busyMichael Dobbs | "We Are All Georgians"? Not So Fast
Michael Dobbs, The Washington Post: "It is unclear how the simmering tensions between Georgia and South Ossetia came to the boil this month. The Georgians say that they were provoked by the shelling of Georgian villages from Ossetian-controlled territory. While this may well be the case, the Georgian response was disproportionate. On the night of August 7 and into August 8, Saakashvili ordered an artillery barrage against Tskhinvali and sent an armored column to occupy the town. He apparently hoped that Western support would protect Georgia from major Russian retaliation."
Disproportionate? Eh, maybe -- but there's this to consider: When a much larger country invades a much smaller country, the smaller one has basically two choices. 1) Do nothing and be overrun quietly. 2) Fight back, get trampled flat, and be overrun anyway. Effective resistance pretty much depends on convincing a larger ally to protect you, which they are reluctant to do unless you are being beaten to death in a way that threatens whatever it is your allies want from you. This pattern of international affairs does not exactly encourage sane, civil behavior from anyone.
US Watched as a Squabble Turned Into a Showdown
Helen Cooper, CJ Chivers and Clifford J. Levy, The New York Times: "The story of how a 16-year, low-grade conflict over who should rule two small, mountainous regions in the Caucasus erupted into the most serious post-cold-war showdown between the United States and Russia is one of miscalculation, missed signals and overreaching, according to interviews with diplomats and senior officials in the United States, the European Union, Russia and Georgia. In many cases, the officials would speak only on the condition of anonymity."
When people whose job it is to talk are all afraid of talking openly, something is seriously wrong on a level that goes far beyond bombs and guns. That underlying problem needs to be fixed, or anything spackled over it is unlikely to hold.
Tour of Tskhinvali Undercuts Russian Claim of Genocide
Tom Lasseter, McClatchy Newspapers: "As Russian troops pounded through Georgia last week, the Kremlin and its allies repeatedly pointed to one justification above all others: The Georgian military had destroyed the city of Tskhinvali ... But a trip to the city on Sunday, without official escorts, revealed a very different picture. While it was clear there had been heavy fighting - missiles knocked holes in walls, and bombs tore away rooftops - almost all of the buildings seen in an afternoon driving around Tskhinvali were still standing."
I rather suspected this. Russia is grouchy like a bear in late spring: hungry and looking for trouble. Georgia is grouchy like a bear in winter: it takes several pokes with a sharp stick to elicit a violent response. Georgia's more into pushing away people it dislikes rather than killing them outright. On the bright side, I'm pleased by the lack of corpses ... because not so many decades ago, Russia would have *ahem* "manufactured" some.
Weissman | McCain's War: Playing With Nuclear Fire
Steve Weissman, Truthout: "John McCain calls the conflict in Georgia 'the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War,' and he is doing everything he can to make it his own, even at the cost of upstaging the shrinking President Bush. But the tragedy in Georgia also reveals the most embarrassing foreign policy blunder since - well, since the Bush administration decided to wage a preemptive war in Iraq. If deep thinkers in Washington insist on setting up a string of client states to encircle Russia, they should never let the puppets pull their own strings, as [Georgian President] Mikheil Saakashvili appears to have done when he sent his army into rebellious South Ossetia."
Because gods forbid anyone should think for themselves. This one just makes me sick.
NATO Freezes Russian Ties Over Georgia
Mark John and Francois Murphy, Reuters: "NATO agreed after U.S. pressure on Tuesday to freeze regular contacts with Russia until Moscow had withdrawn its troops from Georgia in line with a peace deal."the tragedy in Georgia also reveals the most embarrassing foreign policy blunder since - well, since the Bush administration decided to wage a preemptive war in Iraq. If deep thinkers in Washington insist on setting up a string of clie
Okay, that sounds promising; maybe Russia will be sufficiently attached to its NATO activity to back off. NATO membership should be for civilized nations. (This rather lets out U.S. but leave that aside for now.) That means if Russia wants to stay, and Georgia wants to join, they both need to work on getting along better. And if NATO is willing to lean on its members to respect each other's sovereignty, that may open up more options than the equally unappealing #1 and #2 above.
August 20 2008, 08:29:38 UTC 12 years ago
>>The story of how a 16-year, low-grade conflict over who should rule two small, mountainous regions in the Caucasus erupted into the most serious post-cold-war showdown between the United States and Russia is one of miscalculation, missed signals and overreaching<
D'oh. Ya think?
and that our officials should be in "no (official) comment" zone about this - surprised are we?
Are we, really?
Naw.
Alack and alas.
It is galling when that level of "nothing to see here, move along" prevails in our level of faux-commentary on international events - but then, that's been normative for 8 years (de rigeur), now hasn't it? That *has* to numb some brain cells along the way...
Feh.
Thoughts
August 20 2008, 17:03:25 UTC 12 years ago
I wish we had somebody going around teaching hardcore peopleskills to diplomats, politicians, and other folks around the world. I find that even on a small scale, my own skills fall short of what the community needs.
Deleted comment
August 20 2008, 16:08:52 UTC 12 years ago
Deleted comment
August 20 2008, 16:17:02 UTC 12 years ago
All politics comes down to geopolitics in the end. It's about what you have that your neighbors want, and what they have that you want. In this case, the Georgian-Russian conflict suddenly made sense when I read about the Causasus oil. Bah.
August 20 2008, 18:54:40 UTC 12 years ago