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.
For the Rue 89, Jean Matouck writes in part:
“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.”
By Jean Matouck
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
August 15, 2008
France – Rue 89 – Original Article (French)
The Russian bear just moved! After a reckless attempt by Georgia to reaffirm, once and for all, its supremacy over South Ossetia, Putin and Medvedev, his man in the Kremlin, reacted very strongly with a military invasion of Ossetia, where Russian troops were already stationed for a mission of “peace,” and to drive home the threat, even pushing into Georgia itself, into Gori. 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.
OSSETIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN ‘AUTONOMOUS’
It was in 1801 that Russia annexed Ossetia. North Ossetia had been integrated during the Soviet era, evidently without consulting the peoples of the Russian Federation, while South Ossetia was integrated into the Socialist Republic of Georgia, but with the status of an Oblast (and autonomous region). However, since 1925, Ossetians of the two republics, who have their own common language [similar to Persian], have been demanding unification.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, for continuing translated foreign press coverage of the unfolding crisis in the Caucasus.
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