Cold War II - It isn't just Georgia that's in danger

The Russian invasion of Georgia is an ominous portent. Georgia is too small a state to be a threat to Russia, and the composition of its government is of only marginal importance to the Kremlin.

Yet here are Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian president, and his Siamese twin Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, raging against Georgia in wild language and crushing it with even wilder action. The Russian national interest, as they understand it, evidently is promoted by the display of brutality. This marks a shift in the world order -- and, seemingly, a reprise of the Cold War.

The provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia -- hitherto integral parts of Georgia -- are under Russian military occupation, their previous Georgian inhabitants expelled. The stage is set by Moscow for the annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Russia proper. The Russian ambassador to the United Nations says the territorial integrity of Georgia has become "a very thorny issue." Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, is less delicate: "The world can forget about any talk of Georgia's territorial integrity."

Abkhazia and South Ossetia are pinpricks on the map. Their populations, part Christian and part Muslim, number a few hundred thousand in the jumble of minorities that make the Caucasus a tinderbox of nationalisms. The collapse of the Soviet Union encouraged separatist movements in both provinces -- national aspirations that are pure fantasy, given the circumstances.

Fighting broke out in the 1990s, and Russian troops moved in to bring about a standoff with Georgia, or what the jargon calls a "frozen conflict." Given a minimum of good faith, this was open to resolution. Instead, the Kremlin began to hand out citizenship to the populations, Russifying the provinces. Georgia then carried through the democratic revolution led by Mikhail Saakashvili. As the new president, he freed the economy, cracked down on corruption, welcomed American and Israeli advisers, and applied to join NATO. When he also tried to reestablish government over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Kremlin decided to put a stop to Georgiaand Saakashvili, and to their democracy.

Putin and Medvedev are reproducing Soviet strategy and tactics faithfully. As before, aggression is masked as peacekeeping. Victims of the Soviets used to be blackened as Nazis or counterrevolutionaries; the up-to-date version is that Georgia is guilty of ethnic cleansing and genocide. "Attack our citizens and Russia will shatter you," Medvedev declared, calling to mind many a Communist boss before him. Ceasefire agreements have been signed, and peace conditions publicized, but the Kremlin has no intention of respecting any of these. Mendacity is standard. Khrushchev lied that Soviet forces were withdrawing from Budapest at the end of October 1956, the very moment when they were advancing into the city, and his successors told similar lies when launching the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. The propaganda remains as absurd as ever. Vesti FM, an outlet of Russian state radio, has been broadcasting that Vice President Cheney set these events in motion in order to prevent the election of Senator Obama. (And spare a thought for the great poet Osip Mandelstam, who lost his life for writing, "Every killing is a treat / For the broad-chested Ossete" -- Stalin was thought to have Ossetian blood.)

The Politburo of old professed an ideology, though it is doubtful whether cynics of their rank could have believed that Marxism was the key to possession of the rest of the world. Stalin and his colleagues were primarily Russian nationalists for whom the Red Army was the source of power and expansion. They were aware that an immense military and a secret-police apparatus were indispensable if so many reluctant people at home and abroad were to be held down. Violence was instrumental, to be deployed when convenient. The ideology is gone, but the ambitions it cloaked remain.

Did Mikhail Gorbachev, the last general secretary of the Communist party, really understand that violence was integral to the ideology? His reforms opened the way for the oppressed millions to take political initiatives on their own behalf. The countries of the Soviet bloc, the non-Russian republics and the autonomous areas of the Soviet Union, seethed with nationalist resentment of Russian domination. All over that empire, regional party and ideological secretaries were soon losing control, and in their panic they urged Gorbachev to declare martial law and move the tanks in to restore the status quo. In exceptional instances in Riga, and -- especially painful now in retrospect -- in Tbilisi, Gorbachev did resort to force, but not on a scale sufficient to restore real fear of the Russians, and therefore compliance. Gorbachev likes to claim that he was too high-minded to order the spilling of blood. It's more realistic to say he was naïve, unable to grasp either the true nature of Communist ideology or how hatred of the Russians had fueled implacable regional nationalisms. The New York Times now sees no irony in publishing an op-ed article by him in defense of the invasion of Georgia, repeating exaggerated claims of the "horrifying scenes" for which he believes that Georgia and the United States are responsible, with "the American news media leading the way."

