Georgia's Gamble

This article first appeared in Haaretz on August 11, 2008.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1010241.html#resp

In one scenario presented in a 2001 video game, U.S. Special Forces are inserted into the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to help counter a Russian invasion. This might have been just a game, but it eerily presaged a Russian nationalist government flexing its muscles in the Caucasus in 2008. However, it is highly unlikely that in real life, American, or for that matter any Western troops will be brought in to help the Georgians in stemming the Russian onslaught.

The fog of war and information is still thick, but the first impression is that the youthful, pro-Western Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, miscalculated badly when he ordered his forces into the breakaway region of South Ossetia. But analysts had expressed worry in the past that Saakashvili was impetuous and prone to overreact, as he did during a November 2007 crackdown against protesters. And there are signs that the Russians may have laid a trap in South Ossetia, gradually exacerbating the situation, leading the Georgians to make a play for a blitz operation aimed at restoring Tbilisi's sovereignty over the territory. It seems that the words of an expert on the region, Dr. Dimitris Triantaphyllou, were prophetic when he warned at a conference on regional security last summer that, "The Georgians have a mistaken notion that the Americans will come in to save them." Indeed, the West had been doing its best to avoid getting sucked into a conflict in the Caucasus in any real way, and in retrospect the decision to refuse Georgia NATO membership at the Bucharest summit in April was correct.

A showdown between the Medvedev/Putin regime and the Rose Revolution Georgians, who took over following the resignation of former Soviet leader Edward Shevardnadze in 2003, had been building up for some time. Some dire scenarios have the Russians wanting to push Saakashvili to the brink, replacing him with a more pliable government in Tbilisi and restoring Russian predominance - and near-complete control over the energy pipelines - in the Caucasus. The bid by the Saakashvili government for both NATO and future European Union membership is perceived by Russia as a direct threat to its "natural" sphere of influence and a challenge to the fundamentals of Vladimir Putin's strategy for restoring Moscow's status as a major power through command of energy supplies to Europe.

As the UN Security Council haggles and maneuvers toward agreement on a resolution that Moscow will surely insist is lacking in meaning, the immediate question is whether the conflict will escalate. There are fears that in spite of the Georgian call for a cease-fire, the clashes will turn into an all-out Russian ground offensive, perhaps sparked by "volunteer" forces flowing into South Ossetia from another Moscow-backed breakaway region, Abkhazia, and even from Chechnya. Clearly, rhetoric and emotions are running high, with hyperbolic language and terms that are so familiar from recent conflicts, like "ethnic conflict" and "genocide." But it is also clear that a long-lasting conflict would not favor either side.

The Georgians can certainly not carry on the fight against the Russian mass for much longer, and unless Moscow makes a move against Tbilisi, it is unlikely that the Western powers will offer more than words of support to Saakashvili. For its part, Russia has already achieved two main objectives: It has established the status quo ante in the breakaway territories even more firmly than before; and has shown its power on the ground, reaffirming its sphere of influence in the Caucasus and possibly other areas on its borders (Ukraine, for example). Will it now seek Saakashvili's head?

Besides its local and immediate implications, this recent flare-up in the Caucasus raises a much broader question about the nature of world order, the place of small countries, like Georgia, in the international system, and the question of sovereignty. For all their mistakes, the Georgians are right when they point out that the fighting in their country is about the fundamentals of international law, that their sovereignty has been violated by Russia and that without Moscow, Abkhazian and South Ossetian separatists would be unable to challenge the central government in Tbilisi.

It is hard for any citizen of a small country not to feel sympathy for the Georgians who, unlike the Serbians, do not have the likes of Slobodan Milosevic and the massacre at Srebrenica to contend with as they seek international sympathy. It is no wonder that the Russian government spokesmen have gone so far as to raise the possibility that Saakashvili should be taken to The Hague as a war criminal, in a blatant effort to defuse the David vs. Goliath imagery.

But public sympathy will do little for Georgia, just as it does for Tibet and Darfur, and as it did in Chechnya and the former Yugoslavia. In the international chess game, small actors like Georgia have little choice but to play by the rules dictated by the behemoths on their borders - until the tables are turned and new opportunities for genuine independence are created.
Michalis Firillas
August 10, 2008

The final NATO summit of President George Bush

A version of this analysis was published in the Hebrew Print Edition of Haaretz on 2 April, 2008.

NATO summits are unique in that they occur at important junctures in the alliance's future. Indeed, the organization itself describes them as serving to “address issues of overarching political or strategic importance.” The Bucharest summit will do just that, with particular focus on further NATO expansion and the role its forces could play in missions, like Afghanistan and Kosovo. And even though it is not discussed openly, underlying this final summit for President George Bush, is the role his administration has played in furthering policies that many critics have described as ‘divisive’ for the alliance.

Arguably, no American president ever started his relationship with NATO with such promise only for it to culminate in divisions that have led some observers to openly question the alliance's future relevance. For the first time in its history, NATO invoked Article 5 of its charter in response to 9/11, mobilizing the alliance in the defense of a member state. But since the early days of the war on terror, consensus within the alliance frayed as the Bush administration became increasingly unilateralist in its approach. Not only did veteran NATO members grow critical of Bush's policies in Iraq, but most of those who did commit troops to missions, like Afghanistan, became reluctant to authorize the deployment of their forces in areas of heavy fighting. Most recently, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates criticized allies like Germany, for what he described as their unwillingness to fight, which he said is creating a two-tier alliance.

If the unilateralism of the Bush administration ruffled the feathers of some of more established members, it did not deter the new members, countries of the former Warsaw Pact. For yet other countries, particularly from the Balkans, but also states like Ukraine and Georgia, contributing to the U.S.-led operations abroad came to be regarded as a ticket to future membership. Indeed, Bush is now pushing hard to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. Not only is Russia strongly opposed to any such possibility, which will bring the NATO alliance even closer to its territory, but France and Germany are also against the move, worried that it may threaten European-Russian relations and have immediate consequences on energy supplies.

But if there is something that encapsulates the Bush administration's willingness to approach European security issues unilaterally, as it takes advantage of its relative popularity among former Soviet satellites, it is the missile defense system Washington is negotiating with Poland and the Czech Republic. Russian reaction has been fierce, threatening to target capitals of the alliance with nuclear weapons. Not only in Paris and Berlin, but at NATO's Brussels headquarters too, the notion that the U.S. was independently negotiating the deployment of a missile defense system drew strong criticism. In any case, the issue is still pending, with Warsaw and Prague playing hard ball with Washington, hoping for a better package of benefits.

However, not all is bleak when looking at the Bush 'imprint' on the alliance. The new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose declared admiration for America had drawn criticism at home, has said that he would like to see France return to NATO's joint command structure, and promised French combat troops for Afghanistan. This summit will also usher in two new members – Albania and Croatia – and if the dispute over Macedonia's name is resolved, it too will join the alliance. These are countries eager to toe the American line in return for investment opportunities and help in upgrading their military capabilities.

It is important to remember that NATO, in spite its shortcomings, has succeeded as an alliance since 1949 because it is based on consensus. A great part of that consensus relies on the belief of all member states that it is better to be in the alliance than out of it – and for this they are willing to compromise. As such, even an administration as divisive and uncompromising as that of George Bush is not likely to leave an indelible mark on the alliance – which may mean that NATO will continue its slow evolution, from a Cold War alliance to a catalyst for peace.

Michalis Firillas

1 April, 2008