Georgia, Russia and us

The chatter on the airwaves is disturbing the past several days.  What has been a largely unknown area for most Americans suddenly becomes front page news:  the 'western leaning' government of Georgia in the Caucasus apparently tries to suppress separatists in part of its territory and suddenly finds the Russian Bear bombing and strafing its way within fifty miles of Tiblisi, the Georgian capital.   The friendly government of this tiny country cries for help from its friends in the West.   After all,  the road to the Tiblisi airport is named for President George Bush.   Is this another Hungary in 1956? 

Sadly the story is more complicated than that.  Aren't they always?  The separatist region of South Ossetia has been fighting, for good or ill,  its connection to Georgia for over a decade and the nominal separation, though testy,  has been "policed" by Russian troops and has functioned,  much like the Kurds in Iraq,  as an autonomous region.  Georgia,  on August 7th,  followed a negotiated settlement with the South Ossetian separatists with a substantial attack aimed at the regional capital.    

Much of the subsequent conversation from Georgia has ignored their military foray.  The Russian military response to the Georgian move was swift, harsh,  and probably as cruelly anticipated as the move of a cat waiting for a mouse to make its second or third run in safety before pouncing.   The Georgian president, Mr. Saakashvili, has pleaded for more than oral support from the West.   It is frightening to think that he believed that Russia would not take umbrage and advantage on the one hand as much as that he believes America and the West would step in to help in such an ill-conceived adventure.   

The Russians may have long laid the plans for this slap in the face to neighboring democratic impulses, indeed may have hoped for it.   But this should be no surprise.  The past several years have been marked by resurgent nationalism in Russia matched with a 'chip on the shoulder' attitude fostered by American and western moves to reduce Russia's sphere of influence to its national  boundaries,  to marginalize it in international conversations,  and to create NATO and other connections on Russia's doorstep that create great anxiety.   How long has Russia been protesting that the regional missile shield in central Europe advocated by the Bush administration is a thinly-veiled poke in the eye to Russian stature and safety.

Russia's leaders may be many things but they are not stupid.  Their pragmatism is profound. They have made great strides at fanning the fires of nationalism, creating a sense among the Russian people of their lost stature,  and disabling opposition voices and independent reporting on the outside world.   It is not such a monumental thing if the people of  Bolivia, with all due respect,  feel that they have been given a raw deal.   Russia is a large enough force in the world that their feeling of being 'persecuted' is as dangerous as that same sense in the Weimar Republic some seventy years ago.   

So it is that the foolish adventurism of Georgia's leadership provides the mechanism for Russian leaders to untrack their own "schicksal" a statement of Russian destiny.   Not only does it provide the opportunity,  but the Bush administration's past rhetoric of justification can easily be overlaid onto the Ossetia-Georgian situation.   The Georgians perfidiously invaded an area they had just negotiated an agreement with--like Sadaam invading Kuwait.   The Russians acted in response to this attack to 'protect innocent civilians and the peacekeeping forces'.   The idea that a military attack on another sovereign country was unacceptable died when the Bush administration invaded Iraq with a preemptive strike against what it called a regime that was threatening regional and world peace with WMD.   

Today it is difficult to say with a straight face that the Russians had less cause to slap Georgia than we did to attack Iraq.  While I find the Russian actions frightening in their calculation and ultimate goals,  I am hard pressed to see how we Americans can wrap ourselves in moral authority and point a finger, particularly on behalf of the foolish Georgian regime.   

The unfortunate reality may be that this is only the opening salvo in a simmering conflict of interests that will siphon energy from truly important undertakings that face the world.  And our leaders seem to be buying into rhetoric only worthy of a distant past and lacking the vision we need to survive the future.