And The Solution Is....

The insolubility (at least from the U.S./Georgian perspective) of the situation in Georgia has led to a lot of editorials that vary in emotion and tone, but say pretty much nothing. Today's entry by Jim Hoagland calmly fits the mold.

The question: Should the United States re-arm Georgia, and if so, at what level? That is, does Washington simply replace the U.S. weapons that Russian forces systematically destroyed in Georgia as a humiliating message for Americans? Or does the collapse of the Georgians this month mean that they need greater quantities and more sophisticated weapons to deter Russia in the future?

That may not present an agonizing choice for John McCain, given his muscular worldview and his sustained championing of Georgian links to the West and NATO. He will advocate riding to the rescue, although he is unlikely to call for an arms resupply while tensions stay at their current explosive level.

So we can expect lots of chest-thumping, but no real action, by McCain?

But seriously, how would McCain do more than chest-thump? How could we meaningfully rearm Georgia such that it could repel Russian forces or, as it had hoped, expel them from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, without creating a twenty-first century version of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Speaking geopolitically, why would it be wise, or even sensible to do that?

It makes little sense for Obama to try to out-hawk McCain on Georgia. He cannot do so convincingly. Instead, he must show how his sustained advocacy of diplomatic power can work in shoring up the fragile and imperfect democracy in Georgia.

What does Hoagland suggest, to achieve that? Oops. That's where the editorial ends.

Making Loud Noises....

Whatever you think of the Georgia conflict, who started it, the proportionality of the response, the excessive claims by both sides... we've now settled into a new status quo. Russia has recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and has made clear that it will militarily defend them from any effort by Georgia to reassert its authority over those territories. It wasn't difficult to see this coming - it was one of the things Russia warned the west about when it opposed the independence of Kosovo.

And now Russia has made its position clear. The Russian people support its actions, and it has no shortage of support within the territories themselves. The West is making angry noises, but Russia's not going to back down. Why not? It doesn't want to, it doesn't need to, it does not expect any serious consequence from its actions, and it fears looking weak-kneed if it backs down in the face of angry western chest-pounding. The Washington Post lectures,

Those in the West who persist in blaming Georgia or the Bush administration for the present crisis ought to carefully consider those words -- and remember the history in Europe of regimes that have made similar claims. This is the rhetoric of an isolated, authoritarian government drunk with the euphoria of a perceived victory and nursing the delusion of a restored empire. It is convinced that the West is too weak and divided to respond with more than words.

Perhaps the Post should take note, a "perceived" victory is one that doesn't exist in reality. Russia scored a bona fide military victory in Georgia. As far as the suggestion that Russia is wrong to believe that the West will not respond with anything more than words... why should it believe otherwise? More to the point, I think Russia is prepared for the possible imposition of some feeble economic sanctions, and doesn't much care. Who believes that the West is going to take action that might increase the price of oil and gas? (Strangely, I don't see any hands raised.)

The Post's ominous conclusion,

If nothing is done to restrain it, it will never release Georgia - and it will not stop there.

Ah, the glorious slippery slope. As it implied back when it opposed Kosovo's independence, its primary interest was in the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and so far there's no reason to believe that they have greater designs on Georgian territory. Nor does there appear to be any sign that Russia's about to invade any other nation. I realize that closing with ominous statements can seem compelling, but to transform the slippery slope from illogic the claim should be grounded in some sort of reality. What nation does the Post see as under imminent threat from Russia?

More to the point, what does the Post propose to do about it? Send in the Marines? Here's what their news department suggests is in the works:

"Sanctions are being considered and many other means as well," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in response to a question at a news conference.

"We are trying to elaborate a strong text that will show our determination not to accept (what is happening in Georgia)," he said. "Of course, there are also sanctions."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed such talk, noting that Kouchner had also suggested recently that Russia might soon attack Moldova, Ukraine and the Crimea.

"But that is a sick imagination, and probably that applies to sanctions as well. I think it is a demonstration of complete confusion," Lavrov told reporters in Tajikistan.

