Fedyashin reflects the Kremlin’s disdain for the Georgia president, and highlights the machinations that Russians believe are behind Georgia’s attempt to regain control of South Ossetia - particularly during the Olympic Games.
“It took the United States exactly a week to understand the damage that Mikheil Saakashvili’s ‘Ossetian blitzkrieg’ has caused him and his ‘Rose Democracy.’ Finally it seems, Washington has launched operation ‘Saakashvili’s Salvation’ in earnest.
“You don’t need to have the keenest insight to understand that the ‘humanitarian bridge’ being erected by the Pentagon has little to do with the humanitarian needs of Georgia. This is the first concrete step taken to support Saakashvili - steps that were not in evidence in the early days of his invasion of South Ossetia. … It’s telling that a week after the event, Washington has only now begun to lash out at the Kremlin.” And then later, “it’s hard to believe that a stateswoman as formidable as ‘Teflon Condi’ was unable to make it clear to Saakashvili what the White House wants or doesn’t want him to do.”
After deriding ‘teflon Condi’ and U.S. diplomacy in general, one-by-one, Fedyashin dismisses all of the likely sanctions that the West may impose on Russia for the way it has behaved.
August 18th, 2008 by BRIJ KHINDARIA, International Columnist
By whatever name, the Cold War has already begun because the NATO allies meet in Brussels tomorrow to find ways of punishing Russia for its invasion of Georgia. The premise of this search is hostility, not friendship.
At the same time, the invasion and Russia’s victory have revealed the true cost to America and Europe of the wars in Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Whatever the White House spin on the invasion and its aftermath, people outside the West see that Russia successfully stood by its friends in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
In contrast, Washington waffled despite Georgia’s coalition with the US and vital strategic importance to the entire West as a route for oil and gas supplies bypassing Russia. Currently, the US is bark without bite because its strength is tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Vassals of the former Soviet empire quickly took shelter in NATO, the European Union or friendship with the US for protection against fresh subjugation by Russia, their historical oppressor. They emerged from a long night to hopes of enjoying national identity and pride in freedom and democracy assisted by the West.
Georgia just lost that pride and its national identity is under threat. Washington may now pour money into it but the humiliation is irreversible of a new nation free for less than 20 years after 190 years of Russian domination.
Poland may also learn a bitter lesson despite its NATO membership and recent agreement giving it patriot missiles and an anti-missile system. Unless the US has the power to deter it, Russia has pledged to point missiles in retaliation at Poland and the Czech Republic.
Diplomacy is the best course when facing powers like Russia but it cannot bring results if the underlying menace of force is not credible.
In the current situation of American weakness, there are few alternatives. Washington may have to acquiesce to South Ossetia and Abkhazia being delinked from Georgia just like Russia did earlier this year when the West supported independence for Kosovo.
It may also have to slow the militarization of Georgia, Poland and the Czech Republic to prevent growing Russian hostility. The Russian government is what it is. Short of overthrowing it, Washington has little choice but to simmer down.
This is lamentable. Russia invaded a close American friend, continues to block its main ports, destroyed its navy and some of its army, and threatens a $4 billion pipeline bringing oil to Europe from Central Asia.
Yet, Washington can muster only rhetoric about “consequences”. Even those, it cannot implement without help from very fractious European partners many of whom take pride in not following its lead.
There is a lot of talk in the US about punishing Russia with “isolation” through a cold shoulder from the G8, refusing entry into the World Trade Organization and slowing cooperation with NATO. This is bravado.
Europeans are hardly likely to stop buying Russian oil and gas to please Washington’s hardliners. Western companies with billion dollar stakes in Russia are also unlikely to pull out.
Russia cannot be isolated in world affairs if most countries outside NATO do not trust the US to protect them from retaliation. Being spurned by the West will hurt Moscow but also motivate it to build bridges with the East and South, where countries now generate enough wealth to buy what Russia has to offer.
That would further delink global wealth creation from reliance on US financial and commercial pathways, thus weakening American soft power.
Some of that delinking is already happening with the rise of the Middle East, Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and a few other emerging economies as new centers of global growth.
Russia has also begun talks to set up new security arrangements involving China and Central Asian countries but excluding the US and Europe.
