Russia Recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia: A Milestone in the Lower-Case Cold War

The following is actually a prequel to the 28 August Glocom Commentary. I liked this one better, but Glocom understandably went with the later one on this fast-moving topic.

On a further note: The Western media sees the refusal of the other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to recognize independent South Ossetia and Abkhazia as a setback for Russia. (Typical example: NYT.) I don’t think so. Given all the ethnic and religious minority issues that its members have—starting with China—I don’t think that Russia had any illusions in the first place. The relatively neutral stance that SCO adopted was the best that Russia could have hoped for. The situations in the other points of West-Russia contention are very different from that with regard to Georgia. But the chill has set in; the rest of the world is going to stay on the sidelines, and that is what the SCO statement is all about.

I believe that, as geopolitical mistake go, the failure to bring Russia under the umbrella of accepted norms of the West is bigger, if of smaller practical consequence to Japan, than President Bush's war in Iraq. A plausible argument can be made that a large, possibly definitive, part of the error with regard to Iraq was operational. There, it is hard to deny that with better planning and execution things would have turned out much better.

With Russia, the problem is conceptual and strategic. At a moment of extreme Russian weakness, the West laid out a vision for an expanded post-Cold War NATO that explicitly excluded Russia. The Bush administration continued to pursue this and other geopolitical goals that had been questionable in the first place and became increasingly counterproductive in terms of national, regional and global security when Russia saw major improvements in its geopolitical assets―national cohesion, natural resources―and began to exercise them accordingly.

It did not help that the West pushed the markers deeper, and harder, into Russia's former sphere of sovereignty and influence as time went on. The United States successfully sought to place antiballistic missile defense system of dubious military value near Russia's borders and refused Russian offers of cooperation in their regard. The West accepted over strenuous Russian objections the demands of ethnic Albanians Kosovo for full sovereignty. The West extended offers of eventual NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia even while unwilling and unable to protect them through what would inevitably be a dangerous period of transition.

Yet even after the "ceasefire" in South Ossetia, Russian actions were graduated. But the U.S. response―sending warships, sealing an agreement with Poland on the missile defense system, generally confrontational rhetoric―left no room for Russia to scale back the post-battle confrontation. Although I was still surprised that Russia actually recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia, it is the logical culmination of a long string of actions on both sides that began when the West decided to exclude Russia from its vision of a united Europe.

What's done is done though. I don't see either side trying to walk back this escalation process any time soon. Although Russia is not going to challenge the United States in its global reach―this is not a return to the Cold War, in the upper case at least―it will create even more mischief in the Middle East and other places where it can harm U.S. interests. The asymmetry between the two political economies makes this a much easier task for Russia than it would be for, say, China. There's fallout on the other side too. It is also hard to see any U.S. administration clearing the way for Russian accession to the WTO any time soon. I would also be surprised to see the U.S. President taking part in a G-8 summit process, i.e. one that continues to include Russia. The G8 could revert to the G7, or even be suspended for the indefinite future. These and other ramifications will be consequences that lesser nations like Japan will have to live with as an unpleasant fact of life

The silver lining to this most recent cloud is that Russia has made its point; it has achieved in South Ossetia and Abkhazia a new military, demographic and political equilibrium. It has bitten off a piece of an outpost of the West that it needs to chew over and digest. Thus, there appears to be a little time before something else happens to further disrupt the status quo. During this lull,, if it is possible for the United States to discreetly send a message that it is willing to explore alternative ways to enhance its security without neglecting the concerns of its new allies on Russia's borders―would refraining from setting a timetable for the BMD deployment in Poland without scrapping the plan altogether work?―that would go a long way to defusing the immediate situation and ultimately begin scaling back what has become a geopolitical confrontation of major proportions.

A Few Links on the Russo-Georgia War Georgia-Russia Conflict

For those of you who have a casual interest in the Georgia-Russia conflict, here are a couple of links courtesy of Alex the expert that express what I have been saying here with incomparably greater expertise and eloquence: The Belgravia Dispatch (see August 9 and 11 posts, so far) the blog and Fred Kaplan* writing for Slate.

For the sake of cosmic balance, here’s a salvo from the opposite direction by Zbignew Brzezinski, an Obama supporter who has far more gravitas and overall mainstream credibility than your run-of-the-mill neocon. Never having relinquished his deep suspicion of Russia even during the balmiest of the post-Cold War years, he does not even mention NATO, let alone question the decision to expand it up to Russia’s borders and leaving her out in the cold. If pressed, he might argue that it doesn’t matter how we got here, we’re stuck with the Russian threat so let’s deal with it. Which segues into my next point.

