A reasoned argument for action against Russia
(As of Thursday, discussion of the Russia-Georgia issue continues in this entry.)
Here, by John O’Sullivan in today’s New York Post, is a Russo-critical article that is non-screeching (or at least it seems so to me), but still urges strong measures to stop Russia from exerting itself against Georgia. I think it would be useful for the very knowledgeable anti-Russophobes who have been writing at VFR today to offer a refutation to O’Sullivan’s points.
BACK IN THE USSR
By JOHN O’SULLIVAN
August 13, 2008—
Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia’s always on my mind.
I’m back in the USSR
You don’t know how lucky you are boys
Back in the USSR
- John Lennon & Paul McCartney
IT’S not only the South Ossetians who are back in the USSR this morning. Other Georgians, countries in Russia’s “near abroad” from the Caucasus to the Baltic, “national minorities” such as the Chechens, the West and even Russians themselves now must deal with a country and political leadership that bear an eerie similarity to Soviet models. They are authoritarian, militaristic, greedy and not overly concerned about where their borders end.
How lucky we should all feel about this is another matter—as is what to do about it.
In recent years, the Russian state has:
* Been credibly accused of murdering an exile in London;
* Expropriated foreign investments on behalf of an energy company controlled by itself;
* Cut off energy supplies to other states as a means of political intimidation, and
* Assisted secessionist rebels in neighboring states in order to keep their newly independent governments off balance.
Plus, of course, it has now—no more Mr. Nice Guy—invaded and bombed the sovereign state of Georgia.
Sometimes these actions have worn a thin disguise of tax-law enforcement or “peacekeeping.” “Democracy” has been a similar camouflage for an authoritarian system in which power and wealth increasingly gather in the hands of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other siloviki (former intelligence bureaucrats).
But, although the siloviki know how to seize property, they have no idea how to create wealth. They generally mismanage what they seize—and so eventually need to seize more.
This parasitic system has been exported profitably to the “secessionist” regions of Georgia which the Kremlin claims to be protecting. Almost all the top officials in the South Ossetian “government” are ex-KGB officials from various Russian provinces. As Yulia Latynina of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta drily points out: “South Ossetia is not a territory, not a country, not a regime. It is a joint venture of siloviki generals and Ossetian bandits for making money in a conflict with Georgia.”
Beyond making money for the siloviki, South Ossetia exists for the purpose of destabilizing pro-Western Georgia. Its sporadic shelling of nearby Georgian villages provoked Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili into a seemingly catastrophic military response.
But if Georgia had taken no action, Russia would have incorporated the breakaway province by degrees—Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had already awarded Russian passports to South Ossetian residents. Both trapdoors led to the same result: Russian expansion, the punishment of Georgia for daring to be an ally of the West—and the annexation of South Ossetia, now occupied by Russian “peacekeepers.”
Yes, it’s “Back in the USSR,” boys.
The West may yet swallow the Russian seizure of South Ossetia and even Abkhazia, issue a few protests and then proceed with business as usual. (German public opinion is especially susceptible to such pacifist temptations.)
Yet the sight of Russian tanks trundling through Georgian territory—40 years after the invasion of Czechoslovakia—has awakened all the old memories of Soviet brutality. And former Soviet satellites now in NATO and the European Union (including both Slovakia and the Czech Republic) form a permanent lobby for a strong defense against Russia. On Saturday, Poland and the Baltic states issued a joint appeal for both bodies to oppose Russian aggression.
But how to oppose it? Russia has an overwhelming strategic predominance in the region. The best Western diplomats can achieve locally may be to “refreeze” the conflict along lines that let Russia keep its kleptocratic enclaves but demand a retreat from Georgia proper.
The longer term is another matter. If Russia is morphing into another USSR, then the West must defend the post-Cold War international structure and the independence of post-communist nations against Putin’s neo-imperialism.