Vladimir Putin has devoted his career to reestablishing force as the Russian state's main instrument, reversing Gorbachev's legacy. He has made no secret of it, declaring that the fall of the Soviet Unionwas "the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century." He has disregarded the rule of law, rigging the political process in favor of his personal rule, virtually extinguishing freedom of speech, and bringing the energy industry under state control. Reliance upon force necessarily unleashes corruption and crime. Putin's associates have become billionaires; his opponents have been broken and quite likely murdered.

In the face of this steady reversion to Soviet behavior, the Western response has been to mollify and placate. The Clinton administration went out of its way to make every allowance. The Partnership for Peace, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the NATO-Russia Council, and Russia's elevation to the G8 are among the numerous initiatives based on the illusion that Russia is a democracy or the wishful thinking that it is becoming one. President Bush looked into Putin's eyes, thought he could trust him, and now confronts a fait accompli to which he is virtually powerless to respond -- the position of most American presidents during the Soviet era.

The Europeans have been outright appeasers. Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, is on the board of Gazprom, the Russian energy monopoly whose treatment of Germany and other consumers resembles blackmail. In April, Angela Merkel led a successful drive to keep Ukraine and Georgia out of NATO -- the opposite decision might have held off Russia's invasion. Responding for the European Union to the attack on Georgia, Nicolas Sarkozy hurried to Moscow, where he took down Medvedev's orders -- which omitted mention of Georgia's territorial integrity and were worded with a looseness that the Russians claim allows them to occupy whatever parts of Georgia suit them. Like a dutiful errand boy, Sarkozy delivered this capitulation to a mortified Saakashvili in Tbilisi. Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, was equally humble, paying tribute to Russia as "a great nation" and going on to say, practically beating his breast, "Look at how we have been treating it." The correspondence columns of the British press are full of letters bewailing that the West has gone in for "bear baiting" and concluding that it is only logical and right that Russia should lash out.

In the manner of the Soviet Union, Russia is taking it upon itself unilaterally to decide what the boundaries of other countries are to be and who is to govern them. Consternation grips neighbors who have been through this life-and-death experience before, within living memory. The Baltic republics, the Asian Muslim republics, and Moldova all contain ethnic-Russian inhabitants, on whose behalf some grievance is easy to concoct, allowing the Kremlin to treat these neighbors in the same way it has treated Georgia.

Ukraine stands in the greatest danger. Russians tend to believe that country is their ancient patrimony. Khrushchev gave the Crimea to Ukraine, a token gesture in his day. Russians are in the majority there, and nationalist extremists are already urging them to reverse Khrushchev's quixotic gift. As with Georgia, Putin did everything he could to derail Ukraine's democratic revolution: Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko suffered dioxin poisoning, possibly at the hands of Russian agents. The agreement that the Russian fleet may use the Black Sea port of Sevastopol runs out in 2017, and senior Russian officers have already declared that this is an interest they will never give up. In a dramatic display of solidarity -- and alarm -- Yushchenko, President Lech Kaczynski of Poland, and the three Baltic presidents flew to Tbilisi for a joint press conference. Determined to defend their independence, Ukraine seeks NATO membership while Poland has hastily concluded an agreement to have an American missile-defense system on its soil. Russian spokesmen threaten both countries with nuclear strikes. Marxist ideology may be missing, but the intimidation hews to the familiar Soviet style.

