Three Sides on Georgia
PoliGazette Managing Editor Jason analyzes the situation in the Caucasus. The escalating war in the former Soviet republic of Georgia has been matched by an escalating war on blogs, as critics of Russia demand the U.S. and NATO respond and Russia’s defenders join with critics of the United States to counter. The resulting war of words obscures more than it reveals or, more to the point, it reveals only that which is well-known and completely irrelevant — the hardened scripts of ideology and ethnicity that pre-determine what too many bloggers and commenters will say. (Examples: Newshoggers uses Georgia as another excuse for Bush Derangement Syndrome, Think Progress howls about “neocons” yet again, and RedState calls for more military spending. To read U.S. bloggers, you would think that the Georgians were fighting and dying over the 2008 American presidential elections. In fact, in a masterpiece of political narcissism, HuffPo basically says that directly.)In this post, I will attempt to provide a view of the Russia-Georgia conflict from each side — the U.S., Russia, and Georgia. Understanding how each side views itself as the aggrieved party can hopefully begin to break down the misunderstanding and script-mongering that has heretofore made the debate over responding to the war in Georgia as inane and pointless as any in this hyperpartisan time. The view from the United States: Americans by instinct seem to love the underdog (except of course when the underdog is facing the U.S. Army). The image of tiny Georgia faced with the immense military machine descended from the fearful Soviet Union has a powerful emotional appeal. And the growing domestic authoritarianism and international aggressiveness of Putin’s Russia combined with Georgia’s earnest pro-western orientation feeds into this narrative, casting Georgia as as NATO-member-in-waiting suddenly and brutally victimized by a resurgent descendant of Soviet brutality. No less an elder of the American foreign policy elite than former national security advisor Zbignew Brzezinski compared the Russian invasion of Georgia to the Soviet invasion of Finland after Hitler and Stalin agreed to divvy up Poland. (The fact that Georgia shares a name with a U.S. state may also have something to do with generating sympathy among some infamously geography-challenged Americans.)The view from Russia: Russians tend to view Georgia as backward and brutal, a hive of hatred against ethnic Russians and befriended groups that populate the disputed Georgian regions of Ossetia and Abkhazia. To many Russians, the invasion is only an act of humanitarian intervention in the same mold as the U.S. interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo. Russia views western protestations as deeply hypocritical, decrying exactly the same policy that they embraced over Russian opposition in the Balkans. Russians also increasingly nurture a nostalgic and romanticized view of their Soviet past. The growing pro-western orientation of the countries running the full length of Russia’s western borders from the Baltics to the Caucasus is often viewed as American encirclement and incursion into Russia’s legitimate sphere of influence. Flush with oil wealth, Russia is emerging from the deep economic and demographic hole that it fell into during the fall of the Soviet Union, and Russia may be using Georgia as the showcase of its return to national greatness. Putting the critical oil pipeline that runs through Georgia at risk may to too good of an opportunity to pass up to put the West on notice that the Russian bear once again stalks the woods.The view from Georgia: Georgians view with skepticism and disdain Russia’s insistence that it is only protecting ethnic minorities. This Georgian view arises not only from the opportunistic timing and disproportionate nature of Russian “peacekeeping” efforts, but also from the fact that at least some of the pro-Russian demographic in the disputed regions results from a long history of colonization by ethnic Russians of outlying areas during the time of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Georgia makes a simple argument based in sovereignty — just as Russia claimed the right to deal harshly with ethnic separatists in Chechnya, Georgians often feel they should be allowed the same sovereign rights. Further, Georgians believe that they have bought and paid for special support from the west by virtue of their strong pro-western orientation, their moves towards NATO membership, and their contribution of 2,000 troops to U.S. operations in Iraq. Georgians see Russian incursions as a step towards the eventual elimination of their country and U.S. failure to respond as a betrayal.The consequence of these three positions is one of likely stalemate. While it remains unclear what the extent of Russia’s invasion of Georgia will be, two scenarios appear most likely. Either Russia will honor its current commitments to limit itself to controlling the disputed regions and a buffer area around them, or Russia will cite some Georgian provocation (real or imagined) to invade Tblisi and overthrow the pro-western government. Either way, there is little of a practical nature that the U.S. or NATO can do about it, and Russia knows it. Once a beggar at the feet of western economies, oil and natural gas wealth have made Russia much less vulnerable to international pressures. Presidential candidate John McCain promises “severe, long-term consequences” but no one seems to have any idea what those could be. The bear may have more mauling left in him. And westerners need to stop reading partisan scripts and deal with the whole complex mess.
I think I’d feel somewhat better about the whole mess if politicians (and I especially mean Obama, EU leaders and Bush) stopped pretending like strong words will to a damn bit of good. You are of course right that McCain has not exactly explained what the severe long-term consequences are supposed to be, but I find even more insulting to my intelligence the assertion that diplomacy will stop this invasion in it’s tracks. I find it especially offensive from Obama, who I am accustomed to seeing giving positions with the assumption that the people listening were adults that could understand nuance.
How about some honesty? How about our leaders, both sitting and in-waiting, admitting publicly that they feel sympathy for Georgia’s plight, but don’t think they’re worth the risk to defend. That Russia is too strong an opponent to risk open hostilities over.
