The Georgia – Russia crisis: what was that all about?

The war is almost over
The conflict which erupted with sudden ferocity on August 8th, seems on the verge of sizzling out. The sides involved – Georgia, Russia, South Ossetia and Abhazia, will return to the status quo – or almost. The efforts of the two breakaway provinces of Georgia will now certainly be directed towards total absorption by their protector - Russia, not reintegration into Georgia. Georgia itself is the biggest loser – infrastructure losses form Russian bombardment, prestige losses for it’s army and political leadership, and a permanent loss of Abhazia and South Ossetia, which until this crisis have been poised in a judicial limbo, but now illusions of them returning to Georgia are dashed if not forever, then at least for the coming decades.
But what happened?
All these developments are the result of a drama, set off by the actions of the Georgian government. On August 7th, Georgia first agreed to a formal ceasefire with South Ossetia, and hours later launched a surprising blitz on the tiny quasi-state, before being overrun and pushed out by the Russian counter offensive. Whatever possessed Georgia’s leadership to take this step? Why suddenly attack a province, which is populated by Russian citizens (90 percent of south Ossetians hold Russian citizenship), and protected by the Russian army? What did the Georgian leadership try to prove? What gave them the hope that this gamble would pay off? A serious question especially now, that the world is a witness to how this gamble did not pay off, and disastrously so.
In the propaganda war Russia is the winner
Given the element of this absurd situation, Russia could not help but be the winner on the propaganda front. The president of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvilli, and other spokesmen for his regime put their money on the “nostalgia/idealism” oriented crisis PR – Georgia was presented as a tiny democracy being overrun by a giant authoritarian neighbor in the tradition of Hitler and Stalin conquering on false pretexts their neighbors. Undoubtedly a good choice of presenting the situation by the Georgian side, but their pleas did not convince the world. The far more realistic analogy to the current conflict is the Serbia – Kosovo crisis. And in this case – Georgia is the Serbia, and South Ossetia – the Kosovo. Although in reality the details of the situation are quite different from the Yugoslav wars, it is nevertheless these Balkan conflicts which come to mind, and not the third Reich annexing Czechoslovakia, or the USSR attacking Finland.
Bush’s credibility also low
Bush’s declarations concerning the “disproportionate and brutal” use of force by the Russians in their reply to the Georgian blitz, also ring hollow. Even if Bush was not a tired president at the end of his mandate, but still full of energy and determination, he would still not be convincing – after all, it is his government which reacted to the destruction of two skyscrapers by overrunning Iraq and Afghanistan. A bit late to speak of the dangers of disproportionate responses. In spite of both Georgian and Russian officials undermining each other’s credibility by carelessly flinging allegations of the fashionable “genocide” at each other,
For the fist time in decades Russia’s position in a conflict is the least compromised of all the sides involved
When the eyes of the world were focused entirely on Beijing, Mikhail Saakashvilli’s actions, and Russia’s counter actions pushed Georgia years back in a matter of mere days. In spite of all the atrocities during the Chechen wars, the crackdowns on the political opposition and on the freedom of speech, today Russian officials can be as smug as never before and they know it. After just a few days Russia is now seen again as an invincible superpower which has defeated utterly American-trained Georgians; it can again claim to be a peace-keeper which intervened on the side of the treacherously attacked South Ossetia; in fact, Ossestians having Russian passports – Russia’s position is utterly legitimate even if they do not claim to be peacekeepers, which they do, apparently from force of habit. What forced Georgia to give such a treat to Russia, at the price of its own humiliation? Although this question is not spiritual,
The answer is in Tibet
March 2008. China is preparing to show a face of happiness and prosperity to the world, the Olympic Games are imminent. Suddenly – unrest in Tibet, people breaking windows, setting cars on fire, looting. Another strange phenomenon. Tibetan Buddhist monks are known for not setting fire to things and looting, so who was in that crowd? In the best communist traditions, a trouble making crowd is made up of policemen in mufti, and the lumpen proletariat. Many are the occasions on which a communist regime may need some “violent rabble” on the street for some reason or other. But why March 2008? Why risk the world’s condemnations just before inviting the world to Beijing? What did China have to gain by producing days of rampage in Tibet, bearing the brunt of western criticism, and then rapidly putting down the protests? This brief eruption of violence on the western side of China happened simultaneously with another process on the east side of China, a process of the utmost importance for China’s national priorities:
Future unification with Taiwan
Although the unrest in Tibet gave various second-hand advantages to China’s government – it unified politically the Chinese population, it laid bare the extent to which the west is ready to criticize, without endangering its good relations with China; the main advantage was that the drama achieved its direct purpose. Influenced by the reports from Tibet, the Taiwanese public chose to elect into government those, who promised to build closer ties with China. The show of force in Tibet at the time of the elections in Taiwan paid off completely – the island nation is closer to China then ever, and set to move closer still.
In the 21st century geopolitics include influencing elections
Now that we have seen the other example from this year of how an orchestrated conflict on one side of the continent can influence elections on the other side, its time to return to the Caucasus mountains. What or who gave Georgia’s new leadership the idea that they can and must act in the way that they did? On August 11th Poland’s legendary opposition leader Lech Walesa gave an interview to the polish radio TOK FM, in which he said, that Georgian president Saakashvilli made a mistake by following the advice of untrustworthy western diplomats. What diplomats? What part of the west did they come from? This is not as hard to figure out as it first seems. Georgia is the ally of US, but more importantly – the ally of American neoconservatives
On the surface the aftermath of this short war seems to bode well only for Russia – it came out as the military, propaganda and prestige winner. Georgia is the loser – not only also in the fields of military power, propaganda and prestige, not only the infrastructure losses, not only its current regime is set ready to tumble after this disastrous military adventure, but Georgian democracy itself may be under threat. This should also spell a geopolitical setback for the USA. But that depends on what we mean by the USA, because Bush’s USA is almost over, and the world awaits either Obama’s or McCain’s USA. And now we come to the core of the problem: suppose certain groups have invested in a presidential candidate. Suppose he appears to be losing to his younger opponent. America no longer seems to need the “old guard”. For what is the old guard good for, except to resist the
Old super-enemy Russia
So, now, if we are ready to lay aside our pink glasses, we can deduce the whole picture. The new government in Georgia is desperately trying to escape Russia’s influence. It is looking for protection from the USA. Its leaders quickly learn to speak the correct words about democracy, freedom, liberty and transparency. They are even seduced by a promise of joining NATO in the misty future. And then certain American diplomats appear. They tell the Georgian government, which is eager to please, that now the time has come to strike. Now is the time to regain Georgia’s territorial integrity once and for all. The Russians will bark but they will not bite. And Georgia’s government believed them, to its downfall. But the objectives of those mysterious diplomats have been achieved - now the American public has again remembered that Russia is their super-enemy, the arch-villain of freedom, liberty and everything decent. And support for the only man who appears to be able to deal with Russia the super-enemy, is on the rise. Where would we be without the “old guard’?
This is all theoretical of course,
But as all political analysts know – if you watch enough of the official news, you begin to get an idea of what goes on beneath the surface. It looks like history has again gone a full circle, and we are back to the pre WWI years, where the leaders of nations are playing complicated chess games against each other, using real people and even small nations as pawns. Is this the legendary “stability” which everyone seems to be after? Perhaps. But at what cost? For an immediate answer, we only have to look at the pictured from Georgia.