So the west is "considering" sanctions and mulling over what sort of condemnatory text will be strong enough. They sure know how to hit Russia where it hurts.... What about U.S. and U.K. diplomats?

"There is a Russia narrative that 'we were weak in the '90s, but now we are back and we are not going to take it anymore.' But being angry and seeking revanchist victory is not the sign of a strong nation. It is the sign of a weak one," said Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

"Russia is going to have to come to terms with the reality it can either integrate with the world or it can be a self-isolated bully. But it can't be both. And that's a choice Russia has to have," Fried said.

* * *

"They are kind of giddy. They will need to sober up," said a senior U.S. official, insisting on anonymity because his remarks were diplomatically impolite. "When they sober up, they will see that it is not the U.S. that has done things to them; it's that they have done things to themselves."

Similarly, in a speech yesterday in Kiev, Ukraine, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "Today Russia is more isolated, less trusted and less respected than two weeks ago. It has made military gains in the short term. But over time, it will feel economic and political losses."

It actually seems like Russia, buoyed by high prices on oil and gas, is prepared to assert itself as a regional power, and fully expects to be able to act as such while continuing to engage and trade with the west. And when it comes to maintaining the flow of Russian gas into Europe, who do you think is going to blink first?

As you might expect, there's another way of looking at things. When I first read this editorial, my reaction was that it didn't really say anything that wasn't self-evident, and that the author was far too self-satisfied with the outcome. But I guess I was wrong.

For nearly two decades, while Russia sunk into "catastroika" and China built an economic powerhouse, the US has exercised unprecedented and unaccountable global power, arrogating to itself and its allies the right to invade and occupy other countries, untroubled by international law or institutions, sucking ever more states into the orbit of its voracious military alliance.

Now, pumped up with petrodollars, Russia has called a halt to this relentless expansion and demonstrated that the US writ doesn't run in every backyard. And although it has been a regional, not a global, challenge, this object lesson in the new limits of American power has already been absorbed from central Asia to Latin America.

But what of diplomatic isolation?

There has been much talk among western politicians in recent days about Russia isolating itself from the international community. But unless that simply means North America and Europe, nothing could be further from the truth. While the US and British media have swung into full cold-war mode over the Georgia crisis, the rest of the world has seen it in a very different light. As Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore's former UN ambassador, observed in the Financial Times a few days ago, "most of the world is bemused by western moralising on Georgia". While the western view is that the world "should support the underdog, Georgia, against Russia ... most support Russia against the bullying west. The gap between the western narrative and the rest of the world could not be clearer."

The conclusion is pie-in-the-sky, but consistent with the overall tone of the piece:

For the rest of us, a new assertiveness by Russia and other rising powers doesn't just offer some restraint on the unbridled exercise of global imperial power, it should also increase the pressure for a revival of a rules-based system of international relations. In the circumstances, that might come to seem quite appealing to whoever is elected US president.

Does he really believe that?

Protecting Democracy

The Washington Post offers a curious, unsigned editorial that is in my estimation unduly credulous of Mikheil Saakashvili. Although not entirely endorsing his claims, the Post conveniently drops from mention the dubious claim that Russia tried to bomb a BP pipeline. They don't share his discredited claim that the U.S. military was going to take control of Georgia's ports and airports - the type of overstatement that casts a shadow across anything he says and perhaps illuminates the type of self-delusion that could have caused him to believe that the U.S. military would back his venture even if everybody told him otherwise.

Part of the blame-the-victim argument is tactical - the notion that the elected president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, foolishly allowed the Russians to goad him into a military operation to recover a small separatist region of Georgia. Mr. Saakashvili says, in an article we publish on the opposite page today, that the facts are otherwise, that he ordered his troops into action only after a Russian armored column was on the move. If that's not true - if he moved first - he was indeed foolish, and if Georgian shelling targeted civilians, it should be condemned.

