Standing beside US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Georgian President Mikhael Shaakazvili described Russia as “evil”. It’s probably too much to expect that he might recognise his own degree of responsibility for the war (not forgetting Vladimir Putin’s of course), but the use of language such as this is reminiscent of Rice’s boss and the moralisation of international relations and conflict usually associated with George W. Bush’s regime. Opinions will differ on whether the use of such emotive rhetoric makes the settlement and resolution of conflict easier or more difficult. Of course war is an evil, but some international actors have acted as if it’s a necessary evil over the course of this decade, and indeed made a virtue of pre-emptive war. So it’s been difficult not to notice the hypocrisy of American claims about the inviolability of sovereign states in the 21st century.
In what I think is quite a balanced article in the New Statesman, Misha Glenny looks at the influence of the reality-free thinking of the Dick Cheney faction on the lead up to the Georgian conflict, without minimising the autocratic and bellicose behaviour of the Putin regime. At Open Democracy, Donald Rayfield looks at the realistic options Georgia has, and some of the background to the war, while Neal Ascherson similarly examines how Georgia could progress beyond this war. Both write as avowed friends of Georgia, but both don’t think inflammatory rhetoric from Washington helps at all - they believe that it in fact hinders any positive outcome. This isn’t to adopt some deracinated Kissingerian realism, but rather to argue that the Manichean language of good and evil does anything but achieve the objectives it ostensibly sets out. As Ascherson powerfully demonstrates, there’s evil enough to go around on both sides of this conflict, with atrocities committed at least since the fall of the Soviet Union. A recognition of that - rather than positioning one side as a plucky sovereign democracy and the other as the incarnation of Satan - might actually provide a basis for realistic and peaceful progress.
Meanwhile, on the American campaign front, McCain is being praised by his supporters for his “muscular” response. Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings is worth reading on what McCain’s rhetoric says about his suitability for the Presidency. And on the application of the “Cold War frame” to the reporting of the conflict, see Ronda Jambe at Ambit Gambit.
Thanks for the links and the commentary, Kim. Ascherson is always worth reading.
Btw, am I the first to notice a deliberate use of the semicolon in some of your recent posts?
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/08/14/grammatical-gender/
Interesting article here, from Foreign Policy in Focus:
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5465
What’s good for the goose is also good for the gander, so it seems.
Welcome to a multipolar world. Perceptions of US hegemony have certainly taken a beating of late.
The US Administration likes to portray everything in terms of good and evil because they are, at heart, still fundamentally a bunch of rat-faced Puritans who actually see the world that way.
They speak of freedom and such things but in reality Condi et al would have been right at home in 17th Century Salem burning witches. Freedom’s fine, they reckon, as long as those unworthy of it are thoroughly purged first. Thus, Guantanamo.
Cotton Mathers, each and every one of them.
Yes, I quite agree, it is only I who can truly be “evil.” The impartiality of the left w/r/t to the meaning of words and rhetoric is quite admirable in this instance, and the difference between them and myself could hardly be more stark. Oh, did I say admirable and difference? I meant the precise opposite. But then of course I’m a ChimpHitlerMurderer, so it’s hardly surprising when I fuck up, which is every minute of my evil life. Oui?
Evan at #3 is a model of calm and clarity, a veritable gold standard of lucidity. And Peter Kemp quotes from “Foreign Policy in Opinion” — sorry I meant in “Focus” (but those words mean exactly the same thing, don’t they? Well don’t ask me! I’m just a chimptard!) — with glee and… lucidity. Apparently what’s sauce for the goose is not only sauce for the gander, but also equally sauce for ostriches, cacti, Bjork, and the rings of Saturn.
But we can’t expect the left to notice this, just as we can’t expect the left to notice the giant oil pipeline which runs through Georgia. Otherwise, being persons of strict principle, they’d all be out in the street chanting “No blood for oil!” and carrying giant puppet-heads of Putin.