Any outright conquest of Georgia would lead to a new Cold War and Western economic sanctions. It would also pose risks for Russia locally—since the entire Caucasus is unstable and the Russian army relies increasingly on Chechens and other national minorities for recruits. The combination could be catastrophic for Moscow—remember Afghanistan.
Even lesser Russian actions invite serious political responses. The central Europeans angered by the Georgian crisis might immediately accept the US missile-defense system that Putin vehemently opposes. His attack on Georgia would then be seen to have backfired drastically. A renewed offer of NATO membership to Georgia would similarly show that punishing the country had merely pushed it into a closer alliance with the West.
The same offer might also be made to Ukraine—since the Russian attack on Georgia is seen in Kiev as a proxy warning to them.
Finally, the West could increase the economic price of South Ossetia to Russia by rejecting Russian passports held by South Ossetians as invalid for travel and imposing other sanctions on its trade. The Kremlin would then be left managing an impoverished, troublesome and money-hungry province.
Wider economic sanctions should probably be held in reserve—they are more powerful as a threat than as a reality. Thus, the West could warn that, if Moscow reacts violently to its political measures, it would impose economic sanctions—starting with Russia’s expulsion from the G8. Given Russia’s over-dependence on energy revenues, its fast-declining population and its need for Western capital and markets, it cannot treat such threats lightly.
Of course, Russia has an economic sanction of its own—cutting off its energy supplies to leave Europe sitting in the dark. But if that’s in the cards, maybe we should know it sooner rather than too late.
John O’Sullivan is executive editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a Hudson Institute senior fellow and a former Post editorial-page editor. The opinions he expresses are his own and not those of any organization.
[End of article]
I don’t like O’Sullivan’s compression of the bridge and the chorus of the sparkling Beatles song, “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” so here they are with all their words:
Oh those Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia’s always on my my my my my my my my my mind.
…
I’m back in the USSR, Hey!
You don’t know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the US,
Back in the US,
Back in the USSR.
Here are the
lyrics. and here is Paul McCartney
performing the song at Red Square in 2003, staying very close to the arrangement in the original 1968 recording, which I was unable to find at YouTube. .
I can’t resist copying the first verse and chorus of the song:
Flew in from Miami Beach, BOAC
Didn’t get to bed last night
All the way the paper bag was on my knee
Man I had a dreadful flight.
I’m back in the USSR
You don’t know how luck you are, boy
Back in the USSR.
- end of initial entry -
Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:
I think many of O’Sullivan’s arguments are refuted by the excellent article by George Friedman linked at VFR, including his constant reprisal of “The Soviet Union.”
And, compared to Friedman, O’Sullivan does sound a little bit screechy, and alarmist.
By the way, I believe that Lydia McGrew has been careless with her analogies on her posts equating Gaza with South Ossentia. Each situation, actually, should be independently analyzed.
I think that that is the problem with modern day conservatives. They get stuck in a label, and then start to behave within their label. And their critics critique them based on those labels. Hence the strange support for “conservatively” labeled (admittedly without the paleo, neo, etc. qualifiers) George Bush and John McCain. And Lydia McGrew’s misunderstanding of what she calls paleoconservatives posting on VFR, and basing her whole post on that label rather than on what she thinks is going on. Which would have made for a more fruitful discussion.
I have a feeling that most conservatives wait for their “ilk” to form some opinion before they start making up their minds, on many things, incurring a group herd mentality and reaction.
I think an uncorrupted, independent analysis of situations is what is needed.
LA writes:
I agree with Kidist that the Stratfor article (presumably written by George Friedman) is very good and very clear. Without sounding any typically paleocon, anti-U.S. notes, it takes an almost exclusively Russo-centric view of the matter, but does so in a way that seems objective and fair.