Now, normally I would be fully prepared to accept that Russia "moved first" or did something exceptionally provocative. And it's clear that Russia was prepared for Georgia's military action. But I am to believe that all of this occurred beneath the notice of the U.S. intelligence community and the U.S. military (including advisors posted in Georgia), and Saakashvili didn't feel obligated to inform them of his detection of Russian troop movements or even of his own intentions before initiating his military action. The Post is correct that the alternate version of events - the one consistent with the story given by the U.S. government, U.S. military, and U.S. intelligence - would make Saakashvili look foolish. And if Saakashvili's story is true, it makes the U.S. government, U.S. military, and U.S. intelligence look foolish.

So why not take a step back and give us an analysis of which side - which of the two allies - is most likely lying? And provocations or not, can we truly believe that either the U.S. or Georgia (so capable of detecting Russian troop movements) overlooked Russia's build-up? It seems far more likely that Saakashvili believed G.W.'s hype - and that either Russia would be cowed by the idea that the U.S. military would rush to Georgia's aid in the event that his incursion was repelled, or that the U.S. military would quickly force a Russian retreat. Which brings us to the rest of the editorial:

But if the charge is that the Bush administration encouraged Georgia's yearnings for true independence, the verdict surely is "guilty" - just as when the Clinton administration encouraged Georgia under Eduard Shevardnadze and as the first President Bush welcomed the freedom of Warsaw Pact nations when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Now we are told that Russia's invasion last weekend proves the improvidence of this policy: The United States should have helped Georgia to understand that it lies in Russia's "sphere of influence," beyond the reach of American help.

No. What it shows is that the United States should not be suggesting to small, weak countries that it will help them militarily when it does not intend to do so. It also shows that you can meet every standard the U.S. wants - build up a military you can't afford, send a huge percentage of your armed forces to support a U.S military action, create a "flat tax" structure consistent with various U.S. right-wing ideologies, etc. - and still not be important enough to merit military intervention. (And democracy's all about voting and economics, right? So we should overlook little transgressions that don't appear to much matter to the Bush Administration.)

But today, Fred Hiatt and friends don't like realpolitik:

At first blush, that may sound like common sense. What is Georgia to us, after all, far away and without natural resources? And yet, where would the logic carry us? Poland, too, used to be in Moscow's "sphere" -- and Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, and on and on. Should they, too, bow to Vladimir Putin? Why not Finland, while we're at it? You can quickly begin to see the reemergence of a world that would be neither in America's interest nor much to Americans' liking.

With all due respect to the "slippery slope", failing to draw a line in the sand on the northern border of Georgia doesn't mean we won't draw a line in the sand somewhere - just not there. More to the point, where's the cry for democracy and freedom in Taiwan, where the U.S. constantly tiptoes around China's sensitivities? What about non-democracies gripped by humanitarian disaster - the Darfur region, for example. Now, I think it's obvious that Russia wanted this demonstration of force to serve as a warning to other nations on its border, but it's simply not the case that the United States can or should intervene militarily whenever a democracy is engaged in a political battle with... whatever classification we are giving to Russia's government this week. (If Venezuela's democracy is threatened, will the Bush Administration intervene to support it? Or celebrate.)

If a democratically elected Ukraine chooses not to join NATO -- and Ukrainians are divided on the question - NATO will not force itself on Ukraine. But if Ukrainians -- or Georgians, Armenians or anyone else - recoil at Russia's authoritarian model and choose to associate with the West, should the United States refrain from "egging them on"?

No, by all means, invite them to join the West, associate with the West, emulate the West.... Just don't suggest to them that their admiration for and emulation of the West is going to result in their falling under Western military protection in the event of an armed conflict with a neighbor - even one that doesn't have a large military force and nuclear weapons.

How, and how effectively, the United States can support those aspirations inevitably will vary from case to case and from time to time, and supporting those aspirations certainly won't always involve military force. But for the United States to counsel a "realistic" acceptance of vassal status to any nation would mark a radical departure from past principles and practices.

Except for Taiwan? No, really, we can support the aspirations of small democracies while making it clear to them that they can neither excessively provoke military powers on their borders, nor (as appears to be more apt here) see a large, juicy worm dangled by a military power, just across the border of a contested region, and expect us to get them off the hook if they have the poor sense to take the bait. The Post reports that the U.S. government instructed Saakashvilii to demonstrate restraint, and seems to accept that had Saakashvili listened this wouldn't have happened.

