Ghost of a flea: Guidance for the perplexed

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August 13, 2008

Guidance for the perplexed

Lest anyone confuse Russian imperialism in Georgia with the shelter provided to the people of Kosovo by the United States Air Force (via the Drink Soaked Trots).

It is the basest sort of hypocrisy — Russia will invade Georgia over Ossetian independence, but has killed countless thousands of Chechens to prevent their independence. If the feeble-minded really must draw facile comparisons, they should look to the example of a powerful well-armed state (Serbia/Russia) threatening a much smaller state (Kosova/Georgia) using the pretext of a very small minority (Kosova 5%, Georgia 2%) and blood-curdling rhetoric emanating from far-right pan-Slavic nationalists.

Elsewhere in the aetherwebs, Spengler gets it exactly wrong.

The lack of consequences of Russia's incursion is a noteworthy fact, for never before in the history of the world has the world's economic and military power resided in countries whose fundamental interests do not conflict in any important way. The US enthused over Georgia's ambitions to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and encouraged Saakashvili to overplay his hand. Once it became clear that Russia would not tolerate a NATO member on its southern border, however, Washington had nothing to say about the matter, because no fundamental American interests were at stake.

On the contrary, fundamental American interests are at stake. The first of these is America's fundamental interest in liberty. As we have recently been reminded, the United States is not a nation, it is an ideological construct. It is worse for Americans to aquiesce before tyranny than it is for Canadians, we northerners have lower expectations of our government and - more importantly - of ourselves.

It is difficult to fault Spengler for his failure to grasp the point; his is that all too common cynicism proud to describe itself as "realism". But he should know better than to misunderestimate America's second fundamental interest at stake for it is not a product of Enlightenment or modernity but recognizable to every great power unto the Dark Ages and furthest antiquity: America is a great power - the greatest that has ever existed - and no great power may allow its clients to be so abused.

Related: Georgia and Georgia.

Update: Russia's Abkhazian proxies offer a case in point.

"The border has been along this river for 1,000 years," separatist official Ruslan Kishmaria told AP on Wednesday. He said Georgia would have to accept the new border and taunted the departed Georgian forces by saying they had received "American training in running away."

Next: Tbilisi.

Update: "Russia does not need a global force-projection capacity; it has sufficient power to muscle its neighbors and thereby humiliate not merely its enemies, but their entire moral pretensions as well." This and many more sensible observations from Victor Davis Hanson.

... Putin and Medvedev have called the West’s bluff. We are sort of stuck in a time-warp of the 1990s, seemingly eons ago in which a once-earnest weak post-Soviet Russia sought Western economic help and political mentoring. But those days are long gone, and diplomacy hasn’t caught up with the new realities. Russia is flush with billions. It serves as a rallying point and arms supplier to thugs the world over that want leverage in their anti-Western agendas. For the last five years, its foreign policy can be reduced to “Whatever the United States is for, we are against.”

And why not? This is the same foreign policy advocated by every Western "progressive".

Related: On the uselessness of thumb-sucking international organisations.

You can talk about 1938; you can talk about 1914; you can even, if you want to show off, talk about 1811-12: what is in no doubt is that, several times in the modern era, the course of history has been changed by an escalation from the sort of opportunistic bullying we have seen in Georgia, and only a fool would say it would not be again.
...
The world has become used to despising the United States for its foreign policy since 2001.

If it wishes to live safely, it had better reverse that opinion, and start to engage constructively in the search for a means to show Russia that appeasement does have an end.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at August 13, 2008 05:54 AM

Comments

I am all for kicking the Russian bear in the teeth when he deserves it, but I have no particular love for the Georgian government, either. They cosied up to the West and assumed (wrongly) that when they started caving in Ossetian heads, we'd come running to save them from the Russian response. Realpolitik doesn't work like that.

That said, yes, a great power should never allow its client states to be abused, but on the other hand, Georgia shouldn't be a Western client state. NATO has limited ability to project force into the Caucasus and it's also Russia's front yard. Russians are heavily delusional when it comes to NATO and they think its primary purpose was and is to invade the motherland and chop Russian heads. You start stationing NATO troops in Russia's immediate perimeter and they get angsty about invasion and start playing Alexsander Nevsky on TV to get the civilians revved up.

Putin or Medvedev are not going to be deterred by NATO membership for any country where Russia has a compelling national interest and the ability to deploy large numbers of forces very quickly. As one of Ben's readers points out, Putin is already on record stating that he would not tolerate moves against Russia-allied separatists. My preception is he also believes (correctly) that the West has no stomach for a general war with Russia.

And for a guy like Putin or Medvedev, a full-blown war is what it would take. A thousand or two light infantry airborne/RRF guys aren't going to make them pause. They'll just dump in another motorised rifle division and wave goodbye. This is Russian national interest, so they are prety balls-to-the-wall about it. Unless we are prepared to match them in intensity of response, they are simply not going to listen. And that's unlikely, because while it's philosophically in America's national interest, beyond the pipeline, I don't see a compelling economic or strategic interest.

The longer Russia gets petrobucks, the more Putin's cadre will want to shift the world back into Cold War spheres of influence and balances of power. Unfortunately we are not likely to adopt that sort of economic and defence footing unless shocked into it, so there will be a lot more Russian imperialism until we do. Or until oil revenues start sliding.

Posted by: Chris Taylor at August 13, 2008 11:29 AM

"we northerners have lower expectations of our government and - more importantly - of ourselves."

In foreign policy, this is known as "Terranceandphilipolitik."

Posted by: Bill from INDC at August 13, 2008 11:55 AM

Beefy post, Ghost. Interesting comments too, gentlemen. However--

"...Putin and Medvedev have called the West’s bluff."

When exactly has the EU asserted anything but capitulation? Condi is headed to Paris. Perhaps she might be carrying a message to Euro "leaders" from Mr. T--GET SOME NUTS.

Posted by: HelenW at August 13, 2008 06:44 PM