The most notable development of late has been the Bush administration’s commitment of troops to Georgia. It does up the ante for any possible Russian ambitions beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Let's hope that the Bush administration uses this improvement in its strategic position to ease tension and ultimately negotiate down NATO expansion and not to see it as just one step in tightening the screws on Russia. The Bush administration's tendency to negotiate only from a position of deteriorating strength suggests that the latter will be the case, which will only help President Saakashvili sustain his fantasies. I hope that I'm wrong.

* A fund manager, a conservative, in Japan stopped writing to me when I defended one of his articles. But that was during the early years of the ongoing war in Iraq.

Georgia on My Mind. Again

Russia Today’s report appears to be the closest to authoritative rendition of the “six-point peace plan” that President Sarkozy and President Medvedev offered to President Saakashvili. To quote:

At a meeting in Moscow, the Russian and French presidents called for the sides to sign up to the following principles:

1) Non-use of force.
2) Stop all military action.
3) Free access to humanitarian aid.
4) Georgian troops return to their previous positions before the conflict.
5) Russian troops return to the lines they held before the start of the military operation. Before an international solution is worked out Russian peacekeepers are taking up an additional security role.
6) The start of an international discussion over the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

According to BBC, the following is the deal that President Saakashvili accepted, six hours later:

1) No more use of force
2) Stop all military actions for good
3) Free access to humanitarian aid
4) Georgian troops return to their places of permanent deployment
5) Russian troops return to pre-conflict positions
6) International talks about future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia… This was later dropped from the BBC online report.

Note the difference between the two versions in the wording for points 4) and 5) (assuming that it is not merely the result of using different translators). The initial version appears to allow both sides to maintain positions taken up in the pre-conflict build-up but allows Russia to take up further positions in the name of an “additional security role”. The final agreement requires Georgia to give up any positions taken up in the pre-conflict build-up but allows Russia to maintain positions taken up in the pre-conflict build-up. Both versions confirm the Russia victory in the war, and the practical on-the-ground consequences may be more or less the same, though both sides will be haggling (and perhaps sometimes even shooting at each other) over individual situations. However, the wording of the final agreement does reduce the level of ambiguity exploitable by the Russian side. That must have been portrayed as a concession by Mr. Sarkozy in bringing Mr. Saakashvili around.

I am somewhat surprised that Russia agreed to drop point 6). From the Russian point of view, an “international discussion over the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazi” would have been a delightfully ironic counterpart to the UN-Sponsored talks over the future status of Kosovo. And everyone knows how that ended up. And where everybody was as the talks unfolded. The Russians must have wanted to issue a reminder so that no one would forget and that everyone would act accordingly. That would not have meant that Russia would be annexing the two territories any time soon. In fact, it would have been yet another piece of circumstantial evidence that it would not press such claims. Russian authorities must be confident that it has made its point, so that at least a breakaway, or two, is always looming, in case Georgia does not behave itself. And that the West makes sure that he does so.

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Media reports tell us that many Georgians are talking up the brokered ceasefire agreement as a victory. Incredible, but I guess they need something to salvage their self-esteem with, and the Georgian authorities are not going to discourage such talk. To be fair, we’ve seen much, much worse in WW-II Japan; in fact, so bad that Daihonei Happyo, or Supreme Headquarters Announcement, passed into the post-WW II lexicon as the favored term to express disbelief at self-serving, blatantly untruthful statements. In any case, President Saakashvili is between a rock and a hard place. To escape blame for his disastrous decision-making, he must keep faulting Russia for the outbreak of hostilities and not be seen “caving” to Russia; yet to salvage what he can for Georgia out of the mess, he must make peace with the Russian leadership. He can’t blame the United States for not coming to the rescue either, because at the end of the day there’s no one else to turn to.

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Has the fact that Russia has given South Ossetians Russian passports struck you as odd? I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t a big deal until just a couple of days ago. It may seem quite natural to Europeans, but in case anyone else is also wondering, here’s a hint: North Ossetia. Need another? Chris Kaman.

Georgia Falls Victim to Pipeline Politics? Not in the BBC Report

I’ve written before about how BBC copy editors like to slap on headlines that at best misrepresent the content of the articles, presumably to push preferred narratives. Georgia Falls Victim to Pipeline Politics is another one of those. That Georgia is a victim, there is no denying. And “pipeline politics” is one of the culprits. After all, not even President Saakashivili would have believed that the West would have his back in the event of a showdown with Russia if the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline and other projects to allow oil and gas from Central Asia to bypass Russian territory hadn’t existed and Western leaders hadn’t talked him up because of them. But this report has nothing about all that. It’s a (perfectly good) story about the projects and ideas and how they are likely to be affected negatively by the Russia-Georgia conflict. The victim in the article as written is pipeline politics, if anyone.