Yesterday I mentioned the increasing belligerence of Russia and its aggression towards Georgia. Today, Moscow has threated force should Georgia attempt to retake its own territory militarily. The first assumption here, is that Georgia is somehow preparing for war, a charge which Moscow has almost certainly invented to buy a short term advantage. In doing so, it opens a short window of time in which it can move additional “peacekeepers” into Abkhazia and South Ossetia ostensibly for peaceful purposes. By the time there’s a consensus among the West about whether Georgia indeed took such provocative actions, it will be too late. Its first step was to formalize ties with each of the two regions and Russia’s current action should be seen clearly as a second step towards the same goal, annexation of Georgia’s sovereign territory.
By the time the OSCE, NATO or the EU ever formally meet to discuss the situation, which is as clear as daylight. However, the Russians are clever and have developed a “legitimate” reason to intercede: the safety of Russian citizens. As the BBC notes,
Mr Lavrov said that Russia had to protect Russian-passport holders in the regions and that if Georgia took military action, Russia would have to take “retaliatory measures”.
This tactic has been ongoing in both regions as Russia freely hands out passports to locals in order to put a legitimate face on its illegal occupation of both regions. The EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said “Even if the increase in peacekeepers is within limits, if we want to diminish the perception of tensions, I don’t think it is a wise measure to increase now”. But as I noted yesterday, these limp wristed and spineless comments will only convince Russia of Europe’s lack of will to do anything, should Russia go to war with Georgia. The US and what’s left of our NATO allies must take a clear stand and back Georgia with equally convincing threats of force.
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Comments to this entry
andrei lankov
April 30, 2008
12:35 pm
mihnea
April 30, 2008
1:56 pm
andrei lankov
April 30, 2008
2:36 pm
IJ
April 30, 2008
3:05 pm
the Australian government has quietly told the Chinese to withdraw for now more than 10 foreign investment applications to buy into Australian resources companies . . . “The Chinese government has launched a co-ordinated strategy to buy up as much of Australia’s strategic resources as possible”. . . Adding it all up, Chinese companies - many of them government-backed - have signed deals to spend more than $20bn on companies with a majority of their assets in Australia and in the process have bought the rights to spend another A$15bn-plus directly developing additional projects.
Jing
April 30, 2008
4:05 pm
Chirol
April 30, 2008
4:42 pm
The problem with people like Andrei is that they like to compare apples and oranges to make the oranges look better. While the West surely had some strategic interest in Kosovo, it was rather an added benefit to doing the right thing, not the primary motivator. Indeed, the West is happy to pull out its forces and let Kosovo stand on its own as soon as possible. Russia on the other hand, attempts to nakedly annex the territory of its sovereign neighbors only for geopolitical reasons and out of anger and shame of having lost former colonies which even then wanted nothing to do with the USSR.
That is the difference between the West and eastern despots like Russia. While we naturally make geopolitical and strategic calculations, we think about what's right too, even when we make mistakes. Russia and other autocracies can't be bothered to even treat their own people right, much less others.
jim
April 30, 2008
5:03 pm
That said, I don't think Europe or the US has the will to stand up to Russia. And it is a problem that a significant minority in George are pro-Russian. It's the same problem with Ukraine, where the pro-Russian minority is a very large minority.
I wonder what can be done to finally kill off the Russian despot. There was such hope after the Cold War that Russia could become a decent, normal European nation. But Russia quickly reverted back to her paranoid, backwards ways -- mainly because the average Russia is paranoid and backwards. Putin is a very popular man.
I'm glad the EU and NATO absorbed as much of Russia's former colonies as fast as it did in that brief post-Cold War window. A few years faster and we might have saved Georgia and Ukraine from the Russian bear. I hope we can still pull it off, but it's much harder now.
IJ
April 30, 2008
6:04 pm
Jing
April 30, 2008
6:08 pm
Nato essentially walked into the middle of a long simmering ethnic conflict where the Albanians were giving as much as they got in the atrocity department and arbitrarily picked the side out of self-interest and then self-servingly declared to all and sundry their chosen faction to be the oppressed.
blah stupid comment filter is messing everything up.