In the end run, hard power and willingness to use it matter more than soft power. Only hard power can deter Russia or China from militarily entering the territory of America’s friends or coercing them.
Even weak nations like Sudan and Somalia do not change behavior because of American economic sanctions. But the US has no hard power available because of the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan. No amount of diplomacy can bridge this shortfall.
Perhaps soft punishments can make people within a country suffer, as in Iran, and eventually force a change of government by causing a rebellion. But that is debatable.
Many countries, including those in Central Asia, take risks to help the US against terrorism or help Europe to reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas. Their friendship is vital.
When such friends get into trouble with Russia or China, there are many good reasons for America to prefer cautious diplomacy. But that does not deter violent retaliation for siding with the US.
The Georgian invasion demonstrates that Washington is powerless to stop friendship with the US from reducing safety instead of increasing it. It was incapable of doing anything concrete during the invasion and acted only after Moscow declared unilateral ceasefire and the European Union secured an agreement.
Then, Condoleezza Rice pressured Mikheil Saakashvili to sign a revised version already cleared with Moscow without letting him raise objections. In today’s treacherous world, this demonstrates that Washington is an unreliable friend.
The question among many non-Americans and non-Europeans, who comprise three quarters of the world, is whether it is worth taking risks to help the US. Without their help Russia cannot be isolated regardless of NATO’s self-important declarations in coming days.
Georgia took risks and look what America did although the US President went personally to Tbilisi to promise unstinting support. Coming back from this one in non-Western eyes will be a long march for Washington.
That leaves a lot of room for Russia to entice those sitting on the fence and to destabilize others who side with the US but worry following the Georgia episode.
Everyone agrees that the Georgia-Russia crisis requires European mediation. But the question is, who’ll settle the dispute among Europeans about what to do?
As WORLDMEETS.US and The Moderate Voice readers have seen from around the continent over the past two weeks - Eastern and Central Europeans are completely split over what to do about the resurgent Russian bear.
“Europe wants to mediate, but it is so divided itself, that it too, requires mediation. … For Moscow, which is acting from a position of strength since its campaign, it will be easy to use this division for its own purposes. The Kremlin wants to expand its influence and to keep neighboring countries which that aspire to the West in a state of permanent instability. The E.U. has no interest in allowing this - but given the disharmony, they have little to oppose the Russians with. This war sends a very clear signal that together with the united States, it’s high time to restrict Russia’s sphere of influence. However, not all want to hear that signal.”
As we’ve seen over recent days, there are two diametrically opposed positions within Europe about what has cause the Georgia crisis and what should be done about it.
The first, which has been perhaps best enunciated by the Polish, is that NATO must be strengthened and that the Alliance must stand up to Russia with ever-greater determination.
The other, well represented by this article from France’s Rue 89, argues that an ‘obsolete’ NATO’s ham-handed expansion eastward is at the root of the problem, and that eastward expansion should have taken place exclusively within the European Union - which is inherently less threatening to a badly-slighted Russia with decades of wounded pride to get out of its system.
“Many commentators of course condemn this drive into an independent country as a manifestation of resurgent Russian imperialism. This, first of all, is to somewhat ignore history; it also sets aside more than a few cases of wounded Russian pride, for the most part widely flouted before Putin; and incidentally, not to offend our new European Union partners from the East, it is a demonstration of the futility and even the toxicity of NATO.”
“Eastern Europe … with fear in the belly of the Russian bear, has never relied on European integration to ensure its security. In their view, only the United States could provide that. Hence their absurd following of the Americans into the Iraqi adventure. Hence their irrepressible desire to join NATO. … A grave error on their part, because the United States, entangled as it is in the Iraqi affair and with its allies in Afghanistan, won’t budge for a piece of the former empire’s confetti [Georgia] and perhaps not even in case of a more serious invasion. Especially since the new American leaders, starting in November, are likely to mobilize all their forces on domestic affairs.”
