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Russo-Georgian conflict is not all Russia's fault

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  • Russo-Georgian conflict is not all Russia's fault

    http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0811/p09s03-coop.htm l

    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."
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