Georgia
Posting will be light today, but James has updates on the very important story coming out of the Caucasus. For as long as I can remember, I have warned that Saakashvili was reckless and dangerous, and with his bid to force re-integration of South Ossetia he provoked the inevitable Russian backlash. You would think that someone who has been complaining for years that Russia is using the separatist states as nothing more than proxies would not then go ahead and launch an attack on one of the proxies! But that is exactly what he did, and everyone should remember that it was Saakashvili who created the current crisis.
To understand the Russian response, imagine how Americans would respond if Serbia launched an attack into Kosovo while our KFOR troops were still there, and then imagine how much stronger the U.S. response would be if, in the course of the attack to retake the province, our troops took casualties because of that attack. These are the unfortunate, ruinous things that happen when state sovereignty is reduced to a meaningless phrase by past interventions and partitions, and the governments that attacked Yugoslavia over its internal affairs and partitioned Kosovo have no authority to find fault with what Russia is doing now. McCain’s complaints about violations of Georgian sovereignty are especially rich coming from the likes of him. Of course, these regions are part of Georgia, and ideally Georgian sovereignty should be respected, but the folly of Saakashvili has probably ensured that he will lose both South Ossetia and Abkhazia and maybe more than that before it is all over.
P.S. Remember, both Obama and McCain wanted Georgia to join NATO, and the Bush administration tried to have them admitted at the last meeting in Bucharest. Had it not been for the resistance of several European governments, this small, ugly crisis could have potentially been the trigger for an international disaster that might have dragged in all of Europe and the U.S. I assume that this does not just mean that Georgia won’t be allowed into NATO, but that it also means that eastward NATO expansion in its entirety will halt. Of course, that would make sense. If I know McCain and his obsessive Russophobia, he will take this episode as proof that we must make Georgia a member of NATO and must do it right now.
Update: James Joyner writes:
If the U.S. and Western Europe aren’t prepared to use force upon the invasion of Georgia by Russia, then we’ve got no business even considering inviting them to join the Alliance.
Of course, since Georgia is not in NATO, the U.S. and our European allies have no reason to be prepared to use force in this case. We already had no business in considering inviting Georgia into NATO, and this new conflict drives home why it was always a terrible idea. We should all be grateful that Western governments are not prepared to use force to respond to this. The dangers from the general war that could possibly follow are almost too grave to contemplate. If other powers work to bring the parties to the conflict to the negotiating table, rather than backing the incomparably weaker state and prolonging the conflict, we can avoid the sort of blunders that made the July crisis such a disaster in 1914. Small regional wars become global crises only when all of the major powers feel compelled to “do something” about them. Had proponents of expansion had their way last year or earlier, we would be on the cusp of such a crisis right now.
I should add that there might have been a different, but also very undesirable outcome if Georgia had been welcomed into NATO and Saakashvili decided recklessly, just as he has now done, to test how far the Alliance would go only to be told that he was on his own. It would avoid a broader war, but that would have made NATO security guarantees to all recent member states worthless and confirm that NATO is truly not a defensive alliance at all. No matter which scenario had played out following Georgian entry into NATO, this outbreak of conflict would either have led to disaster or would have revealed NATO’s promises to be empty. As I see it, the most worrisome thing is that we have already made security guarantees to other states that border Russia, some of which have significant Russian minorities that might become the focus of irredentism or separatism in the future, and it is not clear to me that we are really any more willing to go to war to defend those states than we would have been to defend Georgia.
Second Update: Robert Farley has a good, balanced post about the conflict.
But it gets even better: We will not, of course get into a shooting war with Russia over Georgia. Georgia has backed our venture in Iraq with troops on the ground (around 2000 I believe) and will not be getting U.S. backing against Russia in the current engagement. Smaller countries that have issues with larger neighbors will get the message very clearly: backing the US will get you absolutely nothing in the end save broken promises and angry neighbors.
The worst thing about the rhetoric of neoconservatives is that every brush fire war, border dispute, and event halfway around the world becomes significant. There is no appreciation for regional powers, spheres of influence, and the importance of minimizing interested parties in any given conflict. It would have been wise, frankly, never to have been involved in Georgia. And it would have been wise never to have encouraged or hinted at their NATO membership. It would be preferable if we did not have to act in “bad faith” by essentially retreating from them now that they have faced Russia’s wrath. But there’s no reason to keep walking down the plank to jump into the shark-infested waters now that we can see what we have gotten ourselves into.
The neocon maniacs want us to confront Russia over this.
McCain is just as dangerous. Obama’s call–try to broker a cease-fire and a stand-down, happens to be exactly right.
“Obama’s call–try to broker a cease-fire and a stand-down, happens to be exactly right.”