No?
Well, I guess the Olympics are on.
– j_p_z, marrying for convenience for the third time this week alone…
j_p_z re:
When international law is trashed by a nation that formerly was one of its greatest adherents (ie circa 1945), it gives any two bit dictator an excuse to do likewise. That doesn’t make it lawful, but all such transgressions have a scale about them–what Russia did was much less than Israel in Lebanon, and pales into significance compared to the US and Iraq.
Nevertheless, demonising Russia by way of the type of hysteria emanating from Cheney and his cohorts is not going to help, that approach is counter productive. The whole encirclement policy was fatally flawed from the beginning, ever since Gorbachov was promised that Nato wouldn’t expand to encompass the peripheral states of the USSR, a deal that the west welshed on.
The oil/gas pipelines through Georgia was part of that encirclement policy of the neo-cons, (a significant issue beyond simplistic left/right barbs btw). As Russia is a major producer, the idea that the US has a right to interfere in Russia’s back yard of traditional influence was sure to make the bear angry.
Now that the US has been exposed in lacking any moral authority to censure Russia as a result of an arrogant and thoroughly discredited policy, the wailing, weeping and howls of rage from the US media would be somewhat funny if the situation wasn’t so tragic.
Instead of working with Russia after the USSR collapsed to consolidate a peaceful world order, the west insisted on rubbing Russian noses in firstly encouraging free market theft of their state property, then the ignominy of Nato gobbling up former satellites and then brazen attempts to isolate Russia in the oil business, with people like Bush positively gloating and reveling in Russia’s perceived weaknesses, despite the fact that Russia has been, for example, a major moderating factor over the Iranian nuke issue, of late.
And these are the very same people who did most of the heavy lifting for us against the Nazis in WW2.
Is anybody really surprised that Russia acted the way it did over Georgia, leaving aside for the moment the confected moral outrage of the Cheney/Bush brigade?
Not me for one. It’s all of a piece with Tsarist foreign policy going back to the seventeenth century and Soviet foreign policy from Lenin in the 1920s, reoccupying those of its territories that had broken free with the collapse of the Russian Empire, and Stalin with his occupation of the Baltic States and attempted seizure of Finland in the 1940s. Nothing to do with American foreign policy there.
A point of historical accuracy. The Russians didn’t do the heavy lifting for us in WW2. They did it for themselves after their ally (remember the Molotov- Ribbentrop pact through which the Soviets swallowed up the Baltic States and Eastern Poland) turned on them. They didn’t have much choice there and then, consistent with their track record, spent the next sixty years occupying Eastern Europe.
Putting an oil pipeline through non-Russian territory is simple prudence, by the way, as the Germans will tell you after their experience of having their gas supply shut off by the Russians a few years back.
These people have got form.
[warning: disingenuous remarks follow]
I wonder what the US reaction would be if Cuba were to assert militarily its sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay? Measured and proportionate, I’m sure…
Not disingenuous. Idiotic.
Unless of course your argument is that South Ossetia (and indeed the entire territory of Georgia) is part of sovereign Russian territory.
Which, as ill-considered as it is, is probably just what your argument is.
Still a good try at getting at ChimpHitlerMurderer.
The Invasion of Georgia Did Not Take Place! Don’t Believe the Hype, Dudes! It is just another Fascist Neoliberal Simulacrum!
I’m not sure what this is supposed to demonstrate. If you’re looking for a gap between the meaning of words and rhetoric, you might consider that the “democrat” Shaakazvili has been in the habit of calling out troops to repress demonstrations and forcibly closing opposition media outlets. Just like Chavez. Except he’s a democrat and Chavez is a dictator according to Washington?
Huh?
If anything demonstrates both moral relativism and vacuity, it’s the troubling habit of Bush’s administration to bend reality to suit their will. I don’t imagine Condi will be saying anything about the fact that Colin Powell was dispatched to Georgia in 2004 to warn Shaakazvili about the consequences of his adventurism. All conveniently forgotten, now that there’s a new evil to be confronted.