Eastern Europe has always been far more pro-US than Western Europe. But they are getting a close view of how little that friendship is worth to the US, considering that Georgia is being invaded and the US is hemming and hawing and preparing to do absolutely nothing. No excuses will be sufficient, certainly not to Georgians, who rightfully must be outraged that we were so willing to have their soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq but are unwilling to lift a finger to help them when they are invaded. Eastern European governments may (possibly rightly) judge that they’d better make friends with Russia instead, since they are close by and they obviously can’t count on the West for help if there’s trouble.
What else do they have? Sometimes, strong words are the only weapons practically available. McCain runs a huge risk if he starts down a “this will not stand” road that the U.S. cannot possibly back up.
Saying that openly would be dumb strategy. Even when the available choice may be obvious, leaders always want to maintain just the slightest doubt in their opponents’ minds.
Perhaps the situation is exposing some unrealistic expectations, but I think you will find that most eastern Europeans wanted to join NATO for a broader variety of reasons that just U.S. security guarantees. I did some research on this several years ago and found that normative reasons were far more common than material benefits.
I get the intense feeling that the Obama faithful are convinced after loosing two elections that they should have won that somehow Bush and McCain are behind this entire deal and that its all been prefabricated to ensure McCain’s election.
I was reading today where a pentagon official who did not want to be identified which I always take to mean its a deliberate leak by the administration as saying:
This all happened so fast and we are still trying to figure out just what it is both sides are trying to accomplish. Why would they go to war without wanting to defend their gains against an obviously annoyed Russia.
The point he seemed to be making is that the Administration is as confused as to what is going on over this as is everyone else and in watching the military movements on the battlefield it is unclear as to what is their intentions.
I was surprised to note that the USA had just concluded join exercises with Georgia in Georgian territory. In other words the USA had members of the United States Armed forces conducting joint exercises within eyesight of the Russian border.
No wonder Putin is angry.
At least John McCain has had the guts to say something, while Obama just ignores the issue.
Though in the past, when it is not a "world power" like Russia, people criticize aggressors in wars and they show no mercy in their criticism, yet when it’s a "world power" like Russia, everyone seems to be falling all over themselves to act like as if Russia is a sensible democratic country. It’s simply not. It’s a new empire that has been reasserting its influence of most nations in Central Asia and the Caucasus except this time using Capitalism instead of Communism.
When the Turks invaded Northern Iraq or Northern Cyprus, no one ever gave them a chance to explain the deaths of Turks. When Israel invaded Lebanon recently, everyone was armed to the teeth with insults for Israel. When the United States invaded Iraq, Europe yelled and screamed that Bush was a war-monger and an oil-fiend.
But when it’s a European country like Russia, or if it was Britain, Germany, France, or other nations, no one seems to get angry, just a couple of voices here and there, but other than that it’s quite silent.
Why is it that the people who are doing right are always criticized and the people who are doing total wrong are being shown sympathy, like the many commenters who supported Russia’s actions.
Where is the anger and outrage from Europe at how Russia has invaded a country without any valid excuse. Their excuse was Russian citizens were dying, so apparently they have the right to bomb Georgia’s civilian population, shoot reporters and journalists, shoot civilians, and conquer all of Georgia.
Is it not a bit strange that European reaction to Russia’s actions always seem to be "ah well they’re just Russians". But if it’s "bad bad America" everyone seems to be ready to point fingers.
Good post, Jason. Somehow I expect that you’ll still be attacked from all sides by people who don’t understand that you are listing the viewpoints of each of the three parties without commenting on whether each has a legitimate right to those views or grievances, but here’s to hoping that readers will understand and learn from the post, and bring that filter of understanding to other articles that they read about the conflict.
Thanks, Christine.
But I think the post will mostly be ignored, as a result of the fact that it doesn’t give the standardized scripts much to link to. And I am only beginning to grasp the full extent to which standard scripts both dominate and constrain the blogosphere. When denied their use, 90% of the people appear to have nothing at all to say about anything. It was, for example, fascinating to see how rapidly and shamelessly some of the most well-known lefty blogs used the Georgian crisis as just another day at the BDS office.
Like as if, Obama would have done anything. Obama barely whispered when he was saying how Georgia and Russia should make peace. He had no strong words, even though Barack Obama came to power through anti-war ideologies.
Jason is excellent in his analysis, and dead on with the way people have become lazy and stick to "scripts" and "catch phrases" because they simply don’t have the time or the attention span to understand the issues and analyze them without declaring a party ideology.
Jason, your article is great, but please, don’t ever link to ThinkProgress ever, they are the worst sort of liars who use propaganda to its fullest extent. Did you know ThinkProgress actually claimed that McCain voted FOR torture? The Senate Resolution they linked to had nothing to do with interrogation or torture. That’s how low and pathetic ThinkProgress.org is.
I’m a little suspicious of the Huffington Post sometimes as well, some articles seem bias.
Most of the articles here in poligazette should be read in an intelligent and objective fashion not just this one C. Stanley, with that filter of understanding.
However unfortunately sometimes the commenters are here more to spread their propanaganda than to actually comment on the article which unfortunately may result in silly communications (that unfortunately I can not stop myself from joining in sometimes) rather than reasonable debates where people exchange ideas and expand their world politics views and opinions.
Nice article Jason, that intends to make commenters think before they write. Hope that will work out fine.
what about the view of S Ossettia and the people there?
There is no direct information available on that question. I suspect that the ethnic Russians among them prefer the Russian position while the ethnic Georgians among them prefer the Georgian position. All of them probably hate that it has come to war, because it is the civilians that always lose.