It's kind of hard to escape the happenings between Georgia and Russia right now, but I wanted to give an update for those of you who may not have the whole picture.
First some background to set the stage (as I understand it):
1. Georgia (along with Ukraine and several other nations) removed itself from the Soviet Union after the Iron Curtain was pulled back in the early 90s. Part of the country, however, is still predominantly populated by Russians.
2. Russia itself has long had intentions of expanding its influence, and as I've discussed before, south is the only direction it can go. Some, like Putin, believe that Georgia should still belong to Russia.
3. Russia has been massing forces on the border with Georgia for months.
4. Georgia had applied to join NATO, but under major pressure from Russia, that application has not yet been approved.
5. Georgia and its President, Mikheil Saakashvili, are very pro-American.
The event that triggered this conflict was an attack on Georgians in the part of the country that is primarily Russian. In response, Georgian forces moved into the area to maintain control. Russia, then, claimed that Georgia was infringing on Russian people, and poured over the border to 'protect' them. Of course, they didn't stop there. Russian forces drove deep into Georgia, almost bisecting the country, killing and displacing thousands. The Georgian military doesn't have a chance of standing against them, and it appears they have been pulled back to defend the capital. One of the apparent goals of Russia is to remove Saakashvili from power and replace the democratically elected Georgian government with a puppet regime that will bow to Russian influence.
At one point, Moscow agreed to a truce, but their forces continued plowing through Georgia, clearly violating the truce. They are also pounding the Georgian Internet domain (".ge") with a denial of service attack, degrading their communications ability. While much of the world is condemning what can be described as nothing other than naked Russian aggression, some are providing cover for the Russians. French President Sarkozy is working to broker a real peace treaty between Russia and Georgia, and appears to be making some progress. President Bush has been making increasingly harsh statements, calling on Russia to immediately cease military action and withdraw. He has also ordered a major aid operation to begin, sending in food and supplies for the thousands who have been wounded and left homeless by the fighting.
Both McCain and Obama have called for U.N. Security Council condemnation, though Russia does have a veto on the Council. McCain appears to have a slightly better understanding of the situation as it pertains to how the U.N. works, but both appear to be urging international condemnation of Russia's invasion. When it comes to how America should react, however, there is a big difference. In a nutshell, Obama thinks we should talk with Russia, and McCain thinks we should support Georgia (our ally) and pick up our big stick if Russia doesn't back off. Interestingly, Saakashvili quoted McCain in a speech to his countrymen yesterday. Go figure. [Side note: this is a good test case for dealing with aggressive foreign enemies, and can readily be applied to the anticipated conflict with Iran.]
That's about it for the facts, at least as of this moment. Now, for some analysis.
It is very interesting to see Bush using the military to send in humanitarian aid. I think it's quite clever, really, since it delivers the subtle message that we're ready and willing to use force if necessary while looking completely innocent. After all, Bill Clinton used the military to deliver humanitarian aid several times during his presidency. It would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall in some of those diplomatic conversations!
From what I've read, if Georgia had been allowed to join NATO, Russia could have been facing some big-time military reprisals for invading Georgia. Part of the NATO bag includes a clause that an attack on one member equals an attack on all of them, thus opening the way for each NATO nation to initiate military responses. That's why Russia strongly opposed the entry of Georgia into NATO. This action also sends a clear signal to Ukraine and other former Soviet nations that Russia expects to be the big boy on the block rather than the U.S., Europe, or NATO.
Noted historian and writer Victor Davis Hansen has noticed some distinct moral equivalence in regard to this conflict, as well as some points to consider:
First some background to set the stage (as I understand it):
1. Georgia (along with Ukraine and several other nations) removed itself from the Soviet Union after the Iron Curtain was pulled back in the early 90s. Part of the country, however, is still predominantly populated by Russians.
2. Russia itself has long had intentions of expanding its influence, and as I've discussed before, south is the only direction it can go. Some, like Putin, believe that Georgia should still belong to Russia.
3. Russia has been massing forces on the border with Georgia for months.
4. Georgia had applied to join NATO, but under major pressure from Russia, that application has not yet been approved.
5. Georgia and its President, Mikheil Saakashvili, are very pro-American.
The event that triggered this conflict was an attack on Georgians in the part of the country that is primarily Russian. In response, Georgian forces moved into the area to maintain control. Russia, then, claimed that Georgia was infringing on Russian people, and poured over the border to 'protect' them. Of course, they didn't stop there. Russian forces drove deep into Georgia, almost bisecting the country, killing and displacing thousands. The Georgian military doesn't have a chance of standing against them, and it appears they have been pulled back to defend the capital. One of the apparent goals of Russia is to remove Saakashvili from power and replace the democratically elected Georgian government with a puppet regime that will bow to Russian influence.
