NOSTALGIA FOR THE COLD WAR
ir/analysis/090514georgia.php
May 14, 2009
We have often said, stability in Georgia is as important as Armenia’s
own stability. And the consistently unpredictable situation there
raises alarm and poses questions.
Most of the issues related to the situation in Georgia are
very apparent, very obvious, very over-reported, and quite
under-explained. There is no need to talk about good guys and bad guys,
bullies and victims. The ingredients causing friction, contestation
and conflict are basically questions of legitimacy, geopolitics in
a historic context, geopolitics in the current dynamic, and a global
game reminiscent of the Cold War.
The Cold War it seems is a war that refuses to die or
disappear. Whether it is reflex, paradigm or an ineradicable perception
of Europe and its neighborhood, the slightest new contestation
reawakens the old patterns of response.
There are many, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili chief among
them, who believe and want others to believe, that the crisis or
threat are exclusively of Russian manipulation.
This seems to ignore the complaints of the domestic opposition in its
own right. Economic grievances, political crispation, favoritism,
arbitrariness, the absence of effective checks and balances are
superseded. Many in the international community, on the ground in
Tbilisi, sense the feeling of betrayal on the part of those f or whom
the promises of the Rose Revolution have been at best, only partially
and unevenly addressed and realized. The explanation of the Georgian
leadership that much has indeed been accomplished has not satisfied
the disenchanted. This may be the natural consequence of expectations
that accompany revolutionary vs. evolutionary change. Perhaps to
compensate for this, the Georgian regime reduces Georgia’s domestic
social and political sources of instability to essentially, if not
totally, external machinations and provocations.
This rationalization entails a few risks, some more serious than
others.
Accusing Russia does not discourage Russia nor compel it to moderate
or change its designs. In fact, Russia’s response can become a
self-fulfilling process.
Then there is the logic of reciprocal provocation. If Russia pushes
President Saakashvili to over-react, over-step, appear to be crying
wolf and act like a victim, this can result in reduced credibility
for Saakashvili, as it did in some international circles following
August 2008, and diminished political support at home.
For Georgia, this game of provocation has its own logic. The thinking
is that if Russia is pushed to act tough, then Georgia’s friends in
the West, including and especially NATO and the US, will hopefully
act tougher.
After all, the West couldn’t possibly leave unchallenged Russian
"expansionism" or Russian bullying in the near abroad,=2 0since there
are some on all sides who consider accommodation to be appeasement
or retreat.
In the context of a geopolitical linear zero-sum game, Georgia can hope
to mobilize unconditional support from friends in the Pentagon and
NATO. The more Russian engagement appears to be obvious provocation,
the more likely it is to trigger the West’s determined response
to resist.
If the Cold War is not fully over, then this Georgian calculus is
not unjustified. However, in Moscow, Brussels and Washington today,
and within some NATO members, there must be room on the broader global
chessboard for give and take between regions, without limiting such
competition to the South Caucasus alone. There does not need to be
confrontation everywhere that there is a clash of interests. It must
be possible to give and take across regions and allow tensions to
decrease locally.
In other words, Georgia is not the whole story. What the West —
NATO and the US – must consider is whether there is going to be
back-tracking from cold peace to cold war. If not, the global jigsaw
puzzle has many more pieces than just Georgia, and by moving a few
of them, confrontation in our back yard may be averted.