Russia, Georgia, and NATO: Cold War Two

The Russian invasion of the South Ossetian enclave in Georgia should call into question a basic component of US foreign policy – the integration of Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics into NATO. This policy has been pursued by Democratic and Republican administrations, but with no public debate and with little thought as to the long-term consequences. The consequences are now becoming clear, and they are unpleasant.

The attack signals several Russian positions. Russia will intervene in foreign countries to protect ethnic Russians living there. Russia can readily control or even cut off important oil pipelines connecting the resources of Central Asia to western markets, one of which of course runs through Georgia. The attack also signals Russia’s displeasure with NATO expansion into Eastern Europe and former Soviet Republics. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has taken under its increasingly expansive wing Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovenia. Georgia plans to join in the next few years.

This process has been going on for fifteen years, under the Clinton and Bush administrations. And it is as ill thought out as any foreign policy the US has pursued in decades. The American public greeted each new NATO member as though they were new neighbors, not as distant and even remote countries we were now obliged to defend. NATO is a mutual defense pact. Members are required to go to war if a member is attacked.

Nor was the effect on Russia thought out. As is well known – though not well comprehended – Russian history is filled with periodic devastating invasions, from Germany (twice), France, Sweden, and the Mongols. Russian governments, and the public as well, look upon events on their periphery with concerns and fears that people of a country sharing borders with Canada and Mexico cannot understand. NATO forces, pressing steadily deeper into what Russia thought to be a defensive glacis from a resurgent Germany, set off alarms in the Russian bureaus and public alike, thereby contributing to the return to authoritarian government based on national security and militarism.

In retrospect, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, an agreement should and probably could have been reached between Russian and NATO powers, which banned each power’s forces from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics. But that was not pursued and here we stand at the dangerous intersection of a heedless NATO policy and a timeless Russian mindset.

In the aftermath of the Ossetian intervention, Americans might well ask themselves if they are willing to go to war to defend remote countries for whom they have little obligation, except what stems from those countries having been persuaded to send troops to Iraq in exchange for some assurance of US/NATO protection. It’s unclear if the people of western Europe, who are less enamored by war than Americans are, and who look at least somewhat more thoughtfully on world affairs, are asking themselves the same question.

Perhaps recent events can lead to a negotiated demilitarization of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics, as should have taken place fifteen years ago. It is more probable, however, that events in Georgia will lead to more rapid military modernization in new NATO members and a few more countries applying for membership (tuition-free, of course). This in turn will intensify Russian security concerns and authoritarian trends as well – dynamics that were likely foreseen by Prime Minister Putin. A new Cold War has begun.

Brian M. Downing is a regular contributor to The Agonist and the author of several works of political and military history, including The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com.

Brian Downing August 12, 2008 - 6:45am

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( categories: Analysis | Caucasus | European Union | Russian Federation | USA: Foreign Relations )

Question answered

The Bush administration pushed for Georgia NATO membership. Europe said no way.

Americans, being as "patriotic" (brainwashed and constantly propagandized by corporatist state media) as they are, are anxious to "defend democracy" around the world and be be the global cop going after "the bad guys." But when it comes to accepting the consequences, like ponying up, then they are much more reluctant -- until they are hit with the "loser" and "defeatist" dog whistle, that is, and plunge deeper into a useless cause guaranteed to bring more waste of blood and treasure -- all in the name of "USA - USA," which is in reality military Keynesianism.

tjfxh August 12, 2008 - 8:32am

I don't know about all Americans

"Americans might well ask themselves if they are willing to go to war to defend remote countries for whom they have little obligation"

But it's kind of obvious that the specific guys running the place will only go to war if there's a buck to be made.

Tim August 12, 2008 - 8:50am

Truism

But it's kind of obvious that the specific guys running the place will only go to war if there's a buck to be made.

Was a war ever fought that this wasn't true? Now it just a lot more obvious.

tjfxh August 12, 2008 - 11:11am

That's one school of thought.

The other is that the Soviet Union was very reluctant to give up it's satellites and NATO expanded in an attempt to protect them from Russian predation. Probably a wise move, otherwise Romania, Estonia, etc, wouldn't exist today.

The Soviets spread Russian emigres through their conquered territories throughout the 20th century. This isn't an excuse for Russian aggression. If those ethnic Russians are so unhappy residing in Estonia or Ossetia, the can go back to Russia.

The notion that Russia turned back to authoritarianism due to the "threat" of NATO and Germany is laughable. They're turning towards authoritarianism because at the end of the Cold War we handed the country over to the local mafia, the most powerful force in the country, which installed the corrupt and inept (though DEMOCRATIC) regime of Yelsin. Some older Russians looked back positively on the relative stability of Soviet Russia and many young Russians, due to ignorance, have an unrealistically rosy view of Soviet Russia, so there has been a backlash against democracy. Pretty much exactly the same thing happened in Germany post WW1.

rtechie August 12, 2008 - 5:10pm

Yes the Russian Mafia did form

under Yeltsin’s Presidency. Scroll down and you’ll read about some of the structural difficulties Yelstin faced during those years in a country unaccustomed to capitalism/market economics

No, they haven't succeeded in building a prosperous democracy. Corruption exists in all forms of governments including democracies. Some systems are better at rooting them out than others, but no honest person/politician/businessperson wants them among their population.