At one point, Moscow agreed to a truce, but their forces continued plowing through Georgia, clearly violating the truce. They are also pounding the Georgian Internet domain (".ge") with a denial of service attack, degrading their communications ability. While much of the world is condemning what can be described as nothing other than naked Russian aggression, some are providing cover for the Russians. French President Sarkozy is working to broker a real peace treaty between Russia and Georgia, and appears to be making some progress. President Bush has been making increasingly harsh statements, calling on Russia to immediately cease military action and withdraw. He has also ordered a major aid operation to begin, sending in food and supplies for the thousands who have been wounded and left homeless by the fighting.
Both McCain and Obama have called for U.N. Security Council condemnation, though Russia does have a veto on the Council. McCain appears to have a slightly better understanding of the situation as it pertains to how the U.N. works, but both appear to be urging international condemnation of Russia's invasion. When it comes to how America should react, however, there is a big difference. In a nutshell, Obama thinks we should talk with Russia, and McCain thinks we should support Georgia (our ally) and pick up our big stick if Russia doesn't back off. Interestingly, Saakashvili quoted McCain in a speech to his countrymen yesterday. Go figure. [Side note: this is a good test case for dealing with aggressive foreign enemies, and can readily be applied to the anticipated conflict with Iran.]
That's about it for the facts, at least as of this moment. Now, for some analysis.
It is very interesting to see Bush using the military to send in humanitarian aid. I think it's quite clever, really, since it delivers the subtle message that we're ready and willing to use force if necessary while looking completely innocent. After all, Bill Clinton used the military to deliver humanitarian aid several times during his presidency. It would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall in some of those diplomatic conversations!
From what I've read, if Georgia had been allowed to join NATO, Russia could have been facing some big-time military reprisals for invading Georgia. Part of the NATO bag includes a clause that an attack on one member equals an attack on all of them, thus opening the way for each NATO nation to initiate military responses. That's why Russia strongly opposed the entry of Georgia into NATO. This action also sends a clear signal to Ukraine and other former Soviet nations that Russia expects to be the big boy on the block rather than the U.S., Europe, or NATO.
Noted historian and writer Victor Davis Hansen has noticed some distinct moral equivalence in regard to this conflict, as well as some points to consider:
The long-suffering Russian people resent the loss of global influence and empire, but not necessarily the Soviet Union and its gulags that once ensured such stature. The invasion restores a sense of Russian nationalism and power to its populace without the stink of Stalinism, and is indeed cloaked as a sort of humanitarian intervention on behalf of beleaguered Ossetians.Here is the unsettling conclusion he offers:
There will be no Russian demonstrations about an "illegal war," much less nonsense about "blood for oil," but instead rejoicing at the payback of an uppity former province that felt its Western credentials somehow trumped Russian tanks.
Russia's only worry is the United States, which currently has a lame-duck president with low approval ratings, and is exhausted after Afghanistan and Iraq. But more importantly, America's attention is preoccupied with a presidential race, in which "world citizen" Barack Obama has mesmerized Europe as the presumptive new president and soon-to-be disciple of European soft power.
Better yet for Russia, instead of speaking with one voice, America is all over the map with three reactions from Bush, McCain, and Obama — all of them mutually contradictory, at least initially. Meanwhile, the world's televisions are turned toward the Olympics in Beijing.
Most importantly, Putin and Medvedev have called the West's bluff. We are sort of stuck in a time-warp of the 1990s, seemingly eons ago in which a once-earnest weak post-Soviet Russia sought Western economic help and political mentoring. But those days are long gone, and diplomacy hasn't caught up with the new realities. Russia is flush with billions. It serves as a rallying point and arms supplier to thugs the world over that want leverage in their anti-Western agendas. For the last five years, its foreign policy can be reduced to "Whatever the United States is for, we are against."
The new reality is that a nuclear, cash-rich, and energy-blessed Russia doesn't really worry too much whether its long-term future is bleak, given problems with Muslim minorities, poor life-expectancy rates, and a declining population. Instead, in the here and now, it has a window of opportunity to reclaim prestige and weaken its adversaries. So why hesitate?
Indeed, tired of European lectures, the Russians are now telling the world that soft power is, well, soft. Moscow doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, the European Union, the World Court at the Hague, or any finger-pointing moralist from Geneva or London.
The Russians have sized up the moral bankruptcy of the Western Left. They know that half-a-million Europeans would turn out to damn their patron the United States for removing a dictator and fostering democracy, but not more than a half-dozen would do the same to criticize their long-time enemy from bombing a constitutional state.
