Page 2 of 2 Lessons from the war in Georgia
By Herbert Bix
Economically, Russia was sorely beset. Under former president Boris Yeltsin it
had chosen to shift rapidly from over-reliance on central planning to embracing
capitalist markets. Its huge economy contracted. Its armed forces and navy
decayed. Social pathologies of every kind deepened. Many Russians experienced
acute economic hardship while a handful seized opportunities to purchase
state-owned enterprises, enrich themselves overnight, and enter the class of
Russia's new elite.
This era of rapid economic redistribution, national humiliation and social
disintegration lasted for about eight years. By 1999 expectations began to
rise, driven by rapid economic growth. Russia soon paid off its debts. It
didn't, however, recover from its
enormous demographic decline. No longer a military superpower, its leaders saw
themselves as a nation-state faced with special security concerns because it
spanned Eurasia from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific coast, shared borders with
14 other states, and had nuclear weapons capability. Over the next few years
Russia's self-confidence grew and its booming market economy allowed it to
reappear on the world stage as a major energy exporter to Europe.
Popular protests in Georgia led to the toppling of its government in 2004.
Dubbed the "Rose" revolution", this political change was funded partly by the
State Department, the National Endowment for Democracy (a semi-official
non-governmental organization and Cold War relic from the Ronald Reagan era),
and the billionaire investor and political activist George Soros. Overnight,
American propaganda turned the autocratic state of Georgia into a "beacon of
liberty", a "democracy" with a "free-market economy" deserving to be supported
for NATO membership despite its ongoing ethnic conflicts with Abkhazia and
South Ossetia.
Americans, through their "democracy-promoting" organizations, played a similar
role in funding the peaceful "Orange" revolution" in Ukraine. First, they
helped the anti-Russian Viktor Yushchenko rise to the presidency in a
politically divided country, less than half of which leaned toward the West;
then, they supported Ukraine's right to apply for NATO membership.
For more than a decade, Russian leaders had repeatedly objected to US efforts
to turn its neighboring states into US clients. But recognizing their own
national weakness and the growing interdependence of nations, Russian leaders
knew their options were limited. They had to work with Washington and, in
principle, were committed to doing so. However, as American leaders pursued
their quest for global military dominance, and as they and EU leaders pushed
NATO ever closer to Russia's borders, the leadership in Moscow came to believe
they had made too many compromises on vital security interests to stay in
Washington's good graces. Just how far could statesmanship and international
law go in safeguarding Russia's borders? Or in preventing Georgia from being
turned into the "Israel of the Caucasus"?
Consequences
Fallout from the war was felt first in the Caspian Sea and Black Sea regions.
Azerbaijan, which since 1994 had allowed Western companies to develop its gas
and oil resources, decided to lower its reliance on the trans-Caucasus oil
pipeline from its port of Baku to Georgia, and make a small but permanent
increase in oil shipments to Russia and Iran. "We don't want to insult anyone …
but it's not good to have all your eggs in one basket, especially when the
basket is very fragile," said the vice president of Azerbaijan's state oil
company. Kazakhstan's reaction was to enter into talks with Moscow on "new
export pipelines to Russia" now that their Georgia route had become less
secure.
Georgia, which the United States valued primarily to control gas and oil
pipelines to Azerbaijan and Central Asia, and which Israel supported as a
market for arms sales and in hope of obtaining use of airbases from which to
attack Iran, has been shorn of its small autonomous enclaves. Although its
impetuous strongman, Saakashvili, has redoubled his efforts to secure
membership in NATO and military-economic assistance from the West, neither the
EU nor NATO is likely to admit Georgia in the near future, let alone allow
Saakashvili to manipulate them. Georgia's resounding defeat has diminished the
importance of its pipelines.
Russia showed the world that it would shed blood to prevent further security
threats from developing on its own borders, though it would not wage war on a
genocidal scale for the sake of controlling foreign oil, as the United States
has done in Iraq. Russia also demonstrated that it could at any time end
Georgia's role as a secure energy corridor through which gas and oil was piped,
via Turkey, to the West. At the same time, Putin took pains to reiterate points
he and other Russian leaders had been making to Washington for years: namely,
there was no need for confrontation and certainly "no basis for a cold war" or
"for mutual animosity". Putin insisted that "Russia has no imperialist
ambitions".
Indeed, Russia's aims were very limited. For nearly two decades it had tried
unsuccessfully to get the United States and EU to recognize its national
security needs and build a real partnership. South Ossetia, which had long been
pro-Moscow, didn't want to become part of Russia, though Abkhazia did. But
Russia had no intention of annexing either region and exposing itself to the
charge of territorial expansionism.
Russia's answer to the Kosovo precedent was to grant formal recognition of
their de facto independence and to sign friendship treaties with South
Ossetia's leader, Eduard Kokoity, and Abkhazia's Sergei Bagapsh. The treaties
included pledges to defend them by stationing troops in each region and
building military bases. At the signing, Medvedev reiterated, "We cannot view
steps to intensify relations between the [NATO] alliance and Georgia any other
way than as an encouragement for new adventures."