Read the links instead of making flip comments, please. It’s very clear that Shaakazvili has blood on his hands too, (just as Putin does) and some crazed portrayal of all this as round #9087 in the unending battle of good and evil helps precisely no one - least of all the people caught in the midst of this conflict.
Or, if you’d prefer, you could ignore all that and make snarky comments about teh left, of course.
Is it adventurism now to want to have control of and preserve the territorial integrity of your own country?
That is a novel view.
Unless, of course, you subscribe to the world view of Russia that the countries on its periphery do not deserve independence, have no right to self determination or territorial integrity and must be Russian satellites.
The invasion of South Ossetia on August 7 never happened. 2000 civilians were not killed. The involvement of 100 US instructors in training the Georgian army never happened. It’s all a conspiracy by teh anti-American left. Above all, we can trust the US news media.
GregM, Georgia has not had control over all of its own territory for a long time, and as the linked articles suggest, the way in which Shaakazvili went about re-asserting it was counter-productive. I’m not going to bother to engage with future comments which deal in abstractions and rhetoric and ignore the facts of the situation - it’s a waste of my time and the links were provided to inform and stimulate an informed debate, not a contest of assertions, point scoring and sloganeering about sovereignty.
I’m also quite tired of the stupid rhetorical device of suggesting - from a basis grounded in wilful ignorance of the facts - that anyone actually pointing out that there are complexities to the situation is thereby supporting Russian aims. It’s identical to the idiocies of the supporters of the Iraq War. It’s tendentious, and boring, and lacks good faith.
GregM re:
http://www.angelfire.com/ct/ww2europe/stats.html
Number of divisions available for these countries over the course of the war:
Country 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 End of War
France 86 105 0 0 5 7 14 14
Germany* 78 189 235 261 327 347 319 375
Great Britain 9 34 35 38 39 37 31 31
Italy 6 73 64 89 86 2 9 10
Poland 43 2 2 2 2 5 5 5
Romania 11 28 33 31 33 32 24 24
USSR 194 200 220 250 350 400 488 491
USA** 8 24 39 76 95 94 94 94
Take out the USSR and ask yourself the question how much heavy lifting we would have had to do with Germany’s 375 divisions against the UK and USA’s combined total of 125 in 1945? ie if that’s what we faced on the western front.
The USSR I repeat, did most of the “heavy lifting” in land battles for our ultimate benefit (granted as well as theirs) in WW2. They were doing such a good job tying down the bulk of the Wehrmacht that the Royal Navy bust their pills getting supply convoys (with massive US supplies) through to Murmansk.(And with horrendous losses)
The tank battle of Kursk, for example, made Alamein a relative garden tea party.
To argue that they only did it for themselves ignores and belittles their overwhelming contribution that allowed all the allies collectively to win against Germany.
My post @ 3.35 in the spaminator?
Since 1993. That’s an awfully long time, isn’t it? The Palestinians haven’t had control over all their territory for over sixty years and the way they have gone about recovering it has been pretty unproductive. That doesn’t make, in my opinion at least, discussion of their legitimate claims tendentious, boring or lacking in good faith.
Mark, I have had an interest in the Russian situation since I was in my early teens and I got my hands on a 1906 copy of the Pears Cyclopediea which fascinated me with its description of the Russion Empire at that time. I don’t think that the links provided will inform me much more than I am on the complex situation in Georgia, and that of all of Russia’s satellites, which I have followed for many years, than I already am.
So please don’t accuse me of being wilfully ignorant of the facts. The fact that I don’t agree with you on a topic doesn’t mean i am ignorant. It just may mean that I am bewtter informed.
