The reaction to Russia's incursion into Georgia has revealed chasms dividing peoples in the Caucasus and dividing East and West. The latter is reminiscent of the Cold War. It reveals a lack of understanding on both sides. I find that lack of understanding almost incredible, but I must admit to having fallen into it myself.
The truth is that like most conflicts, this one is more complex than a cursory glance through the headline suggests. The initial reaction of most people in the United States--and my own--was that the Russians had attacked the Georgians with no provocation, merely to further their own ambitions in the Caucasus. McCain announced that "We are all Georgians." Commentators everywhere echoed such thoughts. Saakashvili was omnipresent in the media, making his vehemently in English.
I was struck by the vehemence of the reaction by Russians--not the Russian government, but Russians like Gorbachev and others writing in the American press. The insisted strongly that their country had acted correctly and in defense of a helpless people, the Ossetians.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) can be counted on to present a sophisticated understanding of such issues. Indeed, they have done so with their analyses of the conflicts in Georgia. The Georgians were far from blameless. The conflict might have arisen if President Gamsakhurdia had not ended the autonomy of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 1991. Since then, after a hard-fought civil war, the Georgians have made no effort to reincorporate either the Ossetians or the Abkhaz into Georgia. These minorities have followed a basic principle of international relations--the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So they have leaned on Russia for protection.
The Georgians could have made an effort to wean these peoples away from their protector. They did quite the opposite and, in the end, miscalculated badly by attacking the Ossetians. Thus the Russian counterattack.
That was where some Western commentators left the story (for example, Paul Craig Roberts, whose purposely provocative commentary in Counterpunch is both scurrilous and profoundly ignorant). So, too, did some of the Russians I had read, though their criticisms were often thoughtful.
The Russians, however, were pushing interests that in a different era could have been labelled imperialist. Earlier in 2008 they made a series of political, diplomatic, and military moves that strengthened their support of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (See the ICG Report "Georgia and Russia: Clashing over Abkhazia"). The Georgians responded with their own provocations. Finally, on August 7, they invaded Tskhinvali. The speed and strength of the Russian response suggests that they had prepared for such an event.
The Russians have succeeded not just in helping the Ossetians, satisfying the immediate goal of the incursion. They have also served Russian interests by aiding the Abkhaz and weakening the Georgians, whose pro-Western policies had been a thorn in Russia's side. They have also answered the Western--largely American--support of Kosovan independence, which was strongly opposed by Russia. So, Russian interests have been served.
But they have been served in a ham-handed, blustering, domineering manner that has alarmed the West and the states of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The Russians have drawn attention to their grievances, but at some cost. How much, we don't know.
American policy has been less than perfect. It is not true that "the U.S. had encouraged Georgia to attack the autonomous region of South Ossetia," an accusation made by Putin. Indeed, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried discouraged the Georgians from actions in South Ossetia that would antagonize the Russians more than once. If the Georgians were listening, they would have known that the United States would not provide military support if the Russians attacked.
Yet it seems clear in retrospect that the Georgians were not discouraged strongly enough. Military aid was provided, but with too few strings. Political support was given with too little recognition of the limitations of Georgian democracy (see the ICG report, "Georgia: Sliding towards Authoritarianism?").
So what happens now? The Russians have made it clear that they will not return to the status quo ante. They have earned a chill in relations with the West. Georgia must be provided with aid and support. At the same time, their mistakes must be recognized and the danger that their recklessness poses to Western interests must be factored into policy.
In the bigger picture, Russia and the United States need to find a way of dealing with each other as neither enemies nor friends and as equals in the region. That is not natural to either country. Both countries have historically been most comfortable treating the outside world in binary terms. The Russians tend to see other countries as either enemies or subordinates; the Americans tend to see them as either enemies or friends. A middle ground will be hard come by.
In the longer term, Russian power will shrink. It is, in fact, at its apogee. In the coming decades, Russian production of oil and natural gas will prove to be a wasting asset as the rest of the world, the West in particular, finds alternative sources of energy and uses energy more efficiently. In addition, the Russian population is aging and shrinking. There is as yet little sign that anything in the Russian economy will make up for the decline in economic growth that these two trends suggest we will see.
One last point. The commentary on the crisis in Georgia usually skipped any discussion of the people at the center of the conflict. What will happen to the Ossetians? What will happen to the Abkhaz? The Russians are promising them their independence. But it seems all too likely that they will be swallowed, de facto or de jure, into a Russia that views all the Caucasian peoples with suspicion. They are throwing the Georgians out, even their Georgian neighbors. In the end, however, they may be the biggest losers, eternally dependent on a Russia that views them as merely a means to other ends.
