No international crisis would be complete without a hectoring Post editorial calling on Washington to meddle, including this priceless line:

The principles at stake, including sovereignty and territorial integrity, apply well beyond the Caucasus.

Ah, yes, now the Post is deeply concerned about high principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.  They didn’t apply to Iraq in the ’90s, they didn’t apply in 1999 when NATO attacked Yugoslavia over an internal matter, they didn’t apply earlier this year when Kosovo declared independence, they certainly didn’t apply when we invaded Iraq, and presumably they won’t apply in the event that the U.S. or Israel launches air strikes against Iran.  Nonetheless, the Post is suddenly very worried about the broader implications of undermining state sovereignty now that the interventionism they have promoted for decades is leading to actions by other major powers that it does not like.  The Post editorial page’s perspective is so warped that I sometimes wonder what else needs to be said. 

Unfortunately, it was always just a matter of time before other powers began to undermine the sovereignty of smaller nations in imitation of U.S. policies.  Besides leaving the U.S. with no real moral authority to condemn such moves, interventionism has provided a string of precedents and justifications for other powers to act in like manner.  Perhaps the Russians will dust off a humanitarian interventionist argument and say that they are doing this to prevent a genocide of the Ossetians, or perhaps they could say that they are interested in “liberating” Georgia from its repressive President.  As they were in past interventions for us, these will merely be pretexts and probably baseless ones at that, and these will not be the “real” reasons behind the action, but as propaganda they will be every bit as credible as what Washington has used to cover up for its interference. 

Once the sovereignty of smaller nations has been as deeply compromised as it has been in Serbia and Iraq, why exactly are other powers going to respect the sovereignty of states in our orbit?  As I have said before, U.S. foreign policy has contributed to a situation in which Russia and China, for self-interested reasons, have become by default the most prominent champions of state sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other states.  Obviously, neither feels bound to respect other states’ sovereignty in all cases, but Washington has so little credibility on this score that its protestations on behalf of satellites and allies will fall on deaf ears.  When the world’s leading power and its allies repeatedly demonstrate contempt for this principle, Russia and China are unlikely to respect it consistently when compromising the principle might bring them some advantage.  Having systematically undermined the basis of the international state system for years, it is in some ways too late for the U.S. to expect the old rules to apply to other powers.  

Filed under: foreign policy, politics