What the West should do is keep its promises to the young, weak democracies it wishes to foster. If the Post believes the Bush Administration misled Saakashvili into believing that the U.S. Armed Forces would rescue him in this sort of confrontation, that's where they should direct their scorn.

What Happened in Georgia

At least insofar as the start of the conflict, it's anybody's guess. Well, anybody's except Saakashvili's and, perhaps, a few people in the U.S. government. For now, it's denial time:

During a private dinner on July 9, Ms. Rice’s aides say, she warned President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia not to get into a military conflict with Russia that Georgia could not win. “She told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had to put a non-use of force pledge on the table,” according to a senior administration official who accompanied Ms. Rice to the Georgian capital.

It's hard to imagine that Saakashvili would ignore such a direct warning. It's really hard to believe this:

“This caught us totally by surprise,” said one military officer who tracks events in the region, including the American-Georgian training effort. “It really knocked us off our chairs.”

There are some understandably skeptical responses to that claim:

If the Pentagon and CIA were also caught flat-footed by Russia's response, as the McClatchy Newspapers' crack Washington bureau is reporting, then we have to ask: Why are we spending $55 bllion a year on intelligence? What are we getting out of it?

* * *

As easy as it is to believe that the CIA, etc., blew another huge event, I find it impossible to accept that not one of the 127 Pentagon advisors in Georgia, including Special Forces and intelligence contractors, were clueless about Tblisi's intent -- and preparations - to move into South Ossetia.

Similarly,

It is very difficult to imagine that the Georgians launched their attack against U.S. wishes. The Georgians rely on the United States, and they were in no position to defy it. This leaves two possibilities. The first is a massive breakdown in intelligence, in which the United States either was unaware of the existence of Russian forces, or knew of the Russian forces but — along with the Georgians — miscalculated Russia’s intentions. The second is that the United States, along with other countries, has viewed Russia through the prism of the 1990s, when the Russian military was in shambles and the Russian government was paralyzed. The United States has not seen Russia make a decisive military move beyond its borders since the Afghan war of the 1970s-1980s. The Russians had systematically avoided such moves for years. The United States had assumed that the Russians would not risk the consequences of an invasion.

If this was the case, then it points to the central reality of this situation: The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United States and Europe could not respond. As for risk, they did not view the invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no counter. Economically, Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well — indeed, the Europeans need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them. Politically, as we shall see, the Americans needed the Russians more than the Russians needed the Americans. Moscow’s calculus was that this was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for months, as we have discussed, and they struck.

* * *

By invading Georgia as Russia did (competently if not brilliantly), Putin re-established the credibility of the Russian army. But far more importantly, by doing this Putin revealed an open secret: While the United States is tied down in the Middle East, American guarantees have no value. This lesson is not for American consumption. It is something that, from the Russian point of view, the Ukrainians, the Balts and the Central Asians need to digest. Indeed, it is a lesson Putin wants to transmit to Poland and the Czech Republic as well. The United States wants to place ballistic missile defense installations in those countries, and the Russians want them to understand that allowing this to happen increases their risk, not their security.

The Russians knew the United States would denounce their attack. This actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior leaders are, the greater the contrast with their inaction, and the Russians wanted to drive home the idea that American guarantees are empty talk.

The article elaborates that Russia has the U.S. over a barrel, as the U.S. needs their cooperation in its conflicts in the Middle East, particulary in relation to Iran.

Meanwhile, McCain is talking loudly and waggling a tiny stick. He's prepared to move forward with NATO membership for Georgia... "at the right time", whenever that is. (He's implicitly stating the obvious - It's not right now, or even at any future time we can presently predict.) He wants to boot Russia out of the G-8, as if that's going to happen. He seems to be admitting that the Iraq war has left the U.S. impotent in the Caucasus: "We don't have, I think, right now, the ability to intervene in any way except in a humanitarian, economic way, and do what we can to help the Georgians".