As a supplement to yesterday’s news round-up on Georgia, I thought I’d post on a comment at The Washington Post, where Paul J. Saunders discusses the role of President Saakashvili in the Georgian conflict. Saunders is executive director of the Nixon Center. (WaPo) He also served as senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs from 2003 to 2005. (WaPo)
The Moderate Voice prides itself in “Domestic and international news analysis, irreverent comments, original reporting, and popular culture features from across the political spectrum.” A comment on my “Bill Kristol on Victory in Iraq and Impotence in Georgia,” certainly qualifies in each and all of these aspects. I do not know who “Spikester” is (perhaps I should), but he has written a most original, “irreverent,” superb, and–if it weren’t for the subject matter–entertaining comment on the Russia-Georgia conflict. I highly recommend it to TMV readers.
It is a l o n g comment, so please take your cup of coffee, or whatever liquid nourishment, with you and be prepared to stay a while. Whatever you think of the situation, you will find Spikester’s comments interesting–certainly irreverent–and worth your time. Scroll down in the comments section to my post until you come to Spikester’s comment.
“[T]he alienation between the United States and Russia has rarely, if ever, been deeper,” says Steven Lee Myers. (NYT) He further states:
“The cold war is over,” President Bush declared Friday, but a new era of enmity between the United States and Russia has emerged nevertheless. It may not be as tense as the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union, for now, but it could become as strained.
Russia’s military offensive into Georgia has shattered, perhaps irrevocably, the strategy of three successive presidential administrations to coax Russia into alliance with the West and integration into its institutions….
As much as Mr. Bush has argued that the old characterizations of the cold war are no longer germane, he drew a new line at the White House on Friday morning between countries free and not free, and bluntly put Russia on the other side of it.
“With its actions in recent days Russia has damaged its credibility and its relations with the nations of the free world,” Mr. Bush said in his fourth stern statement on the conflict in five days, and the strongest to date. “Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.” (NYT)
As we have pointed out before, given Poland’s history of being governed by imperial Russia and then the Soviet Union, the events in Georgia have had a tremendous impact in that country.
So what should be done, according to Warsaw? To put it simply: Stand Tough.
“One could say: ‘Today Georgia, tomorrow the Baltic States and Ukraine.’ And the day after that? Will it be, perhaps, the “near abroad”? Such is the euphemism Russians use to describe countries that were once under their sway and which in their view should again find themselves in Moscow’s sphere of influence. Poland is one of them. … Poland was part of that empire for 200 years, except for two intervals - including this one - of 20 years apiece.”
“The “catchphrase” of not irritating the Russian bear is a manifestation of magical thinking. That bear has a well-established sense of its imperial interests. Only a tough stance on the part of E.U. members who understand the Russian danger are capable of setting a steadier course for the Union regarding the Kremlin. What is needed now is determination.”
I usually comment on Bill Kristol’s much-awaited Monday morning columns in the New York Times. Because of travel, I did not get the opportunity to do so this week. But not to worry, the Times’ letters-to-the-editor writers came through, and not only do an excellent job of critiquing Kristol’s column, but also do a better job than I have in previous posts of describing the limited role our country can play in trying to resolve this latest conflict—because of our military adventure in Iraq.
Kristol’s topic this week was–what else?–the Russia-Georgia conflict. In his column, “Will Russia Get Away With It?,” in a rambling, circular way (”So Russia helps Iran. Iran and North Korea help Syria. Russia and China block Security Council sanctions against Zimbabwe. China props up the regimes in Burma and North Korea.”), Kristol both celebrates:
The further good news is that 2008 has been, in one respect, an auspicious year for freedom and democracy. In Iraq, we and our Iraqi allies are on the verge of a strategic victory over the jihadists in what they have called the central front of their struggle. This joint victory has the potential to weaken the jihadist impulse throughout the Middle East.
and laments:
The United States, of course, is not without resources and allies to deal with these problems and threats. But at times we seem oddly timid and uncertain.
But, let me stop right here and let what I assume are “regular” people do the talking:
To the Editor:
Re “Will Russia Get Away With It?,” by William Kristol (column, Aug. 11):
Those who advocated the invasion of Iraq believed that it would offer an intimidating show of the United States’ power, cementing its status as the world’s dominant, and sole, superpower. The result has been precisely the opposite:
The limits of American power — our Army tied down in Iraq, even as we lose a second war in Afghanistan — have been humiliatingly displayed for the entire world to see.
The effects of this strategic failure are now on display, as Russia invades Georgia, while the United States can do little more than stand by and complain ineffectually, its once intimidating power exposed as so much empty bluster.