Or not:
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/07/23/statement_of_senator_obama_on_1.php
“As I stated in April this year, I am committed to upholding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia. This commitment has long been a fundamental building block of U.S. policy, and it will not change under the Obama administration. I also affirm Georgia’s right to pursue NATO membership. This aspiration in no way threatens the legitimate defense interests of Georgia’s neighbors.â€
Giving Saakashvili the notion that NATO membership would be a possibility and that the NATO military umbrella of protection would cover Saakashvili’s lunatic provocations in South Ossettia greatly exacerbated this problem. This has been a conspicuously bi-partisan disaster.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” said Emerson.
In this case, there’s apparently a foolish inconsistency. As Daniel has been saying, BHO’s a liberal interventionist.
Still, BHO’s most recent statement makes more sense than Col. Kong’s.
Obama wants us to broker a cease-fire? Or some other country?
I agree that Obama’s initial response is wiser and less inflammatory than McCain’s, but his general views concerning Georgia, NATO and Russia do not give me any reassurance about what he would do in the future. Saakashvili was bragging just a few months ago when the Democratic primary was still going on that all three remaining candidates were his chums, so he had no problem with any of them winning.
Predictably, the wise refusal of the Europeans to bring Georgia into NATO is being spun as appeasement by the usual suspects, even though their golden boy is the one who started the war. Amazing. This is rather like the impeccable logic that says that Hussein made us invade Iraq. Permitting the status quo to continue without provoking irredentist warfare has now become appeasement.
I don’t think Obama’s earlier statement that Georgia should at least have the opportunity to pursue NATO membership is wrong on the merits. If Georgia were pursuing a sane and peaceful relationship with Russia, then it would be fine. But clearly it has not been doing that, and so it’s “pursuit” of NATO membership is falling way short of the mark. There’s no sense that Obama was calling for an unconditional acceptance of Georgia into NATO, but a highly conditional one, based on Georgia’s demonstration of a sane foreign policy, which this episode dramatically shows is not the case. I don’t see Obama now calling for Georgian admission into NATO in order to protect it from Russia. Quite the opposite, it seems.
But Georgia hasn’t been demonstrating a sane foreign policy for the last four years. This conflict didn’t come out of nowhere, and Obama had to know that or ought to have known that when he took the position he has held until now. If he changes his view on Georgian membership, I will be happy to hear it and I will be glad to highlight that as evidence of Obama’s better judgement.
I find it sad that two (at least nomnally) Orthodox countries are fighting and are on the brink of full-scale war.
It is very sad and tragic, and it didn’t have to happen. Most wars don’t. I would hope that the Moscow Patriarchate would make use of whatever influence it has to counsel an end to hostilities, and failing that I hope other Orthodox hierarchs offer themselves as mediators. The governments may ignore them or try to manipulate them, but the Orthodox Church here, in Russia and in Georgia should make a strong appeal for peace and aid for the Ossetian refugees (and Georgian refugees, if there are any). I will have more to say along these lines later.
Amen.
Daniel,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Obama’s position on Georgian membership in NATO is that they be given the opportunity to apply for NATO membership, not that they should automatically be approved for membership. It’s my impression that he doesn’t want to exclude Georgia from any possible future membership in NATO, but that he sees it as part of a fairly long process of working out its problems with Russia and demonstrating its suitability for NATO membership over time. Obama’s position seems to be one of holding out the possibility of NATO membership as a carrot by which to entice Georgia into adopting a more sane relationship with Russia, not a way to stick it to Russia by hiding under NATO’s umbrella.
Perhaps that is how he thinks of it, but I regard inviting Georgia into NATO to be inherently undesirable. Certainly I think he would say that membership depends on Georgia meeting certain criteria. In theory, McCain would say the same, with the difference being that he thinks they have already met those criteria. For the most part, once states have reached the stage of being permitted to apply for membership NATO has not, to my knowledge, subsequently rejected them. Their entry may be delayed, but it is not usually prevented. So I view the offer of applying for membership to be a serious mistake.
Georgia in NATO?
Look at a map. It’s the ultimate in geopolitical goofiness.
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with extending NATO’s security system beyond the Atlantic nations. Silly, perhaps, given the name, but not wrong. What would be wrong would be to extend membership to countries that are as screwed up as Georgia is, and wish to use NATO as a point of pressure against their enemies. Using possible NATO membership as a carrot to help move countries like Georgia into responsible foreign relations with their neighbors is a good idea, but not until that is well established. As I’ve said, we should even hold out possible NATO membership to Russia, which would I think be far more important than including Georgia. There is no inherent reason for any hostile relationship with Russia, and there never was one apart from the Communist abberration. The natural relationship between Russia and the United States ought to be a friendly one with many mutual interests in common.