Russia’s expansionism is a fascinating topic, and at one time, unsurprisingly given my European cultural heritage, I took the Russian side in it. But then when you see the horrors inflicted by the Russians in imposing their world view on the countries on their periphery when they absorb them you begin draw back from taking that perspective. I think I was helped in my understanding when I was at boarding school with a kid whose father was Latvian then later by having a Polish friend whose parents had escaped Russian rule. The complexities in their hearts, sure, inherited from their parents who had lived under Russian rule and filled their kids with the memory of their dread of it, were not tendentious, nor boring, nor lacking in good faith.
What I find tendentious, and boring, and lacking in good faith is the instinctive vectoring in on the American angle such as:
There is plenty to criticise about the American policy regarding Chavez but that deserves criticism in its own right and should not be used as a stupid rhetorical device (not my words) to give the Russians a free card in Georgia.
What I find tendentious, and boring, and lacking in good faith are those posters here (and I will be most happy to identify their posts if you wish), who see this as just another opportunity to bash ChimpHitlerOilMurderer.
No it doesn’t. It just faces up to the fact that they were Hitler’s allies while Britain and its Commomwealth (including ourselves) faced him alone and that they would have gladly seen us go down to him until he launched Operation Barbarossa on them in June 1941. Then they had no choice but to fight with us, but they would not have done so otherwise.
It’s about time you got rid of your delusions about benign communist intent. They are no better than the rest of us.
Apologies if I was being testy, GregM. A bit overworked and sleep deprived at the moment.
I agree that all the world’s ills need not be blamed on Bush, but I still think there’s a reasonable case to be made that Bush’s adventurist approach - rhetoric heavy - to foreign policy generally has had its malificent effects in this instance. Shaakazvili appears to have taken it more seriously than it warranted.
“To argue that they only did it for themselves ignores and belittles their overwhelming contribution that allowed all the allies collectively to win against Germany.”
Well..they did do it for themselves, Peter. Which in no way detracts from the ultimately mutually beneficial effect of so doing.
Stalin signed his pact with Hitler in the full expectation that the western democracies and Nazi Germany would tear themselves apart in an extended conflict from which he would be the ultimate beneficiary.
He was famously wrong about that and Russians paid a terrible price.
It’s doubtful that the Red Army would have prevailed without the Murmansk convoys and massive American aid, albeit that the carnage that the Nazis unleashed on the civilian populations of the Ukraine and Russia (identical to that which the Russians unleashed on post-Pact Poland and the Baltic republics in 39/40/41) provided a powerful incentive to engage.
But I think you’d agree that painting this as some sort of selfless altruism would be a misreading of history. As Mark would no doubt counsel us, we need to see it in the complexity in which it framed.
Actually, I’d be counselling that this interchange seems a bit off topic, Geoff, though perhaps someone can enlighten me as to its relevance.
You’re absolutely right about that Mark, but you know how it is….lazy Sunday, read a comment, etc.
“Shaakazvili appears to have taken it more seriously than it warranted.”
Hardly surprising with Condy - a virtual resident of Georgia, in his ear - and McCain goading him on with both phonecalls and extra firepower.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/mccain-to-send-his-wingmen-to-georgia/
The guy was dropped in American Republican soup.
Ps Mark you are not “testy” but have the patience of a saint.
Exactly Geoff, my original point in one sentence about “heavy lifting” appears to have been misconstrued. And it’s a bit off topic as Mark points out.
Meantime “Head of World Congress of Russian Jewry accuses Georgia of genocide”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1012157.html
And also at Haaretz:
As I commented on another thread, “masterstroke” is the word, but I guess “Evil Empire” Reaganesq bloviating will get another outing.
Russia seems to be “enjoying” taking their time to pull out:
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=299512
Overarching all this persiflage about comparative hypocrisies of the nuclear superpowers looms the question about what Russia thinks it is achieving through this act of humiliation of the Georgian government and its supporters, patrons and mentors.
Even if Russia achieves the liquidation of Georgian sovereignty, the question still remains whether Russia can use this modality to signal and to pattern its relationships with the rest of the world.