In the face of this wholesale disaster, William Kristol, an early and continuing supporter of the Iraq war, responds with precisely the arguments that got us into this mess in the first place, and finds it both regrettable and puzzling that the United States is now “oddly timid and uncertain”: unable, evidently, to recognize his own role in America’s current quandary.
François Furstenberg New York, Aug. 11, 2008
and,
To the Editor:
If Georgians wonder where the United States may be while their country is enslaved by our good friends from Russia, they are really slow learners.
Didn’t they pay attention while the United States turned its back on the Hungarians in 1956? Didn’t they notice that the Cubans we transported to the Bay of Pigs were massacred because we provided no support? Weren’t they watching our Vietnamese allies being kicked out of the fleeing helicopters as we abandoned that country? Have they heard about the Hmong?
William Kristol asks, “Will Russia Get Away With It?” Of course it will. We don’t have a coherent foreign policy — we have sound bites of tough talk followed by abandonment of those dumb enough to believe us.
Arthur O. Armstrong Manhattan Beach, Calif., Aug. 11, 2008
Note: There have been a number of posts at TMV during the last few days on the Russia-Georgia conflict. I’ve listed them at the end.
At The New York Times, Andrew E. Kramer discusses the peace plan brokered by the French (as the country holding the rotating presidency of the EU). According to him, it provided the Russians with a rationale for pushing further into Georgia as part of a “peacekeeping” role they demanded under the agreement. Mr. Sarkozy also “failed to persuade the Russians to agree to any time limit on their military action.” (NYT)
The Russians demanded that their troops be allowed “in a peacekeeping role” outside the separatist enclaves and “to implement security measures” while “awaiting an international monitoring mechanism.” (NYT) Rationale or no rationale, they seemed to have been determined to do this anyway.
Russian troops have the right to take any actions necessary to prevent hostilities, said a Kremlin spokesman, Alexei Pavlov, including inside Georgia.
August 13th, 2008 by BRIJ KHINDARIA, International Columnist
The Russian invasion of Georgia has removed the lid over the simmering tensions between Russia and the Western allies that could easily turn into a new Cold War, stoked by hardliners on both sides.
This “Cool War” is low intensity compared to the one with the former Soviet Union but the mistrust between Russia and the Western democracies can no longer be papered over and will take a long time to heal.
The US is faced with a fait accompli. Russia has effectively obtained a conquest over disputed territory through war. It cannot claim self-defense or pre-emption because it was not threatened in any way. Therefore, its military intentions can no longer be fully trusted in any situation.
This is the most dangerous contemporary development in geopolitics. It is far more dangerous than international Islamic terrorism because it may again divide world nations into rival groups probably centered on the US or EU, or Russia or China.
The groups would be polite to one another but remain separated by undercurrents of suspicion. The distrust will fuel arms races and provide a bonanza for non-State terrorists because the opportunities for leakages of weapons sales and technologies for weapons of mass destruction would increase exponentially.
Each group could use non-State fighters as proxies to conduct wars of attrition similar to what the US did in Soviet-dominated Afghanistan, Pakistan is doing in Indian Kashmir and Iran is doing through Hezbollah, Hamas and Shiite militias in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq.
These likely outcomes must be kept in mind as Washington confers with its NATO and other allies in coming days and weeks on how to handle Russia. The worst outcome would be a slide down this treacherous slope because of hubris in Western capitals.
Shoddier still would be more of the short-sighted White House thinking that created the quicksands of Iraq and Afghanistan and roused Iran to speed up its drive for nuclear weapons.
The challenge is how to set limits to Russian resurgence without pushing its back so far to the wall that it prefers a Cold War to cooperation with the West. That must include giving it the security space it craves.
[Updated here, with further clarification] We’re Americans. We like to divide up opponents in any conflict into Good Guys and Bad Guys. Since reality tends to be more complicated than that, we can easily be misled by politicians and media pundits whose personal agendas are served by telling us which are the Good Guys and which the Bad Guys.
Russia has agreed to “stand down” (NYT); and Georgia has apparently filed a lawsuit against Russia in in the International Court of Justice for ethnic cleansing. (Newsmeat; Examiner.com) But Russia made similar claims against Georgia when it went into South Ossetia. Is either side telling the truth? Are both?