What we do seem to be getting is a lot of really silly analysis. For example, in The Jerusalem Post:

After the war, the status quo ante in Abkhazia and South Ossetia is no longer tenable and the policy choices facing Russia in the region - official annexation or recognition of their independence - would not be accepted internationally. Moreover, Russian troops can no longer be perceived as an evenhanded peacekeeping force, and this may bring pressure for their replacement with either UN or some other more neutral peacekeeping troops.

Internationally, Russia's use of force could in the long run completely undermine Russian credibility when it speaks against the use of force in Iran or condemns potential future confrontation between Israel and Hizbullah (in 2006, Russia condemned in the harshest terms Israel's "excessive use of force").

Finally, as Israelis know well, bombing and invading small countries never looks good on TV in the West, however justified it might be. In the court of public opinion, Russia has already lost, something the independent Russian media was quick to acknowledge. Some in the US are already calling for a American boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and that may perhaps be only the beginning.

In terms of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it seems pretty clear that Russia is mostly interested in excluding Georgian troops from those territories, wants a commitment that Georgia won't again attempt to subdue them by force, and won't be inviting in international peacekeepers. Evenhandedness? Who thought Russia was evenhanded before this flare-up of the long-simmering conflict? And what does it really matter? Few countries view Israel as "evenhanded" in its administration of the West Bank; that doesn't mean international peacekeepers will ever take over that role.

And gee whiz... Russia won't have credibilty when it criticizes other nations for the excessive use of force? As if it did in the first place? And people around the world will think of Russia as being a bully against weak neighboring states? That'll be a first....

This piece seems mostly designed to fill column inches:

In the meantime, could it be that Russia, petro-confident and irredentist, seeking to reverse the record of the past two decades, is careering toward another 1989 or 1991? Will it heed the lessons of the Soviet era? What will happen if it does not? Will the North Caucasus break out of Moscow's grip? Will the Far East turn into a Chinese colony? Will the West once again confront the prospect of Moscow's former satrapies suddenly becoming major nuclear powers? Will the specter of Russian "loose nukes" keep haunting the West?

It's written like the ending of a 1950's serialized cliffhanger. And Russia, we're told, may be in for a "hard landing" if it doesn't learn from the lessons of history:

A decade [after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan], there would be no more Warsaw Pact. Europe would be sending humanitarian aid to Russia. The Soviet military would be defeated in Afghanistan. What caused all that? We are still not quite sure.

I sure hope the Russians are taking notes.... (But if you really want silly analysis, turn to Richard Cohen, who apparently isn't even slightly interested in internal consistency. I'd do a "slash and burn" on it, but the pickin's are just too easy.)

Georgia On My Mind

My initial reactions are pretty much in line with Dan Froomkin:

Back in 2005, speaking before a crowd of more than 150,000 exuberant Georgians cheering "Bushi! Bushi!", President Bush made a promise to the people of that former Soviet republic: "The path of freedom you have chosen is not easy, but you will not travel it alone. Americans respect your courageous choice for liberty. And as you build a free and democratic Georgia, the American people will stand with you."

So where was Bush as Russia launched a major military attack against Georgia? Monkeying around with the U.S. women's volleyball players - and otherwise amusing himself at the Beijing Olympics.

This is not to suggest that Bush should have sent in the Marines. But his impotence in the face of such a gravely destabilizing move highlights not only his personal loss of stature, but how deeply he has diminished American authority on the world stage generally and, particularly, in the eyes of Russia.

and Josh Marshall, including the thought that those who essentially want us to go to war with Russia are insane. I am still wondering, did Saakashvili truly believe that the U.S. would back him up militarily? Because if he didn't, it's hard to make any sense of his decisions and tactics.

For more detailed perspectives on this conflict, check in with Eunomia or LGM. (Even if you don't agree with all the conclusions, you'll learn something.) Via lies.com, there's also this excited analysis of the conflict in the voice of a fictional "war-nerd". And there's this news roundup from more traditional sources.