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.
