|
 |
|
| SUPPORT |
WRITE YOUR |
| TERM |
CONGRESSMAN |
| LIMITS |
IT WORKS !!! |
|
|
After Russia's Invasion of Georgia,
What Now For The West?
The article on this page is owned
and copyrighted by the named author
Link
to original
article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/georgia/2563260/John-Bolton-After-Russias-invasion-of-Georgia-what-now-for-the-West.html
John R. Bolton
August 15, 2008
At least for now, the smoke seems to be clearing from the Georgian
battlefield. But the extent of the wreckage reaches far beyond that
small country. Russia’s invasion across an internationally
recognised border, its thrashing of the Georgian military, and its smug
satisfaction in humbling one of its former fiefdoms represents only the
visible damage.
As bad as the bloodying of Georgia is, the broader consequences are
worse. The United States fiddled while Georgia burned, not even
reaching the right rhetorical level in its public statements until
three days after the Russian invasion began, and not, at least to date,
matching its rhetoric with anything even approximating decisive action.
This pattern is the very definition of a paper tiger. Sending Secretary
of State Condeleezza Rice to Tbilisi is touching, but hardly
reassuring; dispatching humanitarian assistance is nothing more than we
would have done if Georgia had been hit by a natural rather than a
man-made disaster.
The European Union took the lead in diplomacy, with results approaching
Neville Chamberlain’s moment in the spotlight at Munich: a
ceasefire that failed to mention Georgia’s territorial integrity,
and that all but gave Russia permission to continue its military
operations as a “peacekeeping” force anywhere in Georgia.
More troubling, over the long term, was that the EU saw its task as
being mediator – its favourite role in the world – between
Georgia and Russia, rather than an advocate for the victim of
aggression.
Even this dismal performance was enough to relegate Nato to an entirely
backstage role, while Russian tanks and planes slammed into a
“faraway country”, as Chamberlain once observed so
thoughtfully. In New York, paralysed by the prospect of a Russian veto,
the UN Security Council, that Temple of the High-Minded, was as useless
as it was during the Cold War. In fairness to Russia, it at least still
seems to understand how to exercise power in the Council, which some
other Permanent Members often appear to have forgotten.
The West, collectively, failed in this crisis. Georgia wasted its dime
making that famous 3am telephone call to the White House, the one
Hillary Clinton referred to in a campaign ad questioning Barack
Obama’s fitness for the Presidency. Moreover, the blood on the
Bear’s claws did not go unobserved in other states that were once
part of the Soviet Union. Russia demonstrated unambiguously that it
could have marched directly to Tbilisi and installed a puppet
government before any Western leader was able to turn away from the
Olympic Games. It could, presumably, do the same to them.
Fear was one reaction Russia wanted to provoke, and fear it has
achieved, not just in the “Near Abroad” but in the capitals
of Western Europe as well. But its main objective was hegemony, a
hegemony it demonstrated by pledging to reconstruct Tskhinvali, the
capital of its once and no-longer-future possession, South Ossetia. The
contrast is stark: a real demonstration of using sticks and carrots,
the kind that American and European diplomats only talk about.
Moreover, Russia is now within an eyelash of dominating the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the only route out of the Caspian Sea
region not now controlled by either Russia or Iran. Losing this would
be dramatically unhelpful if we hope for continued reductions in global
petroleum prices, and energy independence from unfriendly, or
potentially unfriendly, states.
It profits us little to blame Georgia for “provoking” the
Russian attack. Nor is it becoming of the United States to have
anonymous officials from its State Department telling reporters, as
they did earlier this week, that they had warned Georgia not to provoke
Russia. This confrontation is not about who violated the Marquess of
Queensbury rules in South Ossetia, where ethnic violence has been a
fact of life since the break-up of the Soviet Union on December 31,
1991 – and, indeed, long before. Instead, we are facing the much
larger issue of how Russia plans to behave in international affairs for
decades to come. Whether Mikhail Saakashvili “provoked” the
Russians on August 8, or September 8, or whenever, this rape was
well-planned and clearly coming, given Georgia’s manifest
unwillingness to be “Finlandized” – the Cold War term
for effectively losing your foreign-policy independence.
So, as an earlier Vladimir liked to say, “What is to be
done?” There are three key focal points for restoring our
credibility here in America: drawing a clear line for Russia; getting
Europe’s attention; and checking our own intestinal fortitude.
