GEORGIA ON HIS MIND
by Nikolas K. Gvosdev
The National Interest Online, DC
Nov 27 2006
Reading former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke’s essay in today’s
Washington Post once again confirmed for me the faith-based nature
of so much of U.S. foreign policy. The world is as we declare it to
be; inconvenient facts and on the ground realities are ignored or
airbrushed away.
Holbrooke wants Washington to make the relationship between Tbilisi
and Moscow a key organizing principle of the U.S.-Russia relationship
("The European Union and the United States must make the continued
freedom and independence of Georgia a test case of the Western
relationship with Russia" is the specific quote.)
One problem, of course, is that nothing has ever been cut and dried
or simple about the Russia-Georgia relationship, certainly not since
the Middle Ages when Georgia’s feuding kings and princes besought
the Russian tsars to cross the mountains and become involved in
Caucasian affairs.
I am always struck by the Rashomon effect when reading advocacy
pieces of this type. Russia, in the view put forth by Holbrooke, has
no legitimate economic, security or political interests whatsoever
in the region and should not only accept but subsidize the existence
of hostile regimes by providing energy at below-market prices and
facilitating guest workers whose subsidies sent from Russia make up
at least 30 percent of Georgia’s economy.
Given his logic, I await his follow-up op-ed where he advocates
the immediate creation of a free-trade agreement with Hugo Chavez’s
Venezuela and the sale of U.S. oil to Cuba at below-market rates. And
his outrage over the suspension of rail and road links between Russia
and Georgia-correct me if I am wrong, but I haven’t read much from
the ambassador recently holding Turkey to task for its blockade of
democratic Armenia or Ankara’s continued unwillingness to implement
UN Security Council resolutions calling for its troops to be withdrawn
from Cyprus. But I forgot-those are different cases.
And if Russia is "black", then Mikheil Saakashvili’s Georgia must be
"white". He, of course, realizes that this characterization is a bit
difficult to say with a straight face, so a partial inoculation
with the truth-reference to less than perfect efforts on the
part of the Georgian government in promoting democracy-is thrown
in. Let’s be candid. As I wrote at the time of the Rose Revolution,
for Saakashvili’s government to be effective, it would, of necessity,
have to become more Putin-esque.
Honest observers with no personal, professional, political or business
stake in spinning Georgian realities are prepared to be much more
blunt. In the current issue of The National Interest, Parag Khanna
and Lawrence Groo warn:
"The lesson is that Western powers must be careful whom they back
in so-called revolutions, for they risk giving a carte blanche to
self-serving executives who are far from democratic champions.
"Nowhere is this more evident than in Georgia, site of another
Western-endorsed regime change that took the form of the 2003 "Rose
Revolution." Riding a wave of popularity after the ouster of Eduard
Shevardnadze, young and Western-educated Mikhail Saakashvili has
since taken every opportunity to profess democracy in theory while
often ignoring it in practice. Opposition newspapers, TV stations and
NGOs have been intimidated and shut down, while ironically Western
funding for such groups has dried up due to the presumed success of
the Rose Revolution. Under the pretext of Russian meddling in the
disputed province of South Ossetia and its cut-off of gas supplies,
Saakashvili maintains a powerful secret police, used more for shaking
down his opponents than for internal security. While Saakashvili’s
administration has achieved some success in reforming antiquated
business regulations, his appointment of loyal judges has undermined
the judicial system’s independence, and the constant musical chairs in
the cabinet has made it difficult to know who is leading on important
policy reform efforts at any given time."
But since so many of the color revolutions of the past few years have
run out of steam-Georgia is arguably the only success story left on the
books, and so it has acquired exaggerated importance. And so, just as
Washington did with Saakashvili’s predecessor Eduard Shevardnadze, who
in his day was also vigorously defended as pro-American, pro-democratic
and pro-Western-until nearly his last day in office-when suddenly
Shevardnadze was rewritten to being a pro-Moscow despot-so with
Saakashvili-his vices must be hidden and his virtues exaggerated.
If Georgia is so important to U.S. interests and values-a case this
essay still does not make-I would have much greater respect for
his call for stronger action if he would honestly call on Americans
and Europeans to shoulder the real burdens that changing Georgia’s
geopolitical realities would entail. But Georgia is for Holbrooke and
others an unwelcome symptom of how the world is changing. Reading
through his essay one cannot help but be struck how strongly he
desires the world to return to its mid-1990s state-where the United
States could depend on a quiescent China, a debilitated Russia,
a pre-occupied Europe to set the international agenda with only a
minimal amount of cost and effort on America’s part.
And also, it was so much easier for the U.S. during those halcyon days
to ignore problematic double standards and to say that the view from
Washington is the sole reality. This is why he complains: "Today,
by contrast, Russia has threatened to veto a U.N. Security Council
resolution that would give Kosovo independence and has spuriously
linked Kosovo’s status to that of Abkhazia and South Ossetia."
Spurious? That is very much in the eye of the beholder.
As I wrote in a response in Foreign Affairs last year:
"The United States insists that the Kosovo case is unique, but others
are by no means obliged to see things Washington’s way. Indeed, it is
difficult to see how the Kosovo precedent can be limited. The case for
independence rests on two foundations: first, that the revocation of
the province’s ethnoterritorial autonomy in 1989 created a legitimate
case for armed rebellion and ultimate separation, and second, that
Kosovo’s de facto independence for the past six years should be
recognized de jure to end the province’s nebulous status."
I can find no logical way to argue objectively that one formerly
autonomous region comprised of an ethnic group different from the
titular majority of the larger state which had its autonomy revoked
by an ultranationalist president and which has enjoyed de facto
independence with the support and active intervention of outside
powers deserves independence while another one does not.
Why can’t, in this matter, Holbrooke and others just be honest with
their readers? Drop the moralizing, drop the self-righteousness,
and simply say, U.S. policy in the matter of the frozen conflicts is
based on a mix of favoritism and perceived self-interest.
But moralpolitik is such a comfortable perch. I particularly enjoyed
one of his closing comments, that "We will not sacrifice the interests
of a small country that has put its faith in Western values for the
sake of energy supplies or U.N. votes."
That’s not why the voters returned the Democrats to power in the
House and Senate. Perhaps the ambassador should consult a few U.S.
opinion polls about what ordinary Americans feel their priorities
are. Lower energy costs, keeping a workable international coalition
against terror and stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction
top the list.
It’s also hypocritical, to say the least. The Clinton Administration’s
policies toward Africa are proof positive of that-fledging democracies
ignored in favor of backing regional strongmen and keeping the vital
flows of energy and other commodities to world markets. (Perhaps that
yet another one of the "exceptions.")
I start to feel like a broken record. Let me close with what I wrote
in the most recent issue of the Journal of International Security
Affairs on the matter of the "Russia debate":
"Given our commitments elsewhere, the goal of the United States ought
to be to strengthen the states of the periphery to give them a greater
degree of independence and leverage vis-a-vis Russia, rather than to
hold out quite unrealistic expectations that the West is prepared
to break them out of the Russian sphere altogether-or support them
against Moscow in violent conflicts where the U.S. has little or
northing at stake.
"Those who argue that we do not have to choose between our values or
interests (or at least to assign priorities)-and who suggest that
increased pressure on Russia both promotes our values and enhances
our security-have to present compelling evidence that this strategy
has a reasonable chance of success (or that the consequences will be
minimal). …
"But a more confrontational approach with Russia can only be justified
if this clearly serves the vital interests-not the hopes and dreams-of
the United States."
I think the Holbrooke essay fails all of these tests.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev is editor of The National Interest.
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