Force as the instrument of policy supersedes the abstract barriers of international law erected to contain it. The West now can expect that a nationalist Russia will mobilize its resources to probe every weak point around its borders: It will reach as far as possible, devising new hostilities (such as the cyberwar waged against Estonia and Georgia), playing on the retreat of NATO and European defeatism, exploiting its control over oil and gas supplies, protecting Iran's bid for the nuclear bomb, and once more selling weaponry to destabilize the Middle East -- everywhere testing the resolution of the next American president. If this isn't Cold War II, how should it be described?

I don’t recall the exact definition, but international law is what the various nations agree that it is. Russia at the present time is attempting to rewrite the rules. What the US does at this time, will probably determine what will happen in the next 50 years. Terrorism tends to pale into the background when one is dealing with a nation with nuclear tipped MIRVed ICBMs and an attitude. In addition, the Russians respect force. Words will not convince them. Words and actions might. IMHO Recall that the ChiComs, compliments of the Clintons, have, even as you read this, nuclear tipped ICBMs aimed at US cities. Voters on the west coast should think of this when they vote.

Historians have said we are in a new era when might doesn’t redraw maps as it has for the last 5,000 years. Putin’s Russia is just letting us know that the old rules still do apply.
Czar Putin is following Czarist objectives and trying to expand his rule. Ukraine better wake up. They have several choices A) Renew the Russian navy base lease and cut the best deal they can. B) Rearm as quickly as possible to hold this bit of land. C) Build up a fleet of their own. D) Become energy independent ASAP because the Russians will use oil and natural gas as a weapon. E) Join NATO ASAP and forge links to the USA and hope Obama doesn’t get elected.

Michael Savage, et al got into a lot of trouble by suggesting that they understood Putin's actions.

I remember the Clinton Administration bombing campaign against Serbia. Recounting the loyalty of the Serbian people to the U.S. and allies during W.W.II Savage was livid -- even looked to see if he could do his show from there. For those months he railed, even alienating some members of USAF.

The Clinton Administration supported the Islamist and criminal KLA -- even cooperating with Iran to supply them some reports said.

Russia backed Serbia. We are told how close General Wesley Clark came to getting our forces into a shooting war with Russian troops in Serbia.

I believe that the Bush Administration has recognized the independence of Kosovo.

Personally I believe that Putin would be doing what he's doing regardless; but the question remains in my mind, why did Washington support the KLA? It just poked Russia and we gained what?

(It's a long article and I barely started it. Maybe the answer is there.)

Memo To: The Ukrainian Government

RE: Russian 'Citizens'.

From this day hence any person residing in Ukraine who applies for or possesses a Russian passport should be given 30 days to vacate the territory of Ukraine.

All Russian Visas should be cancelled immediately.

That will end this foolishness about Russian 'citizens' being 'mistreated' in any foreign country.

Why bomb Kosovo?

“Bomb Kosovo” =

HILLARY yelled at President CLINTON in the White House during his Impeachment Saga, as a TV diversion away from their own worst misbehaviors together.

A very sobering analysis and conclusion, which I think the author is quite right about.

In exceptional instances in Riga, and -- especially painful now in retrospect -- in Tbilisi, Gorbachev did resort to force, but not on a scale sufficient to restore real fear of the Russians, and therefore compliance.

The above jumped out off the pixels and is transfixed in my mind.

Thank you for posting this article.

On the other hand, and genuinely a wee note; Russia will not be a part of many worldwide conversations due its recent actions which bring the word "untrustworthy" to the Russian stereotype.

Old Order? Now Russia wants Old Order? It also reacquires it's older stereotype. I can think of a few countries who will clap Russia on the back and say "let's do lunch"; but many more countries will not be so casual. Most all over the world will chew its own hind legs off if caught in a trap. Russia has declared it will use brute force. Newer alliances are being forged in order to be aware of and clued in on every single move, utterance, word, action, behavior, and misstep by the Bear.

Russia thought it was paranoid before?

Yes, the US must act responsibly and directly. If only just to save the Bear doing himself such great harm.

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