Whether history reflects Russia’s Olympic invasion as the first
step toward recreating its empire depends – critically – on
whether the Bush Administration can resurrect its once-strong will in
its waning days, and on what US voters will do in the election in
November. Europe also has a vital role – by which I mean the real
Europe, its nation states, not the bureaucracies and endless councils
in Brussels.
First, Russia has made it clear that it will not accept a vacuum
between its borders and the boundary line of Nato membership. Since the
Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union collapsed, this has been a central
question affecting successive Nato membership decisions, with the fear
that nations in the “gap” between Nato and Russia would
actually be more at risk of Russian aggression than if they joined
Nato. The potential for instability and confrontation was evident.
Europe’s rejection this spring of President Bush’s proposal
to start Ukraine and Georgia towards Nato membership was the real
provocation to Russia, because it exposed Western weakness and
timidity. As long as that perception exists in Moscow, the risk to
other former Soviet territories – and in precarious regions such
as the Middle East – will remain.
Obviously, not all former Soviet states are as critical to Nato as
Ukraine, because of its size and strategic location, or Georgia,
because of its importance to our access to the Caspian Basin’s
oil and natural gas reserves. Moreover, not all of them meet
fundamental Nato prerequisites. But we must now review our relationship
with all of them. This, in effect, Nato failed to do after the Orange
and Rose Revolutions, leaving us in our present untenable position.
By its actions in Georgia, Russia has made clear that its long-range
objective is to fill that “gap” if we do not. That, as
Western leaders like to say, is “unacceptable”.
Accordingly, we should have a foreign-minister-level meeting of Nato to
reverse the spring capitulation at Bucharest, and to decide that
Georgia and Ukraine will be Nato’s next members. By drawing the
line clearly, we are not provoking Russia, but doing just the opposite:
letting them know that aggressive behaviour will result in costs that
they will not want to bear, thus stabilising a critical seam between
Russia and the West. In effect, we have already done this successfully
with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Second, the United States needs some straight talk with our friends in
Europe, which ideally should have taken place long before the assault
on Georgia. To be sure, American inaction gave French President Sarkozy
and the EU the chance to seize the diplomatic initiative. However,
Russia did not invade Georgia with diplomats or roubles, but with
tanks. This is a security threat, and the proper forum for discussing
security threats on the border of a Nato member – yes, Europe,
this means Turkey – is Nato.
Saying this may cause angst in Europe’s capitals, but now is the
time to find out if Nato can withstand a potential renewed
confrontation with Moscow, or whether Europe will cause Nato to wilt.
Far better to discover this sooner rather than later, when the stakes
may be considerably higher. If there were ever a moment since the fall
of the Berlin Wall when Europe should be worried, this is it. If
Europeans are not willing to engage through Nato, that tells us
everything we need to know about the true state of health of what is,
after all, supposedly a “North Atlantic” alliance.
Finally, the most important step will take place right here in the
United States. With a Presidential election on November 4, Americans
have an opportunity to take our own national pulse, given the widely
differing reactions to Russia’s blitzkrieg from Senator McCain
and (at least initially) Senator Obama. First reactions, before the
campaigns’ pollsters and consultants get involved, are always the
best indicators of a candidate’s real views. McCain at once
grasped the larger, geostrategic significance of Russia’s attack,
and the need for a strong response, whereas Obama at first sounded as
timorous and tentative as the Bush Administration. Ironically, Obama
later moved closer to McCain’s more robust approach, followed
only belatedly by Bush.
In any event, let us have a full general election debate over the
implications of Russia’s march through Georgia. Even before this
incident, McCain had suggested expelling Russia from the G8; others
have proposed blocking Russia’s application to join the World
Trade Organisation or imposing economic sanctions as long as Russian
troops remain in Georgia. Obama has assiduously avoided specifics in
foreign policy – other than withdrawing speedily from Iraq
– but that luxury should no longer be available to him. We need
to know if Obama’s reprise of George McGovern’s 1972
campaign theme, “Come home, America”, is really what our
voters want, or if we remain willing to persevere in difficult
circumstances, as McCain has consistently advocated. Querulous Europe
should hope, for its own sake, that America makes the latter choice.