As he explains it, the U.S., by including the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary in NATO in 1998 and then in 2004 including other former satelites and the Baltic states, had betrayed previous U.S. guarantees to Russia not to expand NATO into the former Soviet sphere; lately the U.S. had even discussed including Georgia and Ukraine in NATO. This would have meant the complete encirclement of Russia by countries allied with an adversarial power disseminating an adversarial ideology—democracy—and thus was totally unacceptable to the Russians. Second, the U.S. by pushing through Kosovo independence had stomped all over Russia’s reasonable request that Kosovo remain formally a part of Serbia.
Thus, Friedman continues, Russia had two motives for going into Georgia. The first was tit for tat over Kosovo: if the U.S. can tear Kosovo away from Serbia, Russia can tear South Ossetia away from Georgia. The second motive was to reassert Russia’s power in its historic sphere of influence and, by demonstrating Washington’s proclivity to utter big words without action to back them up, show countries like Georgia and Ukraine- that they cannot depend on Washington, Also, America’s commitments of its military resources in Afghanistan and Iraq gave Russia an opening to move on Georgia, as the U.S. had no available resources to do anything about it.
In every respect, says Friedman, Putin has won. He has restored Russia to Great Power status, asserted and displayed its ability to influence it own region, and outsmarted and humiliated the United States in the process by showing the hollowness of its promises to protect Georgia and Ukraine, and thus discredited and damaged the entire U.S. imperialist policy of expanding NATO to the east.
Again, the fact that Friedman sounds no typical paleocon notes makes his essentially U.S.-critical approach more plausible and acceptable. Personally I think it is imperialist in the extreme that America has expanded NATO as it has and even now is seeking to expand it further, into the Caucasus. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization—in the Caucasus! Such a move can only make sense under a Charles Krauthammer-like strategy in which the U.S. dominates the whole world (while, of course, allowing the whole world to continue to pour into America).
At the same time, the Stratfor article is wanting in that it fails to give the U.S. side of the picture. For example, what about the pipeline? Do we have a legitimate interest in keeping it out of Russian control, or not?
August 14
Spencer Warren writes:
You write:
As he explains it, the U.S., by including the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary in NATO in 1998 and then in 2004 including other former satellites and the Baltic states, had betrayed previous U.S. guarantees to Russia not to expand NATO into the former Soviet sphere; lately the U.S. had even discussed including Georgia and Ukraine in NATO.
This was the same point made in a luncheon talk to the Philadelphia Society last winter by Richard Pipes, the dean of Russia experts and a strong conservative who was one of the leading critics of detente in the 1970s. Dr. Pipes was the initial Soviet expert to serve on President Reagan’s National Security Council, where he supported the new policy of victory in the Cold War.
O’Sullivan does not back up his claim that Russia is turning back into the USSR. Russia is behaving as it always has historically, which, incidentally, was consistent with much of USSR policy, with the latter’s added component of Marxist ideology. It is Ralph Peters-like hyperbole to go down this road with its prospect of a new Cold War. And the Cold War began in east and central Europe, not a region far from any vital U.S. interest—unless, that is, one accepts the neocon view that U.S. vital interests mean interventions to promote democracy anywhere, anytime, without regard to our own domestic limitations.
Gerald M. from Dallas writes:
After mulling over the articles by John O’Sullivan and by George Friedman of Stratfor, I have the following thoughts.
I think O’Sullivan errs in belittling South Ossetia, the proximate cause of this fight, as ” … not a territory, country or regime but a joint venture between bandits and ex-KGB generals” to make money. In history, at least, Ossetia has a real existence, with real people, who were split up by the part-Ossetian Stalin, who gave the southern part of their territory to Georgia, to make them less resistant to Communist rule. There is apparent substance to the Russian claim that they desire protection from Georgia by affiliation with the Russian Federation.
Does that justify Russian actions, the artillery harassment of Georgia before the Georgian attack into South Ossetia, and the pre-planned counterattack by Russia after Saakashvilli “fell into Putin’s trap?” Hell, I don’t know. Probably not. I’ll go with the neocon view, that all the blame lies with the Russians, at least at the “micro” level. But viewed from a higher level, the assertions in my first post [in “The Russia Quandary”] about this being a reaction to what the Russians see as unjustified American encroachment still stand, and are supported by Friedman’s analysis.