Not even a superpower is capable of ordering its affairs by bluster, threat and bellicosity. By the time the Russian government recognises this, Russia may well have eroded its credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of the rest of the world.
For who is going to trust Russia and who is going to believe that relationships with Russia can be conducted on the basis of win/win after this?
Russia is committing a serious error in it foreign policy.
GregM, claiming that Russia’s actions have nothing to do with foreign policy seems to require that you ignore the creeping encirclement by NATO, the missile shields, American sponsorship of the colour revolutions, American trainers in Georgia, and American military aid to Georgia. Their military budget has increased massively in the last 5 years. If Russia were doing the converse to, say, France, you wouldn’t be arguing that French adventurism had “nothing to do with” Russian foreign policy.
It’s possible to recognize Russia’s actions as being a little more nuanced than just straight-out Imperial belligerence without hailing them as saints, you know.
Katz re:
As a general principle I’d agree, the USA is a prime example, BUT, only for a relative short period in the 21st century can any power get away with it without serious consequences. I’d suggest that Russia has no need to repeat this venture in the near future, the lesson has well and truly sunk in to former USSR states, the EU and the USA.
With the EU dependent on Russia for some 25% of its gas supplies, such credibility and trustworthiness continues as long as they don’t turn off the gas, which is in no-ones’s interest. The west needs Russia more than they need the west, additionally for international cooperation in so many areas, not the least of which is the Iran issue.
We can “trust” Russia to look after its interests first and foremost, and especially in its own backyard. Cuba springs to mind as a parallel vis a vis the US.
Masterstroke is how I would describe it. Time will tell and you could conceivably be right if the Russian’s overcook it.
sg. I’ve made no such claim. It has everything to do with foreign policy. That is Russia’s foreign policy which has been , for the last three hundred years to solve its perceived problems by swallowing up its neighbours.
Is it any wonder then that its neighbours look for protection from anywhere they can get it; NATO etc.
Perhaps if you knew a bit more about Russian history and foreign policy you’d take a more nuanced in your appreciation of what’s happening in Georgia than blaming their neighbours.
However if your confused comment about France means that I’d see things differently if the Russians were invading France rather than Georgia well the last time they did that was in 1812 and I think that on that occasion they did the right thing.
What we should all be worried about is what adventure “McCain for President” and Co, will come up with next, having taken this shameless little trip for peas (sic) in our time.
No it wasn’t Peter. It was perfectly correctly construed. And rebutted.
I’d argue that US non-recognition of the Castro regime was also a foreign policy mistake.
However, the status of Cuba is of peripheral moment in US strategy (unlike its momentously stupid non-recognition of the PRC).
I’d rank Russia’s military adventure in Georgia somewhere between these two US mistakes in terms of magnitude. Russia’s status as an energy supplier is its trump card. Judicious playing of favourites among NATO consumers would appear to be the proper road for Russia to travel.
Sabre rattling merely complicates this otherwise simple game. Germany especially appears to be gagging to make itself amiable to Russia. Georgia just makes this process of cosying up to Russia more difficult than necessary.
The point stands GregM, with the qualifications I’ve given on the semantics of “for us”. Your interpretation implying Russian altruism by me was incorrect and a strawman. “For us” = the Allies didn’t have the impossible job of making mincemeat out of 300 Wehrmacht divisions, the Ivans did it “for us”.
Can we get back to the substantive issues now?
GregM, I was meant to say “nothing to do with American foreign policy” (which was your exact statement in your first comment here).
Indeed Katz, but France is not far behind that-notably both France and Germany put the kybosh on Bush’s pushing for Ukraine and Georgia’s entry to Nato on 3 April this year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/world/europe/03nato.html
Oops, another in the spam bin. Has the spaminator taken a dislike to New York Times links?
Yes.
And Russian sabre-rattling adds a complicating ethico/judicial element to French and German calculations about their relative levels of compliance with the US or Russia.
