In August the Russians invaded the independent republic of Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union and currently a candidate for NATO membership. They claimed that they were defending the enclave of
South Ossetia, whose breakaway government the Georgian government was trying to crush by its own attack. The Russians described their troops as peacekeepers, and made much of the assault suddenly mounted by the Georgians. Not surprisingly, the small Georgian army was quickly defeated, and a Georgian missile boat was sunk. At this time one of the three battalions of the Georgian army was fighting in Iraq alongside U.S. and other Coalition troops; it was quickly airlifted home.
It became clear that the Russians had been preparing their operation for some months, long before the Georgians showed any interest in attacking South Ossetia. For example, they moved railway troops (a uniquely Russian formation) into the Caucasus to build up the logistical lifeline they would need. Their battle groups had to move into position, and dumps of supplies had to be built and filled. We should be familiar with such realities of land warfare from the lengthy build-ups to both Gulf Wars. Had the Russian reaction been seaborne, it might have been accepted as something quick, but that was not the case in Georgia.
History suggests a depressing interpretation of these events. For some time the Russians have been making much of the supposed independence movement in two parts of the tiny republic of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Some observers have suggested that they are now little more than fiefdoms ruled by ex-KGB generals who are part of the machine now ruling Russia. In any case, all of their citizens have recently been granted the right to Russian passports, which some cynics may see as a preliminary to absorbing them into Russia itself (a motive the Russians of course deny).
Other writers recall that in 2005 Vladimir Putin, who is still de facto ruler, described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century, one he was determined to reverse. The Georgians see themselves as the first victims of Putin's attempt to put Humpty Dumpty together again. Many others who felt liberated as the Soviet Union collapsed have tended to agree. It is difficult, for example, to see a renewed determination by the Ukrainians to join NATO as a great triumph of Russian statesmanship.
More Appeasement?
If, as has been argued here before, the Cold War was a kind of World War I in slow motion, are we seeing an equivalent to the disasters of the interwar period? When the Soviet Union collapsed, it was often said that the great lesson of World War I was that treating the losers badly ensured that they would fight again, as in 1939. In 1918-19 it was widely accepted that the Germans had caused the world disaster, and that they should pay for it. World War I had been a horrible experience for all concerned, but surely it had been a necessary response to assault. If the source of that threat, the German general staff and the Kaiser's government to which it was wed, could be eliminated, then the world might really escape a further war on the same scale.
By the mid to late 1920s the terms secured at Versailles were almost universally seen as a great mistake (and, to some, a crime). Many accepted the Germans' view that they were victims. The next step was appeasement. Our reading of German documents suggests that Hitler saw things rather differently: the only way to cure the German ailment was to win a war, not merely to redress political grievances. That was an eerie mirror of the cause of World War I: the German ruling group saw war as a way to solve a domestic political problem.
So, how does one view the end of the Cold War? If the Soviet empire was an obscenity and a threat to the rest of the world, its collapse was the greatest success of the 20th century. However, in recent years this sort of talk has been decried as improper triumphalism that precludes integrating Russia into the world. We would not repeat Versailles; Russia would not be forced to face its past crimes. Thus the current Russian school textbook presents Stalin as the most successful Russian 20th-century ruler. The Soviet national anthem has been restored. Mr. Putin frequently urges his countrymen to remember with pride the achievements of the Soviet state—by implication, to avoid remembering their human cost.
Anyone reading translations of the current Russian press will be struck by the paranoia toward the West, and by the frequent lies. For example, a U.S. missile destroyer in the Black Sea is characterized by the chief of the Russian general staff as armed with strategic missiles with 2,000 to 3,000 km range. He means conventionally-armed Tomahawks, the nuclear version having long been retired. It is somewhat difficult to see a small number of these weapons as a strategic threat.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, many ethnic Russians found themelves across the border in newly-independent countries that had previously been Soviet republics. This sort of problem is not new; throughout the world borders cross ethnic lines. Rulers are generally careful not to inflame the passions such borders engender. Mr. Putin is doing the opposite. There is no question that the Georgians are hot-headed, but the Russians seem to have banked on provoking them.
A Clear Message
From the Russians' point of view, the attack on Georgia offered two advantages. First, it showed the other ex-Soviet republics that the Russians were quite willing to attack them unless they voluntarily returned to the fold. Each has enough of a Russian expatriate community that a Georgian-style crisis can be engineered at will. Ukraine is probably the most vulnerable, since the eastern part of the country is largely ethnic Russian. Second, Russia currently enjoys leverage in Western Europe because it is so important an energy supplier. The alternative source is ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia. The main pipeline from the Caspian area passes through Georgia. Thus Georgia really is of vital interest to Europe and, by extension, to the United States.
Many of those formerly in the Soviet empire certainly got Putin's message. The governments of NATO members who had been liberated in 1989-91, such as Poland and the Baltic states, announced that they would resist further Russian aggression. The Polish population, which had been cool toward a U.S. request to put missile defense systems on their soil, shifted to active support for a measure the Russians so strongly opposed. The Ukrainians stepped up their attempt to join NATO and began to ask about the terms under which the Russian Black Sea Fleet uses its old base at Sevastopol, in Ukraine. They were not at all happy that the Black Sea Fleet had participated in the attack on Georgia.
The crisis once more showed that the European Union is anything but unified when it comes to foreign affairs. Reactions ran from that of the British and the Swedes, who denounced it as aggression, to the Italians, who argued that the Georgians had triggered it and had received what they deserved.
Many in the West cannot imagine that Putin really wants a new stand-off, given how much Russians, including many of his ex-KGB colleagues, benefit from integration into the world economy. That implies that the purpose of government is to promote general prosperity. But the reason for that connection is that a prosperous population supports the government it credits with helping it.
Current Russian prosperity is largely an accidental consequence of the rising price of oil. After 1991 there was only a half-hearted attempt to create a viable post-Soviet Russian economy; what saved the Russians was the dramatic rise in oil prices. Perhaps an economist would say that the failure to face the economic disaster of the past paralleled the failure to face the political crimes of the past. Except for oil and arms, Russia still produces very little that it can sell abroad.
Mr. Putin may well have calculated that cold war was very much in his interest. From his point of view anything that makes Russians feel threatened makes them more amenable to his version of absolute rule. The Western, particularly American, response to the crisis is being described in Russia as aggression, a ludicrous interpretation of our efforts to rebuild the Georgian military and to provide humanitarian aid.
Perhaps the lesson of World War I was unlearned. Those who demanded unconditional surrender and occupation in 1945 may have gotten it right and, moreover, may have understood exactly what should have been done in 1918. It would be a pity if we have fallen into a new Cold War because of our generosity after 1991.