Even with Russia guilty as charged, how does that change anything regarding America’s national interest? Reading about the Caucasus, one could almost believe Theodore Roosevelt had the Caucasus (instead of the Balkans) in mind when he warned against America becoming a land of “squabbling ethnicities.” One of the drawbacks of being an imperial power is inserting yourself into such lands and trying to deal with complex, intractable ethnic feuds, which is one reason I oppose the American empire.
But by far the most important question raised by both O’Sullivan and Friedman is: what are Russia’s long range intentions? O’Sullivan apparently believes Russia is morphing into another USSR (despite his listing of many weaknesses which, it seems to me, make any new version a pale shadow of the old), and therefore the West must defend post-Cold War international structures and the independence of post-Communist nations. He lays out a variety of methods to do this, including admitting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. According to Friedman, Russia would consider this highly threatening, and I agree.
Friedman seems to lay out a less threatening scenario, that Russia seeks only to re-establish its traditional sphere of influence, a more indirect way of exerting power, and not Soviet style, totalitarian domination (if I understand him correctly). He sees Russia as only a regional power.
Which is pretty much the way I see it. And this is where my paleocon beliefs must assert themselves. For if Russia is only a regional power, why shouldn’t the other nations in its region (i.e., mainly Europe), not the United States, be responsible for dealing with her there, and for dealing with whatever threats she poses. To cite RB’s post from Wednesday, “Post-communism, there is no natural conflict between … [Russia and America].” The U.S. should get out of NATO, originally a defensive alliance to keep the Russians out of Western Europe by keeping the Americans in Western Europe, which succeeded in doing just that, while keeping the peace. Now NATO marches east, looking to Russians like an offensive alliance, to seize lands the Russians dominated for hundreds of years, and in the Russian mind, to point a dagger at their throat. I don’t think that NATO will keep the peace, if this march continues. [LA replies: I agree entirely in opposing this eastern expansion of NATO; but I don’t see how that’s a necessarily paleocon position.]
So let’s get out, and save ourselves the trouble of trying to dominate and manage a region which really needs to police itself.
But what about the pipeline, and the other geopolitical concerns raised by Ron’s post, which Larry Auster asks we consider?
I had no idea things were so precarious, but it appears that the entire American strategic position, from Afghanistan through Iraq, would be “compromised” and threatened, if Russia takes over a few thousand square miles of Georgian airspace, and seizes part of the Georgian section of the Baku-Turkey oil pipeline. What’s more, Russia would have a complete stranglehold on Europe’s energy supplies, this pipeline being the only one from the Caspian not already under its (or Iran’s) control.
At least, that’s what some alarmists are telling us.
OK, let’s look at this piece by piece.
If Russia controls Georgian airspace. First there is the “if.” Hasn’t happened yet. If it does, is Russia guaranteed to block American air transport routes over the Caucasus to Iraq and Afghanistan? Don’t know. But if they do, there are other routes we can use. That’s one of the cool things about an airplane, it can go in a lot of different directions, unlike a train. The American response in this situation would be to use different routes. They would probably be longer and less convenient, but I don’t see this as an earthshaking problem. One other thing, the overwhelming majority of American supplies to both Iraq and Afghanistan don’t go anywhere near the Caucasus; they move primarily by sea & land routes thousands of miles away.
If Russia seizes part of the Baku-Turkey pipeline. Wow, this must be the most important pipeline in the history of the world, judging from the amount of ink that neocon geostrategists have spilled over it in the last few days. I read somewhere it carries one percent of the daily world oil supply, which is important, but even if Russia blocks it, what then? Once again, there are work arounds, both temporary and long term. How long would it take to build a new pipeline from Azerbaijan (where Baku is located) through Turkey, thus avoiding Georgia altogether?