Boris Yelstin is often depicted as a drunkard in western media...yet Canada's first prime minister often drank to excess, yet one is villainized while the other escapes that degree of harshness. Conditions that promote democracy vary dependent on the country. The same yardstick shouldn't be used as the measurement.

canuck August 12, 2008 - 8:37pm

Laugh if you want

"The notion that Russia turned back to authoritarianism due to the "threat" of NATO and Germany is laughable."

But US foreign policy has intentionally empowered the more militaristic elements of the Russian ruling class in the internal competition for resources that occurs in every country. A case could be made, I suppose, that the Russians should have just ignored the expansion of a hostile military alliance up to its eastern border and the construction of military bases by that alliance along its southern border. When the leader of that alliance withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and then announced the deployment of missiles that that treaty banned in neighboring countries, they could have just sat back, secure in the knowledge that public opinion would have prevented them from being used in an attack on a country that didn't respond aggressively.

That case could be made but I don't know of any country on Earth in which such arguments would have prevailed. After all, counterarguments could be made: such as that the alliance in question consumed a disproportionate fraction of the worlds oil production and had made a habit of interfering in (invading, even) oil-producing countries. Any country, if exposed to enough provocation, can be goaded into lashing out and providing an excuse for "humanitarian intervention" by petroleum addicts.

Beto August 13, 2008 - 12:19pm

NATO Membership as War Prevention

If Georgia (and Ukraine) became members of NATO, they'd have allied support and military bases. Wouldn't that greatly reduce the chances of invasions? Both countries embrace Western culture. I've lived in Ukraine. Yes, there is corruption, but I didn't find it much different to what I experienced in NYC.

I don't understand why it's bad to have them in NATO.

Rainy Day August 13, 2008 - 8:08am

Nuclear War with Russia?

Think Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba pointed that every population center in the US, giving the US virtually no time to retaliate in the event of attack. Russia simply will not permit this, as we wouldn't permit a a Russian military presence in Cuba. The US and SU were on the brink in the Cuban missile crisis and we are headed there again in reverse due to W's and the neocon's dreams of castrating Russia geopolitically. Neither the US nor Russia want such a war, but stupidity and hubris can result in one anyway.

tjfxh August 13, 2008 - 9:36am

Re: NATO and Georgia and Russia

The short answer is that then NATO would be obliged to defend them when the leaders of those countries do "stupid" things.. BTW, that's how WWI started (alliances triggering declarations of war) and that's also why nations don't declare war any more. (With the exception of WWII, none of the subsequent wars have been officially declared.)

With regard to South Ossetia, no one seems to have mentioned that it was Stalin, who incorporated it into Georgia.

Re the Ukraine, you need to know that Ukrainian is only spoken in the western part of the country, especially the parts that used to be owned by Poland or the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.

When I visited back in the early '70s, Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, which is located in the eastern part, I asked a woman in Russian how you would say 'please' in Ukrainian, she didn't know and turned to her companion, who didn't know either. They finally found someone passing by, who knew the answer.

So if you look at the statistics, there are quite a few Russian speaking Ukrainians and it is hard to say whether their loyalty lies with their country or Russia.

Albert

Albertde August 13, 2008 - 9:37am

Not only that but

Russia would freak out if anyone tried to incorporate Crimea into NATO. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been based in Sevastapol for hundreds of years and has continues to be in spite of the fact that it is no longer a part of Russia. Crimea has more than twice as many ethnic Russians as Ukrainians and was only made a part of the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950s. It is ridiculous to suggest that anyone should go to war to defend borders that were a result of administrative decisions made by Soviet bureaucrats in Georgia, Ukraine or anywhere else.

The continued existance of NATO after the Cold War was intended to bring about a situation such as exists now. Our government has, as a result of a bipartisan effort, intentionally and unnecessarily made an enemy of Russia on behalf of the bottom lines of Lockheed-Martin (kudos to VP Bruce Jackson for overseeing the remilitarisation of Eastern Europe as a member of Clinton's US Committee on NATO), General Dynamics, Blackwater, etc.

Beto August 13, 2008 - 11:35am

Only one reason

that NATO wasn't disbanded post Cold War I and that's military Keynesianism, i.e., funding "the military-industrial complex" that Ike warned us about. The US and British economies are deeply dependent on "defense spending" involving huge transfers of wealth to the arms industry through public funding as a key ingredient of corporate socialism.

It would have been much more prudent to integrate Eastern Europe and Russia into Europe proper instead of perpetuating the conditions for conflict. If it weren't for the money, you'd have to say that the people in charge just weren't thinking. But they were and are. This is going to insure that there will be no roll back of the military to fund domestic needs anytime soon.

tjfxh August 13, 2008 - 3:29pm

Why is it there are so many wars

that are European-based yet a scarcity of them on the North American Continent? Are North American just more homogenous? Wouldn't you think the best thing to do is let Europeans and/or other peoples living on other continents feud among themselves?

canuck August 14, 2008 - 10:35am

Well

I imagine that North and South Americans are happy that the US chooses not to shat in their own backyard. ;) The US govt seems to refuse to believe that they no longer control world events, the Russians seem to be in the position to prove them wrong.

Tina August 14, 2008 - 10:42am

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Russia, Georgia, and NATO: Cold War Two

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