9 Responses to “A Not So Cunning Plan”

1. VA_Paleocon, on August 9th, 2008 at 8:16 am Said:

   Thanks for the coverage of this. It is totally outrageous that the John Edwards scandal gets more coverage by the MSM than this, which had a few things gone differently last year, could very well have been July 1914 with nuclear weapons.

2. nathansmith, on August 9th, 2008 at 9:38 am Said:

   “This argument assumes that Moscow craves Western approval above all else and will sacrifice what it considers its legitimate influence on its periphery (particularly in territories that it controlled for more than a century up until 1991) to acquire that approval.”

   International order requires a certain legitimacy, which in turn must be undergirded by some moral principles. One of the lessons of the 1930s was that realpolitik doesn’t work. A state that thinks its “legitimate influence on its periphery” includes the right to invade and dismember its democratic neighbors cannot fit into that international order and will continue to be a threat until it changes its ways. You can’t fudge that.

   Svante Cornell’s excellent article, as well as a good deal of other coverage, refutes your claim that Saakashvili was the one who started this. It may or may not be “the war that Russia wanted,” but at the very least, the blame is on both sides.

3. Daniel Larison, on August 9th, 2008 at 10:55 am Said:

   Cornell’s article did nothing to refute the charge that Saakashvili dramatically escalated the conflict. He contextualized the provocations that led to Saakashvili’s decision, but he did not persuasively justify that decision. As I said in another post, the Ossetians–encouraged by the Russians–goaded Saakashvili into his blunder, but it was his decision to attack the provincial capital that has created the current predicament. It isn’t “my claim” that Saakashvili started this–he launched a large ground assault on South Ossetia, as pretty much everyone following the story acknowledges. That is what provoked or created the pretext for the massive Russian retaliation. Given Saakashvili’s understanding that South Ossetia is just a Russian puppet state, it was all the more irresponsible for him to escalate things, since he had to know Russia would respond in force to defend its puppet. Saakashvili is the Olmert of the Caucasus.

   Under the status quo ante, Russia wasn’t invading or dismembering Georgia and was not likely to do either had Saakashvili not given them the opportunity. Are the Russians partly responsible insofar as they back the Ossetians? I suppose, but that is the way it has been for almost two decades now. There was no reason to escalate the conflict righ now, except that Saakashvili thought he could get away with it. He failed horribly, and he must bear the lion’s share of the blame for this conflict that he chose to ratchet up.

4. VA_Paleocon, on August 9th, 2008 at 11:05 am Said:

   It is next to impossible to find a “victim” and “aggressor” in these kinds of conflicts. Usually both sides have legitimate grievances in old ethnic conflicts, the cycle of aggression and revenge going back for so long you just can’t untangle it. See also: the Yugoslav Wars.

5. Grumpy Old Man, on August 9th, 2008 at 11:25 am Said:

   There’s some truth in the “old ethnic conflicts” notion, but most of the time they just smolder. Someone had to strike the match.

   If it’s an old regional conflict, the “expansionist Russia” notion is overblown to say the least.

6. VA_Paleocon, on August 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am Said:

   Grumpy Old Man-

   People believe in the “expansionist Russia” meme so easily (at least those who remember the Cold War) because they still make the idiotic mistake of conflating the Soviet Union with Russia. As the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, no one suffered more from Soviet rule than Russia and her people.

7. Koz, on August 10th, 2008 at 9:36 pm Said:

   Obviously a lot has happened since this post was committed to pixels, and whatever we think about Russia’s intent towards its neighbors, Daniel is surely correct to emphasize that we have other fish to fry.

   That said, Russia’s ambitions in Georgia or Ukraine or the Baltic States, (or the former Warsaw Pact for that matter) are a total fraud for anyone who cares at all for the legitimacy of rule.

   Let’s realize that Russia ruled these lands until 1991 as the scourge of humanity for the better part of a century and these lands were among the most victimized. There has unfortunately been little if any accountability from Russia since then, and that is one substantial factor why it has remained a basket case for 20 years.

   Comparing that to some breakaway American states is ridiculous, most of all from Daniel considering he is not exactly ignorant of the US Civil War and how it was eventually resolved.

8. Daniel Larison, on August 10th, 2008 at 9:57 pm Said:

   We can agree that there has been no accountability for the crimes of the Soviet regime, and I agree that this has been a cancer in Russian political life. There are also centuries of Russian rule over these area (Georgia being among the last added to the empire) that have nothing to do with the USSR. That doesn’t change the effects of the last century and the hatreds it engendered, and I wouldn’t pretend otherwise. I used the Southwest example to try to provide some kind of familiar approximation to the situation there to explain the Russian, or at least the Russian nationalist, perspective.

   Your last comment makes my point for me–in reality, no states would ever be allowed to break away from the U.S. nowadays, but would be crushed by force. However, in the hypothetical world where these territories did break away Washington would do everything it could to thwart ties to other powers, up to and including the use of force. The people cheering loudest for that would be very much like the people complaining the most about Russia today. How much less remarkable is it, then, that Russia wants to maintain a sphere of influence that does not include military alliances with a major power?

9. Koz, on August 11th, 2008 at 4:38 pm Said:

   
   Your last comment makes my point for me–in reality, no states would ever be allowed to break away from the U.S. nowadays, but would be crushed by force. However, in the hypothetical world where these territories did break away Washington would do everything it could to thwart ties to other powers, up to and including the use of force. The people cheering loudest for that would be very much like the people complaining the most about Russia today.

   Uhh, no. Did British Colombia invade when Quebec tried to secede. No, they had a referendum. The same for the various underhandedness of the EU elites trying to trying to force through the EU constitution.

   The biggest problem is that Russia is trying to play in the 21st according to 18th century rules. Someone needs to get across to them that that game is stupid. If there was any point to that game, the US would have won it a long time ago.

   Until then, Russian nationalism is exclusively bad, and needs to be publicly acknowledged as such.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.