This war in the Caucuses.. once again demonstrates the miscalculations of our soon to be retired president and his foreign policy designers.
A little background, at the break up of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day in 1991, Georgia, the small country on the eastern Black Sea, declared it’s independence, as did most of the old Soviet Republics. This region of the world, where Russia, Turkey, and Iran come together, is home to a slew of different ethnic groups, with different languages and religions, split between Islam and Orthodox Christian faiths. You have the Georgians, the Armenians, Azerbaijani’s, Kurds, Chechens, Ossteians, it’s a long list.
When Georgia declared it’s independence it demarcated a border which had been drawn included a couple ethnic groups, with whom the Georgians haven’t exactly gotten along with over the centuries, most notably the Ossetian’s in the enclave of South Ossetia. These aren’t exactly places that roll off the tongue of your typical American educated geographer.
Until last week.
As we saw last week, war broke out again, in a region known for ethnic violence, only this time, a big difference. For the first time since the 80’s we saw the movement of Russian troops outside of the borders of Russia. Why would the Russsian’s risk the ire of the West, and more importantly the United States by invading a country closely aligned with us?
The fact that the Russians were able to accomplish a complete defeat of the American trained and equipped Georgian forces in 48 hours tells me, they’ve had this excursion planned for a long time. This “war” was less about invading a country to protect ethnic minority, the fact that the Georgians had attacked South Ossetia, technically part of their country but a part that has de facto been operating independently since 1991 was just the trigger of a bigger message. A message aimed directly at the Untied States and NATO.
President Clinton, in expanding NATO to some former eastern bloc countries, committed to the Russians, Putin personally, that NATO would limit expansion to a few Warsaw Pact nations and would never expand into countries of the former Soviet Union. The Bush Administration, using a play book from the cold war crapped all over that agreement. The Administration has adopted a policy of “encirclement” when it comes to Russia. In other words, put good guys on every border of Russia and they won’t be able to cause any mischief. Besides, their economy is a shambles, there military is lapsing, they just not the power they once were and we can act with impunity.
With in a few years of the Bush presidency the Baltic States were admitted to NATO. From a Russian perspective, St. Petersburg, Russia’s second city, once 1500 miles way from hostile NATO forces was now 60 miles away from forward bases, radar installations and missile defense systems. The Russians protested and were ignored.
Next up, Romania, Hungary, Poland , Bulgaria, join, connecting the entire western border of the former Soviet Union, from the Baltic to the Black seas. Again, the Russians, while angry let it go and continued to focus on developing the infrastructure to sell natural gas to Europe. The Russians are apparently much more strategic than we are.
More insult (from the Russian perspective), Kosovo. Russia was DEAD SET against granting independence to Kosovo. One of the key tenants of post WWII Europe, an unwritten rule of you would, designed to keep the peace, was that national borders in Europe would not change. This was challenged in 1992 when the Czech’s and Slovaks had their amiable divorce. It was a bit uglier in the mid 90’s with the Bosnian war. Russian perspective on allowing Kosovo to split from Serbia and become independent.. it undermines the rights of states to control their own borders. Allowing Kosovo to become independent would give credibility to several ethnic groups in Russia to do the same thing, Chechnya for one, South Ossetia, for another. The Russians lobbied politely, the back channeled, they made official requests they did everything they could to convince the United States, the United Nations and the West to not support Kosovo’s independence, and again, they were ignored.
The Final Straw
April 2008, at the NATO conference in Bucharest Romania, NATO announced that invitations to join the alliance would be extended to Ukraine and Georgia. From the Russian perspective, this is unacceptable. A NATO presence in the Ukraine makes Russia completely indefensible. Geographers know the Ukraine sits on Russia’s breadbasket, controls her warm water ports, not to mention a chunk of her former Nuclear Arsenal.
These action would equate to Canada and Mexico joining Cuba in an alliance against the United States, stationing military forces on our borders, and then convincing Texas and Oklahoma to join them.
Against that backdrop, the Russians have been looking for an opportunity to make a statement to the states on their periphery, aka, states in the former Soviet Sphere of influence. Don’tyou’re your faith in NATO The statement is this, join NATO all you want, when push comes to shove, we may not be a superpower anymore, but we are certainly a regional one, and if we decide to do something, like invade your country, there’s really nothing the US or NATO can do about it.
The message to NATO and more especially the United State- We’re sick if you meddling, we’re sick of being ignored on the world affairs, we’re sick of American interference in what we see as internal Russian affairs. Sponsoring a revolution in the Ukraine for example, arming and training Georgian troops, putting anti missile technology in Poland and the Czech Republic. Oh, and then telling the world it’s to protect you from Iran.. Well if that’s the case, when, in the Russian sprit of cooperation, we offered the use of Russian bases in the Caspian, which would have been much more effective at shooting down Iranian missiles, you turn us down. FU America, the Russian Bear is more less back in business.
Oh and BTW, to our European friends.. squawk all you want about Russian aggression, you will do nothing either. Without our natural gas, it’s going to be a cold expensive winter in Germany, France, Denmark.. ask your friends the Ukrainians what it’s like when Mother Russia turns off the gas.
My point here. This was a well planned geopolitical play by the Russians. They have so badly out maneuvered the Bush Administration is almost embarrassing, they’ve left us in a box with no effective course of action. Everything about this was planned and executed well, and we didn’t even see it coming so it appears.
Case in point-
- American military forces are quite bogged down in the Middle East. They couldn’t do anything to help the any NATO Ally in Europe if they wanted too.
- America needs Russia more than they need us. We need Russia to cooperate in any action, political or otherwise we against the Islamic Republic of Iran. If we decide to execute an embargo and the Russians don’t go along.. we’re screwed. Oh, and if the decide to sell Iran the SS-300 Anti Aircraft Missile defense system they’re drooling over.. we’re also screwed.
- Europe REALLY needs Russia more than they need us. Russian energy heats Europe. And with the markets the way are, Russia would be happy to sell to Asia and cut of the Europeans dramatically impacting their economy at a time when things are tenuous.
- Putin announced last week that Russia will consider using Cuba as refueling station for Russian naval and aircraft operations again. Cold war Part II? Another thing we’d watch as spectators.
- This whole war and our seeming surprise is another example of how bad the United States can be at intel. More accurately, how myopic it can be. If it doesn’t happen in the Middle East, we don’t see it? My point.. the Georgians tripped the wire to start this little war by attacking positions in South Ossetia which had basically been independent for 15 years. The changed the status quo. The Ossetians allied themselves with the Russians, a situation which has also been status quo for 15 years. The Russian response was devastating and clearly well planned. The troops were staged at the border ready to go. How did we NOT know this was coming. I’m also hesitant to believe the Georgian president Saakhashvili would make a move like this with out some consent from his ally the United States.
Bottom line the war is over. The Russians have asserted their power and let the world know that they are in control. They will demand the resignation of Saakhashvili in order to show that no one does anything in a former Soviet State with out their approval, and the United States? We’re going to leave them out to dry.
I hope we leave them out to dry. The last thing we want is a shooting war with Russia over this. It’s like WWI revisited.
1 Comment
August 29, 2008 at 8:45 am
Well written and I agree. In your sentence “Allowing Kosovo to become independent would give credibility to several ethnic groups in Russia to do the same thing, Chechnya for one, South Ossetia, for another. “, didn’t you really mean North Ossetia?