But did the Georgian military campaign make Russia more secure from the threat
of a nuclear attack? Did it shatter the curve of encirclement the United States
and NATO were constructing around it? The Georgian aggressor was easily
"punch[ed] in the face" (Putin's stern words).
Yet when looking at US-NATO policy, Russia's leaders see that they have not
stopped NATO's eastward drive and the American implantation of anti-ballistic
missiles in Poland. The danger remains of the United States spreading an arms
race through the Caucasus and in Europe generally.
NATO defense ministers, coming at this from a confrontational angle, recently
reviewed plans to establish a "rapid-response" military force to fight Russia's
future military actions. Medvedev's September 26 announcement that Russia would
build a "guaranteed nuclear deterrent system" and a new "aerospace defense
system" - and have it in place by 2020 - should be read as a response to the
Georgian war and Western encirclement, even though the planning preceded the
crisis. Just when Russian leaders need to invest more in modernizing
infrastructure and improving the lives of the Russian people, they're forced to
cope with the determined efforts of the top US and EU leaders to surround them
with military bases and nuclear missiles.
Russia can't ignore the threat of economic and diplomatic isolation for the
South Ossetians and Abkhazians. Their inability to secure international
recognition will make it harder for them to prosper, whereas Georgia is already
the recipient of a large IMF loan and new promises of EU and American aid. To
see Georgia made into a Western showcase state while Ossetia and Abkhazia
languished would further harm Russia's image in the West.
In the process of defending its borders from a real security threat Russia,
partly through its own actions, has suffered a setback in the court of world
opinion. Only tiny Nicaragua joined it in formally recognizing the two
breakaway republics. The major Western powers refused to accept the validity of
the border changes that the war had brought about. South Ossetia and Abkhazia
met the factual criteria for statehood, but not the European and American
political criteria for recognition.
The consensus of US and NATO leaders was that they lacked real independence
from Russian control and didn't respect the rights of their minorities, as if
the Kosovar Albanians in Europe's new colony respected the rights of their Serb
and Roma minorities. One cannot fail to see the blatant hypocrisy of this
stance given US-NATO practice with respect to the successor states of the
former Yugoslavia.
On the other hand Russia's position, which holds that Georgia forfeited its
claim to these territories by its abuse of the Ossetians and Abkhazians, is
equally hypocritical in the light of Putin's brutal suppression of Chechnya's
secession movement. It also looks two-faced to Serb eyes, especially because
recognition of the new Caucasus states appears to violate the principle of
territorial integrity, thus undermining Russia's previous moral opposition to
the Kosovo precedent.
Confrontational response
What may be one of the most dangerous outcomes of the Georgia-Russian war is
the hectoring, confrontational way the Bush administration and American
politicians have responded to it. While locked into a self-defeating "war on
terror", overstretched militarily and weakened by the deepening global economic
crisis, the United States persists in extending its sphere of influence into
the Black Sea region.
The Bush administration wants to hold on to Georgia as a "transportation route
for energy" and a staging base from which to pursue US interests in the
Eurasian region. It refuses to see the Georgian war as a historically rooted
territorial dispute and continues to encourage Georgia and Ukraine in their bid
for eventual NATO membership.
Presidential candidates Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator
Barack Obama have publicly endorsed the Bush confrontation with Russia, and
neither offers any principled critique of US foreign policy. In fact, they seem
as willing as Bush to take virtually any action that will keep "Russia bogged
down in the Caucasus if it saps Russia's capacity to play an effective role on
the world stage".
The major European governments, on the other hand, pursue a slightly saner
approach only because they depend on energy supplied by Russia and are less
unified in their foreign and domestic policies. But they are deeply divided on
how to treat Moscow, with only Germany apparently eager to continue deepening
amicable relations.
Ironically, Russia remains for the time being a US "strategic partner". The
United States needs its continued cooperation in Afghanistan, and in dealing
with Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Putin and Medvedev are not denying the US
military the right to ship non-military supplies though Russian territory to
NATO forces in Afghanistan, though that option is available to them. But they
have weakened US and UN sanctions on Iran, against which the Bush
administration is waging economic and covert war.
Russia also sells weapons to Iran and is completing construction of Iran's
Bushehr atomic reactor complex. In July, Russia strengthened oil ties with Iran
with a cooperation agreement the giant state corporation Gazprom signed to
develop Iran's oil and gas fields. It recently concluded similar deals with
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
In short, when it comes to dealing with hostile US-NATO actions in Iran, Iraq,
Afghanistan and especially in its "near abroad", Russia has on its side
geography as well as many diplomatic options.
America's future leaders need a new approach to Russia and to the rest of the
world. As they consider how to rebuild at home and regain trust abroad, they
should work with Moscow on all aspects of their relationship. The next
president should strive to build a new global security system and to move in
the direction of nuclear disarmament. This will require, however, the
repudiation of all past US national security strategies, predicated on the idea
that America has a god-given duty to police the world and meddle in the affairs
of other nations.
Herbert Bix, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is the author of
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (HarperCollins), which won the Pulitzer
Prize. He teaches at Binghamton University, New York, and writes on issues of
war and empire.
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