Next, let’s say the Russians seize the pipeline, completing their stranglehold on Europe’s energy supply. The thing is, they don’t have a stranglehold, at least nothing like a complete one, over European energy. There are other sources. Europe’s own North Sea still produces a lot of oil and gas, and of course the Middle East, Africa, South America, etc. All available to supply some, if not all, of Europe’s needs. I don’t know how badly Russia could harm Europe and the rest of the world, by a shut-off, but surely this act would damage them as well, and in the long run would probably be suicidal, since they depend so heavily on oil and gas income. I admit I’m guessing now and I’m out of my ken. Let more knowledgeable heads take it from here, but it seems to me, using common sense, that the geostrategic threat posed by the loss of the Baku-Turkey pipeline and our access to Georgian airspace, is exaggerated.
LA writes:
In the title and intro of this entry I probably gave O’Sullivan’s column too much. I was really just trying to contrast it with the raving Peters who had appeared in the NY Post a day earlier, and saying here is a better, less screechy basis for discussion. O’Sullivan is obviously pushing an aggressive course very hard and is not critically considering the drawbacks of NATO expansion. So it’s not a deeply thoughtful column.
Mark Jaws writes:
Think about the lunacy of our foreign policy. As you mentioned, we have no legitimate reason to include Georgia into the NORTH ATLANTIC Treaty Organization. Just how the hell did we expect the Russians to react to being encircled by NATO nations? And if we were courting Georgia for access to the pipeline output, why should we commit ourselves to come to its defense should Putin and crew attack, while not exploiting our own resources in our very own backyard? American foreign and energy policies today make the European diplomats and rulers of 1912 Europe appear competent in comparison.
Gerald M. writes:
I think O’Sullivan—who IS more moderate than the screamers—does well to remind us that Russia is a nasty place, run by nasty people. His moderation makes his recitation of Russian misbehavior more credible. And there is no way we can profit from refuting a maniac like Peters—it would be a waste of time, though, like you, I’ve read his columns. But compared to someone like Krauthammer, he’s a lightweight.
I agree heartily with Spencer Warren’s post about O’Sullivan. He documents Russian nastiness without explaining how it translates into a Soviet sized threat and, as I pointed out in my post, actually lists some significant problems today’s Russia faces, which a reasonable person could say would diminish the likelihood of such a threat in the first place.
NRO is truly an incredible place these days. Every five minutes someone discovers a new threat from this affair, or has a new policy recommendation to counter Russia. However, I note that in Frank Gaffney’s latest, he makes no mention of what he said on radio a few nights ago, that we should establish a combat air patrol over Georgian airspace. OTOH, today there are almost equally ludicrous suggestions made by someone named Jack David, who seems to be hoping for a military clash.
Steven Warshawsky writes:
I have great respect for John O’Sullivan. I have always found him to be deeply knowledgeable and thoughtful.
But for me, this line in his present article requires considerable elaboration:
If Russia is morphing into another USSR, then the West must defend the post-Cold War international structure and the independence of post-Communist nations against Putin’s neo-imperialism.
This is the crux of his position, and it is asserted as an axiom without proof or justification.
There are always going to be other nation states who engage in conduct that we believe is wrong, including going to war against their neighbors. This does not mean that it is in our national interest to “do something about it.” The United States should not, and cannot, be the world’s policeman.
It seems to me that the default rule must be that these post-Communist nations, or any other nations, have to defend their own interests. In this situation, why should we confront Russia over Georgia, if the Georgian military is not prepared to fight the invaders to the death?
Gerald M. writes:
BTW, my little scheme to foil Putin’s Plan to Destroy the World, by re-routing the Baku pipeline, has run afoul of geography. Armenia, supposedly aligned with Russia, is in the way. I suppose they could branch off with a new pipeline through Turkey from the existing pipeline east of Russian positions (if the Russians are sitting on it) in Georgia, or offer Armenia really nice terms for a route through their country into Turkey.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 13, 2008 10:34 PM | Send