Nothing new in Georgia-Russia-West relationship

‘No one was willing to embroil himself with … Russia over a small country, somewhere far away in the Caucasus.’

How many times did one read that sentence or come across that sentiment in news reports, analyses and opinion pieces on the conflict between Georgia and Russia or on the uneasy peace brokered by President Sarkozy, or on the current status quo, which sees Russia in breach of the terms of the ceasefire by still having troops in previously uncontested Georgian territory?

Here’s the full passage: ‘The Georgian question was debated in the Parliaments of Great Britain and France, in the League of Nations, in the non-Communist workers’ international gatherings, etc. In 1926, it was even discussed in the Committee of Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 69th Congress. But nothing came of all these meetings, debates and protests. No was willing to embroil himself with Soviet Russia over a small country, far away in the Caucasus.’

This was not the only passage in a slim booklet entitled Special Report no 6 of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression House of Representatives Eighty-Third Congress which gave me a feeling of déjà vu. The booklet is dated December 31st 1954. ....

‘Communists could not bear to have a truly democratic, independent state right on their borders’. Substitute Putin for Communists and that sentence could have been written yesterday rather than in 1954.

And finally: ‘Communists were continuing the policy of imperialistic expansion of Tzarist Russia.’

Unfortunately, present day Russia, judging from its conduct in Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere seems to be continuing the domineering, if not outright imperialist, attitudes of Tsarist and Communist Russia.

A central justification for Russian actions was claims of between U.S. Iraq involvement, and Russian Georgian aggression. With that and other pretexts, Putin unilaterally attacked into Georgia, after NATO membership rejection portended a flaccid response.

In contrast the United States, heading a U. N. coalition exceeding that Churchill and Roosevelt assembled to confront Hitler’s Germany, toppled Hussein’s regime, forcing the U.N. to confront the reason for its’ existence. Russian statements were especially egregious fabrications, because they helped draft and acquiesced to every resolution. The Iraq ceasefire ended, because Hussein materially breached international obligations defined within U.N. Resolution 687, and reaffirmed by Resolution 1441. Resolution 687 incorporated 678 and 12 other resolutions without amendments, offering Hussein conditional ceasefire in 1991. Instead he ignored responsibilities to submit comprehensive declarations of all WMD stockpiles and programs, and missiles with greater than 150 kilometre range. He thwarted the program envisioned by menacing, eluding, and deceiving inspectors. He continued forbidden involvement in international terrorism.

The U.N.’s ultimatums in Resolutions 678 and 1441 authorized disarming Hussein’s regime through military operations “to restore international peace and security in the area”, and did not instruct coalition forces to merely expel Hussein from Kuwait. U.N. precedent from the Korean War ensured the above phrase intended invasion of Iraq. The term “in the area” used phraseology, confirmed by Congress, authorizing military action above the 38th parallel to disarm North Korea.

As Russian forces crossed South Ossetia into Georgia, the moment arrived for inescapable acknowledgement that Putin had revoked the Cold War armistice. Putin’s justifications contain too many parallels to Hitler’s concern for Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia to ascribe less than brutal motives. Extravagant armored attacks through the Greater Caucasus Mountains demonstrate traditional Russian ruling elite neurotic insecurity; neurosis requiring rival power destruction without political compromise. Genetic, multi-millennial paranoia infects the current cabal to regard NATO, former Warsaw Pact countries, and former Soviet republics as encircling enemies. Such perceptions, not shared by the Russian people, repudiate years of Western support for emerging Russian representative government, political security, and economic stability.

There can be no permanent peaceful coexistence with a totalitarian Russia, but traditional warfare is not inevitable. Illogics lead this cabal onto unacceptable paths, but these elites remain highly susceptible to logics of force accompanied by determination to use it. Forceful initiatives require immediately curtailing efforts to integrate the former Soviet Union into the economic, cultural, and political life of the Free World. Next initiatives require increasingly serious discussions of cooperation and membership between NATO, and former Warsaw Pact countries and former Soviet republics. Finally, United States must update Cold War plans through cooperative military exercises in Europe and the Mediterranean. This country must wage war, where diplomacy uses overt and clandestine activities to exploit, contradictions, stresses, and tensions between Putin’s ruling elite, and the Russian people and countries with which he needs alliances.

Such progressive, consecutive initiatives establish constraining negotiating positions Putin must consider. Such actions must proceed inexorably, subject to adjustment only following verifiable pacific initiatives for representative government, and non-belligerent neighbor relationships. Effective containment will reveal fragility of a totalitarian rule needing solidification within a disaffected, cynical population. The West has squandered an opportunity to make cruel subjection of Georgia become Putin’s undoing.

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