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COMMENTARY
August 30, 2008
Russia's shadow
Vladimir Putin’s Russia has now effectively annexed the districts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which formerly belonged to the sovereign state of Georgia. The Russian Duma technically recognized them as independent states this week (no other U.N. member has done so) -- but no one can seriously believe the Russians intend to withdraw from them, or even from the “buffer zones” they are now occupying on other Georgian territory. The two districts will be governed as military protectorates, by commanders from Moscow.Nor, after watching them ignore the terms of the disengagement agreement negotiated through President Sarkozy of France, have we any reason to expect the Russians will not continue to harass Georgia. Mr Putin himself has said the removal of Mikheil Saakashvili’s elected government in Tbilisi is a precondition for any final settlement of the issues. In some respects, the invasion only confirmed and completed Russian control (like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979). For Moscow had long since intervened through its “peacekeepers” and putative “foreign aid” programmes, in support of Russian nationals and separatists in the two districts. Both had mixed populations, with ethnically Georgian and other villages scattered across the landscape. The ethnic cleansing began with Russian-sponsored civil war in 1992-93 in Abkhazia, which created a huge flight of Georgian refugees. Thus, when Putin and Russia’s official president, Dmitry Medvedev, declare that they entered the districts to stop Georgian acts of genocide, they are telling the near-opposite of the truth. The early-August Georgian shelling of separatist positions in Tskhinvali, South Ossetia -- which the Russians used as their pretext for attacking positions all over Georgia -- was nothing like genocide. We now know that the number of casualties from that legitimate, if ill-advised, Georgian police action on its own territory, was a tiny fraction of Russian estimates that appeared in Western media. Conversely, the number of fresh Georgian refugees the Russians created was substantial. When Putin goes on, as he did this week, to state that the whole affair was contrived by the Bush administration, to advance Republican prospects in the coming U.S. election, we get a glimpse of how reckless he has become. However, the open display of Soviet-style thuggery has had the opposite to the intended effect. European countries are rightly alarmed, and somewhat intimidated, in the expectation that Russia will now play power games with their oil and gas supplies. But the overall effect has been to remind Europe of its military dependence on the United States, and drive wavering parties into closer association with NATO. Ukraine, the Baltic States, and the various ex-Communist states of Central Europe have spoken out sharply against Russia’s aggression, and have accelerated the pace of their integration with the West, in every possible area of endeavour. The Poles and Czechs have finished buying into the U.S. anti-missile shield. Even Belarus, Russia’s most obsequious ally in the past, has been shocked into extending diplomatic feelers westward. Significantly, China has remained aloof from the affair, and appears unwilling to risk her own Western interests by providing Russia with the usual diplomatic cover. The various states of Central Asia -- which Putin’s Russia also considers part of its “near abroad,” eligible for heavy-handed Russian meddling -- are likewise outwardly showing their aloofness, while discreetly scrambling to improve ties with the U.S. None could wish to share Georgia’s fate. From all these angles we may confidently say that Putin has made a grave strategic mistake. But it is a mistake that threatens the peace of the world, rekindles the Cold War, and may well have set the stage for mistakes still more egregious, as he tries to recover his losses. Our chief worry is over Turkey, which owns the Bosporus and thus the naval entrance to the Black Sea. Turkey is today the least reliable NATO member. She is flirting with fanatic Islamism, and anti-American demagoguery, and thus scouting alternative allies should she fully embark on her own anti-Western ideological sleepwalk. Iran and Russia are the alternative allies in her neighbourhood. A Turkish government that decided to deny the NATO fleet entry into the Black Sea, in order to help Russia choke Georgia’s lifeline, would be triggering its own major planetary crisis. The continued Russian occupation of the Georgian Black Sea port of Poti shows Moscow’s willingness to risk direct confrontation with U.S. and other NATO forces delivering relief supplies to Georgia. Putin could suddenly push forward, simply because he has left himself no room to back off.rn David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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