I enjoy beach volleyball as much as anyone and, as a red blooded male, the US Women’s Beach Volleyball Team is a particular favorite of mine. However, in my twenty-something years, I’ve learned to prioritize well enough to know that the well-proportioned backsides of US volleyball players are a faraway second fiddle to the tinder (or raging fires) of war in one of the most volatile regions in the world as an increasingly domineering, tyrannical Russia launches an armored blitzkrieg into Georgia, a fiercely independent democracy of under 5 million people and the once-crown jewel of the Soviet elite. But despite the enormous geopolitical implications of the ongoing Russo-Georgian war, with the high potential to shape the relationship between the West and Russia and the highly strategic western-central Asian corridor, President Bush has other, more pressing matters on his mind.
A rear – I mean, rare – opportunity for the famously-Puritan President, to be sure, but one that lends to an impression that the President’s energies are somehow wholly misdirected from his job. Now, I don’t honestly believe that President Bush is purposefully distracting himself nor doing so because he doesn’t care about the ongoing crisis in the Caucasus, but it does represent a larger problem of the West’s reticence to act in the face of Russian aggression. As Bush played volleyball and grabass, “Prime Minister” Putin flew to hold a council of war in the North Ossetia-Alania city of Vladikavkaz.
As I’ve noted in an earlier post, posterity will very clearly judge the Russo-Georgian war, whatever the dimensions of its eventual outcome, as a culmination of Western tepidity and appeasement (“diplomacy”) to Russia’s unvarnished ambitions to reclaim the borders of its more glorious, imperial days under the Tsars or Soviets. Blame for the beginning of the immediate conflict can be distributed widely – Russia for its imperious, premeditated designs; Georgia for allowing itself to be so provoked; America for not holding a firmer line with both Georgia (against military action) and Russia (to keep them from intervening); and the West for surrendering itself to Russian propaganda (to preserve the sacred cow of uninterrupted energy).
But in a way, blame for the initial sparks are less important than how the world responds hence. While blame for the turmoil in the Balkans that touched off the First World War had multiple origins, the real issue was how the great powers responded. There, as here, the response of the world is the heart of the question and will decide the fate of not only Georgia – whose enormous importance resonates well beyond its tiny borders – but of the democratic world and the rise of states who have no loyalty to political and civil freedoms.
Russia has already scored a victory against the West by so forcefully denying Georgian military action. Now, the question is how the West manage this Russian victory and if we will try to salvage American and democratic interests in this most vital, strategic region or if it has been ceded to Russian militarism.
It’s now clear that Russia’s intervention is one that was long in the making – meticulously planned and premeditated, as much a strategic war as a media opportunity – and that the oligopo-fascist regime will probably not stop at least until it has control of South Ossetia, Abkhazia (the other Russian-backed separatist zone), and Gori (BTC pipeline and military highway choke point and Stalin’s birthplace). Russian revanchism will have gargantuan geopolitical implications; if the purported decline of the West was not authentic or evident before, it will be now as democratic beacons blinker one-by-one and hyper-nationalist, mercantile autocracies accede propelled by the timid posturing of the once confident West.
This may be the hinge point; the point in time that will decide for future generations if the world should be one governed by a consensus of democracy or illiberality, civil freedom or fiat. If the attacks on 9/11 was a wakeup call to the flailing, violent reaction from elements of the Islamic World to the dominance of the liberal democratic archetype, then perhaps the Russo-Georgian conflict will represent the moment when the larger, traditional powers officially joined in opposition, sensing Georgia as a chink to exploit.
And again, I implore the West to act. Words alone can no longer suffice as the Russian war machine grinds on despite Georgian pleas for a cease fire. It is time for the United States – as it is clear that Western Europe has no stomach for confronting oppressive regimes (especially those with energy monopolies like Russia) – to take a firm line with Russia and demand that a cease fire be brokered and recognized immediately. Further Russian incursions inside of de-facto borders should be strongly dissuaded. The US should buttress such demands with the threat of air support from large quantities of fighters relatively nearby in Germany, Turkey, Iraq, and Afghanistan that could make short work of Russia’s force.
Russia has already won its victory in Georgia and does not want or need an expanded conflict with the United States that could cripple its economic growth. The very best America can hope to do now is to limit the extent of the Russian victory, and such a course must be pursued.
Although security policy and discourse has, since the 1990s and especially since 9/11, been dominated by Islamist terrorism, it should be now clear that the premature declarations of conventional war’s demise were wrong and ill-advised. While the United States should surely be cognizant and watchful of the dangers of terrorism, to abandon a posture of deterrence for more traditional powers like Russia and China has grave consequences all its own.
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UPDATE Robert Kagan basically says what I’ve written, but far more cogently.
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August 28, 2008 at 2:54 am
[...] way, it’s time to re-add NoKo, alongside Russia, to the list of states in open revolt of the once seemingly inevitable march of the liberal democratic order. Truly, posterity will have [...]