A Not So Cunning Plan
Posted on August 9th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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Paradoxically, standing up to Moscow is not only the right thing to do in this crisis, but the best way to improve relations with Russia in the long term. For only a Russia that abandons its imperial agenda and respects its neighbors, irrespective of size, can be a true partner for the west. ~Svante Cornell
This is the sort of bizarre argument that interventionists are reduced to making, since the observations that the West has no vital interests in the north Caucasus and that the West doesn’t want to damage relations with Russia by backing Saakashvili’s reckless blunder are, to my surprise, quickly becoming the common ones that people across the spectrum are making. With the exception of a few pundits and bloggers, there have been no calls for confrontation, and even the WSJ, your normally reliable guide to American Russophobic opinion, adopted a fairly mild tone in its editorial. So we are treated to the claim that we must confront and deeply damage relations with Russia so that we can have good long-term relations with some future Russia that does not do any of the things that Moscow believes to be in its interests and within its rights in its near-abroad. In other words, until Russia concedes to every Western demand and ceases pursuing what it considers its own interests, it will not be a suitable “partner” for the West, so we will have to confront them at every turn until relations have become so terrible that Moscow will conclude that it should yield in all things. This is not exactly a winning grand strategy, since Russia will not respond in the way that Cornell wants.
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. This also assumes that America and Europe actually have an interest in damaging relations with Russia in the short term, when many governments in Europe, particularly Germany’s government, are quite interested to cultivate good relations right now. None of these assumptions is correct. There is not going to be a revolution in the internal politics of Russia such that Moscow will cease pursuing its ambitions in the Caucasus or elsewhere in former Soviet space, because these are the places where Moscow will always try to expand its influence.
Imagine that the Southwestern United States, including all of California, separated from the rest of the country and became a number of independent states after having been part of the U.S. for the last 160 years. These were lands that had not always belonged to the U.S. and had been acquired through a war of conquest, but over those 160 years Americans came to think of these territories as integral parts of the country. Would it be wrong for Washington to try to have great influence over these states? Would it be surprising if Washington viewed those states’ development of close relations with a foreign power on another continent as a potential threat, and wouldn’t it make a certain amount of sense if Washington saw their application to make a military alliance with this foreign power as dangerous and provocative?
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.