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The Christian Science Monitor
Russo-Georgian conflict is not all Russia’s fault
But war could ignite further disputes in the region.
By Charles King
from the August 11, 2008 edition
Washington – Following a series of provocative attacks in its
secessionist region of South Ossetia late last week, Georgia launched
an all-out attempt to reestablish control in the tiny enclave. Russia
then intervened by dropping bombs on Georgia to protect the South
Ossetians, halt the growing tide of refugees flooding into southern
Russia, and aid its own peacekeepers there.
Now, the story goes, Russia has at last found a way of undermining
Georgia’s Western aspirations, nipping the country’s budding
democracy, and countering American influence across Eurasia. But this
view of events is simplistic.
American and European diplomats, who have rushed to the region to try
to stop the conflict, would do well to consider the broader effects of
this latest round of Caucasus bloodletting – and to seek perspectives
on the conflict beyond the story of embattled democracy and cynical
comparisons with the Prague Spring of 1968.
Russia illegally attacked Georgia and imperiled a small and feeble
neighbor. But by dispatching his own ill-prepared military to resolve
a secessionist dispute by force, Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili has managed to lead his country down the path of a
disastrous and ultimately self-defeating war.
Speaking on CNN, Mr. Saakashvili compared Russia’s intervention in
Georgia to the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in
1968, and Afghanistan in 1979. Russia has massively overreacted to the
situation in Georgia. It has hit targets across Georgia, well beyond
South Ossetia, and has killed both Georgian military personnel as well
as civilians. The international community is right to condemn this
illegal attack on an independent country and United Nations member.
But this is not a repeat of the Soviet Union’s aggressive behavior of
the last century. So far at least, Russia’s aims have been clear: to
oust Georgian forces from the territory of South Ossetia, one of two
secessionist enclaves in Georgia, and to chasten a Saakashvili
government that Russia perceives as hot-headed and unpredictable.
Regardless of the conflict’s origins, the West must continue to act
diplomatically to push Georgia and Russia back to the pre-attacks
status quo. The United States should make it clear that Saakashvili
has seriously miscalculated the meaning of his partnership with
Washington, and that Georgia and Russia must step back before they do
irreparable damage to their relations with the US, NATO, and the
European Union.
The attack on South Ossetia, along with Russia’s inexcusable reaction,
have pushed both sides down the road toward all-out war – a war that
could ignite a host of other territorial and ethnic disputes in the
Caucasus as a whole.
The emerging narrative, echoing across editorial pages and on
television news programs in the US, portrays Georgia as an embattled,
pro-Western country struggling to secure its borders against a
belligerent Russia. Since coming to power in a bloodless revolution in
late 2003, Saakashvili has certainly steered a clear course toward the
West.
The EU flag now flies alongside the Georgian one on major government
buildings (even though Georgia is a long way from ever becoming a
member of the EU). The Saakashvili government seeks Georgian
membership in NATO, an aspiration strongly supported by the
administration of George W. Bush. Oddly, before the conflict erupted
on its own soil Georgia was the third-largest troop contributor in
Iraq, a result of Saakashvili’s desire to show absolute commitment to
the US and, in the process, gain needed military training and
equipment for the small Georgian Army.
Russia must be condemned for its unsanctioned intervention. But the
war began as an ill-considered move by Georgia to retake South Ossetia
by force. Saakashvili’s larger goal was to lead his country into war
as a form of calculated self-sacrifice, hoping that Russia’s
predictable overreaction would convince the West of exactly the
narrative that many commentators have now taken up.
But regardless of its origins, the upsurge in violence has illustrated
the volatile and sometimes deadly politics of the Caucasus, the
Texas-size swath of mountains, hills, and plains separating the Black
Sea from the Caspian.
Like the Balkans in the 1990s, the central problems of this region are
about the dark politics of ethnic revival and territorial struggle.
The region is home to scores of brewing border disputes and dreams of
nationalist homelands.
In addition to South Ossetia, the region of Abkhazia has also
maintained de facto independence for more than a decade. Located along
Georgia’s Black Sea coast, Abkhazia has called up volunteers to
support the South Ossetian cause. Russia has now moved to aid the
Abkhazians, who are concerned that Georgia’s actions in South Ossetia
were a dress rehearsal for an attack on them.
Farther afield, other secessionist entities and recognized governments
in neighboring countries – from Nagorno-Karabakh to Chechnya – are
eyeing the situation. The outcome of the Russo-Georgian struggle will
determine whether these other disputes move toward peace or once again
produce the barbaric warfare and streams of refugees that defined the
Caucasus more than a decade ago.
For Georgia, this war has been a disastrous miscalculation. South
Ossetia and Abkhazia are now completely lost. It is almost impossible
to imagine a scenario under which these places – home to perhaps
200,000 people – would ever consent to coming back into a Georgian
state they perceive as an aggressor.
Armed volunteers have already been flooding into South Ossetia from
other parts of the Caucasus to fight against Georgian forces and help
finally "liberate" the Ossetians from the Georgian yoke.
Despite welcome efforts to end the fighting, the Russo-Georgian war
has created yet another generation of young men in the Caucasus whose
worldviews are defined by violence, revenge, and nationalist zeal.
Charles King is professor of international affairs in the Edmund A.
Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the
author of "The Ghost of Freedom: A History of The Caucasus."