectations’. Such is her hubris that she banned questions in class and dismissed numerous complaints about her incompetence as just ‘oil and water’ tension. Her paranoia is such that she makes allegations of racism despite stating ‘no-one made a comment about my ethnicity’. She claims that a student asking how “Gattaca” was spelt was a swipe at her non-tenured status, hatched in connivance with her boss, and accuses her detractors of immaturity and mental illness. She makes numerous accusations that are little more than assertions backed up with flimsy, questionable or no evidence. At no point does she demonstrate any form of engagement with criticisms raised.
To claim that the role of a student is ‘to meet his or her [Professor's] expectations’ is to encourage such sickening sycophancy as to discourage the curiosity and disagreement that is the spirit of academia. Rather than accusing students who counter her claims with researched opinions of ‘fascism [and] demagoguery’, she should be applauding their initiative to research, their intellectual curiosity to challenge assumptions, and their courage to stand up and criticise the ideas of others. Critical reflection and engagement with ideas presented is considered one of the key goals of any student at the college I go to, and one of our professors congratulated students for “challenging received wisdom”, encouraging them to continue to do so. The unpolished first engagements with complex ideas by a freshman student should be encouraged, not dismissed because the proponent doesn’t have their degree yet. To be so condescending about one’s students suggests that Professor Venkatesan does not really understand that teaching is about nurturing those initial sparks of criticism and initiative, not snuffing them out because you don’t happen to agree with them or they aren’t expressed in the most advanced manner.
All this would be bad enough on its own, but what worsens matters, and leads to the conclusion that she should be banned from teaching, is her attempt to pursue a lawsuit against her former students. To resort to such crass intimidation of first-year students, extending to writing a polemical book in which she threatens to ‘name names’, demonstrates further contempt for her students and an unwillingness to use the very reason that underlies the academic tradition to persuade her critics to accept her point of view. This cynical use of the very laws supposed to protect one’s freedoms represents an attack on free expression, inquisitiveness and discussion. It is made all the more galling in that it is being pursued by an academic claiming that she wants to uphold such freedoms. The case is an insult to the law; a legally illiterate example of crying wolf and wild exaggeration in such a way that demeans the genuine cases of discrimination that occur in academic institutions. Though she claims she is ‘not the kind of person who likes to make a fuss about petty or trivial things’, this gross overreaction and display of sore losership is a disgraceful form of arrogant bullying. That it is being done by a professor against first-year students only worsens matters.
Such litigious bullying and condescencion in place of rational academic debate and the free exchange of ideas is behaviour entirely unfit for any academic, let alone a teaching one. One can only hope that Professor Venkatesan’s case is rapidly thrown out of court and she either sees the error of her ways and changes, or never teaches again.
Sphere: Related ContentZimbabwe and the Failure of Quiet Diplomacy
It looks like President Thabo Mbeki’s policy of “Quiet Diplomacy” with Zimbabwe has finally been denounced as a disaster by world leaders. The criticism has extended beyond muted signs of displeasure to condemnation both within the respective countries and outside. Senior ANC leaders have called on Mr. Mbeki to alter his stance, and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has expressed his desire for South Africa be replaced as mediator in the crisis. Western leaders have upped their criticisms of the policy, with the President of South Africa facing unprecedented criticism for his stance.
It is worth examining what effects this policy, which has led Mr. Mbeki to claim there is no electoral crisis, has had on Zimbabwe. In terms of positive results, it has yielded little. Zimbabwe, once one of the healthiest economies in Africa, has been plunged into a crisis that worsens every day. Inflation stands at over 100,000% and is predicted to hit the 1.5million% mark by the end of the year. Its healthcare system has failed, with many children orphaned by an AIDS crisis Mr. Mbeki refuses to take seriously. Political violence, intimidation and corruption remain endemic. None of this has been ameliorated by South Africa’s diplomatic efforts, and this grim situation has worsened severely during Mbeki’s time in office.
Crisis? What Crisis?
This policy has resulted in the strengthening of Mr. Mugabe’s regime and the hampering of the ability of other countries to effectively address the plight of the Zimbabwean people. By indulging his belief that the criticisms leveled against him are part of a neo-colonial plot, Mbeki has granted Robert Mugabe a legitimacy that he would not otherwise have. Far from improving the situation for Zimbabweans, this refusal to criticise has worsened it by allowing Mugabe to cling to power with that legitimacy. His dogmatic insistence that the Zimbabwe situation be viewed as the continuation of an anti-colonial struggle several decades after the end of white rule has handed Mugabe an easy shield to deflect criticism in return for no concessions.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Robert Mugabe is delusional. One only has to read recent interviews with the man to realise that his behaviour and opinions reflect not the cynical manipulation of popular passions, but a genuine self-assurance of his own certitude and an unwavering belief that the responsibility for his country’s suffering lies with anyone but him. In this situation a coddling appeasement serves not to render the man receptive to the opinions of others, but to reinforce his belief that he is a faultless victim. Stroking his ego has only inflated his destructive arrogance, with disastrous results.
A tragedy in and of itself has been that it is in the interest of all to stand firm in condemnation of the actions of the Zimbabwean government. Zimbabwe lacks the economic and military clout to seriously threaten it international critics; the constraints of realpolitik are considerably fewer than in dealing with a country of economic or strategic significance. There is everything to gain in pragmatic terms by supporting reform in a country that has demonstrated such economic potential, and a moral mandate to criticise Mugabe’s corrupt despotism. Mbeki in particular can make the pragmatic case, given the influx of Zimbabwean refugees into South Africa.
A far better response would have been the more robust one. Standing up to the Zimbabwean Government would have limited their ability to manoeuvre diplomatically and politically, making it harder for them to acquiesce in the current crisis. Had South Africa been firmer from the outset in dealing with the regime and challenging its actions, it might have been able to limit the machinations of Zanu-PF and the generals now lining up to try and succeed Mugabe. A tough stance that refused to indulge Mugabe’s delusions might not wake him up to reality, but his isolation would afford him less political protection than he currently has. This is not to advocate a US-style hawkish diplomacy against Zimbabwe. That would be entirely inappropriate for the situation and the country, and have a very dubious prospect of success. Rather to stand up to Zimbabwe would involve stronger words supported with resolute action, a refusal to indulge Mugabe’s fantasies, and joining the rest of the world in the sanctions they have placed on the regime.
The world currently awaits the results of this most contentious of Zimbabwean elections. A change of stance from President Mbeki might go miles in delivering a resolution to this crisis. Let’s hope it’s not too late.
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