The Russians rightly expect Westerners to turn on themselves, rather than Moscow — and they won't be disappointed. Imagine the morally equivalent fodder for liberal lament: We were unilateral in Iraq, so we can't say Russia can't do the same to Georgia. (As if removing a genocidal dictator is the same as attacking a democracy). We accepted Kosovo's independence, so why not Ossetia's? (As if the recent history of Serbia is analogous to Georgia's.) We are still captive to neo-con fantasies about democracy, and so encouraged Georgia's efforts that provoked the otherwise reasonable Russians (As if the problem in Ossetia is our principled support for democracy rather than appeasement of Russian dictatorship).What I find most disturbing about this is that, if Hanson is correct -- and I think he is -- the liberalism of our own country is directly responsible for this failure to confront a new aggressor with distinctly hostile intent toward America and the West. It galls me to think that our biggest obstacle comes from right here at home, but that is the reality of the time. Until the American people stand up and collectively dump liberalism, we have to fight not only our enemies, but their enablers here at home.
From what the Russians learned of the Western reaction to Iraq, they expect their best apologists will be American politicians, pundits, professors, and essayists — and once more they will not be disappointed. We are a culture, after all, that after damning Iraqi democracy as too violent, broke, and disorganized, is now damning Iraqi democracy as too conniving, rich, and self-interested — the only common denominator being whatever we do, and whomever we help, cannot be good.
Rich Lowry offers the following commentary on the Presidential aspects of the conflict:
President Bush's assurance back in 2001 that he looked into Vladimir Putin's soul and liked what he saw was the international equivalent of his "heckuva job" boosterism of Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown in the immediate wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
John McCain's assessment stands up much better: When he looked at Putin, "he saw three letters: a K, a G, and a B."
The Bush administration made twin mistakes with Russia. It overpersonalized relations, with Bush hoping to coax out Putin's better side, and tiptoed around Moscow in the hopes that gentle treatment would encourage it to act responsibly. The irony is that Barack Obama -- with his commitment to personal diplomacy and a gentler U.S. footprint around the world -- wants to make those two tendencies centerpieces of his foreign policy.
It's true that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili allowed himself to be baited into military action in the breakaway province of South Ossetia. But let's be clear who was doing the baiting and why. Russia had supported South Ossetian forces attacking Georgian villages and troops in order to detach the province slowly from Georgia or provoke a military confrontation that Georgia could never win. Mission accomplished.
John McCain's assessment stands up much better: When he looked at Putin, "he saw three letters: a K, a G, and a B."
The Bush administration made twin mistakes with Russia. It overpersonalized relations, with Bush hoping to coax out Putin's better side, and tiptoed around Moscow in the hopes that gentle treatment would encourage it to act responsibly. The irony is that Barack Obama -- with his commitment to personal diplomacy and a gentler U.S. footprint around the world -- wants to make those two tendencies centerpieces of his foreign policy.
It's true that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili allowed himself to be baited into military action in the breakaway province of South Ossetia. But let's be clear who was doing the baiting and why. Russia had supported South Ossetian forces attacking Georgian villages and troops in order to detach the province slowly from Georgia or provoke a military confrontation that Georgia could never win. Mission accomplished.
The larger strategic goal is to keep the pro-Western independent states on Russia's border in turmoil. As George Kennan said, on its borders Russia can have only vassals or enemies. Russia's neighbors have an incentive to be clear-eyed about this, which is why the presidents of the Baltic States and Poland all condemned "meaningless statements equating the victims with the victimizers."
McCain's proposal from a few months ago to boot Russia from the G-8 has gone from seeming needlessly provocative to practically prescient. Together with the surge in Iraq, the Georgian crisis is the second strategic matter on which everyone else has followed the senator's lead.
McCain warned of Russian designs on its "near-abroad" when Boris Yeltsin was still in power, and advocated the enlargement of NATO into Eastern Europe -- as a way to cement those countries into the West and check Russian adventurism -- years before the Clinton administration adopted it as policy.
McCain's judgment benefits from years of marinating in national-security issues and traveling and getting to know the key players; from a hatred of tinpot dictators and bloody thugs that guides his moral compass; and from a flinty realism (verging at times on fatalism) that is resistant to illusions about personalities, or the inevitable direction of History, or the nature of the world.
Lowry's primary point is that McCain knows what he's talking about when it comes to foreign policy and foreign affairs. Not only did McCain correctly identify the winning strategy in Iraq (and then fight for it -- even when it was exceedingly unpopular -- until it succeeded), but he also correctly identified the Russian aggression months before it happened. The fact that he views Putin as the ex-KGB officer that he is means McCain views the Russian bear with the correct historical and political perspective. In this time of uncertain international relations and events, we need someone like this -- despite his many other faults -- leading our country forward. Russia's attack on Georgia only reinforces that fact.There's my two cents.
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