Time is on the side of Russia so long as Russia does not overplay its hand.
Publius at Obsidian Wings on John McCain’s “good and evil” foreign policy and how dangerous it is:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/08/the-dangerous-w.html
“It’s doubtful that the Red Army would have prevailed without the Murmansk convoys and massive American aid”
Oh the Russkies would have prevailed sooner or later, with or without Western help. Remember their main high tech manufactured weapons that really made a difference like T-34s and Il-2 Sturmoviks were being churned out in quantity well before Western support came on line. Plus, if yer talking about totalitarian states with immense population, geographical and raw material resources, mobilised for total war because they were invaded, then no one will ever beat Russia on these terms.
No doubt a few thousand deuce and half trucks helped out. But you have to say that Stalin would have eventually pissed on Hitler’s grave with or without Western help. Only room for one mustachioed dictator in Eurasia by then. At least we stopped him at the Elbe.
At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa (June 1941), the Wehrmacht budgeted 500,000 horses to transport supplies to the front line.
Yes, horses! The bulk of Wehrmacht supplies was carried by horses.
Nothing had changed by the Battle of Staingrad (the end of 1942), except for the fact that by then most of those horses had been killed or disabled and nothing replaced them.
Stalingrad was 2000 miles from Germany.
Imagine fighting the Red Army 2000 miles in enemy terrirory when relying on non-existent horses.
The Wehrmacht could have beaten the Red Army? It is to laugh.
A lot of people here are of view Russia’s invasion of Ossetia and parts of Georgia is less of an abuse than Israels invasion of Sth Lebanon. I struggle to see the parallel. Just how many missiles were the Georgians launching into Russia daily ala Hezbollah?
I must have missed the debate and authorisation in the UNSC for Russia’s response. Even if you fall on the side of the legal argument that the Iraq Invasion was illegal to say the Russians even made a modicum of a similar effort to the COTW is twaddle. Likewise where is the decade plus of non compliance with UNSC resolutions by Georgia?
If anything the Left have to race to put out their spin on these “comparisons” as it displays the weaknesses of their opposition to the Bush Administrations actions even further.
I also note with interest this attitude of expanding NATO is provocative. You would do well to remind yourselves that those nations looking to join NATO are soveirgn and have every right to decide for themselves which defence alliances they wish to enter. In no way does it authorise Russia to use force or meddle in their affairs. How quickly you people give away other people’s rights and freedoms if it means the chance to have a crack at the Bush Admin.
You’d be lucky to fill a thimble on this site with sympathy for the Baltics Ukraine Georgia etc. To busy being “clever” and sophisicated “realists”. Could there be a more weasly invention than foreign policy “realism”.
Immanuel Wallerstein’s analysis:
http://www.binghamton.edu/fbc/commentr.htm
How about “principled” bellicosity that pledges the “courageous” sacrifice of someone else’s last drop of blood?
Thanks, suz, that’s an astute piece of analysis from Wallerstein.
On the Georgia thing, has anyone else seen the awesome photos taken by a soldier in Georgia? They are on Andrew Bolts blog. They make most war pics look like Disney, and it’s kind of amazing how Bolt kind of ignores how awesome they are in favour of saying ‘Russians are bad!.’
I read Hobsbawm’s On Globalization essays over the week-end. One of his themes was the end of the balance of power scenario after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Another of the arguments is that any effort by a state to establish global domination is doomed to fail because it’s beyond the reach of the possible. The inference is that American hegemony is a temporary situation.
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Putin seems to me to be reasserting Russian power as well as testing the States. Georgia is allied with the US so in order to maintain that alliance it had to intervene. Russia wanted to see if the would. It’s global chess again. The Russians and the Yanks like playing chess.
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Thing is the Rooskies are trying to win back influence. The old games never change. After all the new NATO frontline is controlled from Warsaw - http://www.praguemonitor.com/en/402/czech_national_news/26885/