Both sides have traded accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Russia has accused Georgia of killing more than 2,000 people, mostly civilians… The claim couldn’t be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the area over the weekend said hundreds had died. (Examiner.com)
During the course of trying to fit together the pieces of the media jig-saw (speaking of trust, lack of), a number of quotes snagged my attention.
Yesterday, Vladimir Putin said:
“The ferocity in which the actions of the Georgian side were carried out cannot be called anything else but genocide, because they acquired a mass character and were directed against individuals, the civilian population, peacekeepers who carried out their functions of maintaining peace.” (BBC News Key Statements)
But Bush said on Aug. 11:
“Russia has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st Century. The Russian government must reverse the course it appears to be on and accept this peace agreement as a first step toward solving this conflict.” (BBC News Key Statements)
It’s not as if I had ever gazed into Putin’s eyes and seen his soul. On top of that, I grew up during the Cold War years. I don’t trust him. Sadly, based on hard experience, I don’t trust Bush either. If it were up to me—which it is not—I’d probably rate their souls about equally. (Fortunately for them—this is me speaking as a Quaker now—God’s empathy, understanding, and mercy in judging any given soul infinitely exceeds mine.)
Anyway: Putin. Is he just making up these allegations of ethnic cleansing to justify Russia’s action against Georgia?
Now that the 2008 Beijing Olympics have begun and President Bush along with about 80 other heads of state are in attendance, can it be said that all the demonstrating by Western human rights activists was for naught?
Having been imprisoned behind the iron curtain for decades, the people of Poland are particularly sensitive to this question, which is why the author of this article from the Gazeta Wyborcza, Ewa Siedlecka, points out that she is proud that Poland’s leaders have are not attendingtoday’s opening ceremony.
“Today’s opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Beijing will be attended by the leaders of the free world, the president of the United States first and foremost. It is a day of triumph for communist China. So was it worth protesting? … It was. The worthwhileness of the matter isn’t measured by ‘winning’ or the chance of winning. Opposition to evil is a moral duty and a question of conscience, which every one of us must critically examine for ourselves.”
And of those who have braved the authorities in recent months to express their disapproval of the Beijing regime’s human rights record, Siedlecka writes:
“All of those who display Tibetan flags, demonstrate in front of the Chinese Embassy, protest, sign petitions and go to Beijing so that for a dozen seconds they can yell slogans or unfurl a banner before Chinese security drags them away - are living proof that the world hasn’t been completely bought off by China’s more-or-less virtual money.”
Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who exposed Stalin’s prison system in his novels and spent 20 years in exile, has died at 89, Russian media say.
The author of the Gulag Archipelago and One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, who returned to Russia in 1994, died of either a stroke or heart failure.
“This is part of the sinister plot by pro-U.S. conservative forces to quell the spirit of independence and resistance to the United States, which is growing ever-stronger among adults and young people in south Korea.’
It was fifty eight years ago today that the Korean War began. And while many South Koreans love and appreciate the United States for coming to their aid under the U.N. flag, increasing numbers of young South Koreans are not only oblivious to history, they regard the United States as the greatest threat to their nation.
“Thanks to U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, South Korea was saved. As United Nations commander-in-chief for Korea, MacArthur directed the famous Incheon landing . If not for this, the Republic of Korea would have been erased from the world map. Read the rest of this entry »
“Just as the Moon was conquered due to the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR, the conquest of Mars is meant to retain American leadership space … Beijing has promised to put people to the moon by 2025. Suddenly, the United States has also announced intentions to return to the Moon and even establish a base as a stepping stone for a manned mission to Mars in 2029. So there!”
“Caught up in budgetary constraints, NASA is increasingly turning to the private sector. What country will be the first to plant its flag on Mars? Perhaps the question should be, which brand?”
May 26th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
The 1997 movie Titanic, the highest-grossing film of all time, became popular worldwide for its powerful depiction of romance and pathos. Now The Times of London reports that “the man who located the wreck of the Titanic has revealed that the discovery was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold War nuclear submarines.” More here…
Titanic: The Final Secret will be shown on the National Geographic Channel at 9pm on June 8.