Michael
May 1, 2008
3:12 am
Yeah, a lot of their people will be upset. But they would then be free to join NATO and will have a great source of laughter on their hands when parts of Russia start applying the same logic to demand their own independence. What goes around, comes around . . .
aceface
May 1, 2008
4:12 am
Just because Albanians had higher birth rate than Serbs, doesn't change the fact that Albanian Kosovars had lived under social/pollitical conditions Chirol has mentioned,me think.
And "Yugoslavia dominated by Croats not Serbs"?
Tito was indeed a Croat and was the leader of Yugoslavia,just like Stalin was a Georgian and top Soviet leader.But Croats did leave Yugoslavia,just as Georgians are now following the footesteps.
R
May 1, 2008
12:44 pm
The Albanian Kosovars were surely discriminated against but that made them one of so many ethnic groups in a similar situation. Witness the Kurds, the Tibetans, the Chechens, etc., etc.
The Albanian Kosovars were able to draw the West in and the Serbs stupidly played into it. Just to be clear on the timeline, the 'ethnic cleansing' of the Kosovars by the Serbs was precipitated by the NATO bombing campaign. This does not excuse Serb actions.
In no way does the manner in which Kosovo achieved independence respect international law. Essentially certain foreign governments have imposed this on a sovereign country. Your dubious statement about Serbia's 'tenuous historical claim' to Kosovo notwithstanding.
Jing
May 1, 2008
1:09 pm
Albanians as a percentage of the population didn't rise just because they had higher birthrates. During the last decades of the existence of Yugoslavia, the Serbian population not only witnessed a relative decrease in population but also an absolute one. Secondly the increase in the Albanian component of Kosovos population didn't just rise because of birthrates, but more importantly because of immigration of ethnic Albanians into Kosovo.
Tito wasn't the only Croation leader of Yugoslavia, all of the leaders of the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia were Croats and much of the government ministry positions were also held by them.
Aceface
May 2, 2008
5:05 am
As I understand what Chirol was about to say in "Kosovar suffered for decades" is meant to say about the years of living under Tito's reigme and that of Milosevich,not this "decade"under KFOR occupation.
Was there so much Albanian migration into Kosovo from Albania,before 1990 that could change demographic balance? I think not.
I know some American leftist argue about this in relation to the criticism of Kosovo intervention,but it seems more Albanians fled to Albania from Kosovo in the 90's than the vice-versa.
"Tito wasn't the only Croatian Leader of Yugoslavia,All of the leaders of the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia were Croats"
Not true.
Tito build the leadership called "quadrumvirate" along with, Kardelj, Djilas, and Rankovic right after Belgrad split with Moscow in 1948.
Aleksandar Rankovic was a Serb.Edvard Kardelj was a Slovene and Milovan Djilas was a Montenegran.
Yugoslavia was made into collective presidency from 1974(officialy in action after death of Tito in 1980)
Allow me to use Wikipedia as the source(for it's convenient)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_leaders_of_communist_Yugoslavia
Aceface
May 2, 2008
5:06 am
As I understand what Chirol was about to say in "Kosovar suffered for decades" is meant to say about the years of living under Tito's reigme and that of Milosevich,not this "decade"under KFOR occupation.
Was there so much Albanian migration into Kosovo from Albania,before 1990 that could change demographic balance? I think not.
I know some American leftist argue about this in relation to the criticism of Kosovo intervention,but it seems more Albanians fled to Albania from Kosovo in the 90's than the vice-versa.
"Tito wasn't the only Croatian Leader of Yugoslavia,All of the leaders of the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia were Croats"
Not true.
Tito build the leadership called "quadrumvirate" along with, Kardelj, Djilas, and Rankovic right after Belgrad split with Moscow in 1948.
Aleksandar Rankovic was a Serb.Edvard Kardelj was a Slovene and Milovan Djilas was a Montenegran.
Yugoslavia was made into collective presidency from 1974(officialy in action after death of Tito in 1980)
There is a wikipedia entry called lists of leadres of Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia.And I also don't see Croats being dominant group there.
Don’t worry Jeff and Wes - Russia is not invading your Georgia. « Constitution Club
August 10, 2008
2:46 am