No winners in Georgian conflict
The descent into war of long-standing disputes in Georgia represented a failure of strategy on the part of almost every participant in the crisis. Only the South Ossetians saw their cause definitively advanced, as they took a step towards eventual reunification with North Ossetia. All other parties appeared to be worse off after the brief conflict, especially Georgia and its would-be patron, the United States.
Moscow might dispute this assertion, since it could claim to a domestic audience that it had reasserted its rights in a region in which Russia felt strong entitlement. However, its recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia left it largely isolated, since it was a move followed formally only by Nicaragua.
The war has created a new strategic situation. By sending forces over its borders for the first time since the 1979– 89 Soviet–Afghan War and forcibly redefining the situation in Georgia’s disputed territories, Moscow has aroused concern among other former Soviet bloc members about its future intentions. That is true even though it took military action in response to Georgia’s move on South Ossetia.
Most countries were dismayed by Russia’s willingness to take unilateral action with almost no international support, to keep troops in Georgia even after agreeing to withdraw them, to declare the two territories to be independent and to shrug at the (highly unlikely) possibility of a new Cold War.
Its boldness undermined the confidence of foreign investors, and left both Western and Asian governments groping for options as they considered how best to approach Russia in the future. The G8 group of leading industrialised nations, which had widened to admit Russia in recent years, regrouped as the G7 to issue a statement condemning Moscow’s actions.
American policy exposed
The events of August 2008 were a substantial setback to US policy in the Caucasus. The 'Rose Revolution', the Georgian popular uprising in 2003, had played perfectly into President George W. Bush’s rhetoric about promoting democracy and freedom. Bush called Georgia a ‘beacon of liberty’ when he visited Tbilisi in 2005 and promised that 'you’ve got a solid friend in America'. American military trainers had been in Georgia since 2002, and the country was a sizeable contributor to the US-led coalition in Iraq.
Despite the unresolved conflicts within Georgian territory, Bush demanded of NATO allies that they set Tbilisi on the path to membership. European countries refused to admit it to the formal membership process at the Bucharest summit in April, but Bush did manage to have inserted into the final communiqué an assurance that Georgia would join NATO.
However, America’s decision to take Georgia under its wing was exposed in August as a hollow approach that – as in its occupation of Iraq – had failed to take into account the ground realities. In a region torn for centuries by ethnic disputes, Washington was unable to stop Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili from taking action that was bound to infuriate Russia. Its attempts to dissuade him, based on the evidence available, were belated and lacked clout.
The promise of eventual NATO membership to Georgia had added to Moscow’s grievances. Russia and the West had gone through a rosy period when the European Union signed a partnership and cooperation agreement with Moscow in 1997. US President Bush said on meeting then-President Vladimir Putin in 2001 that he found the Russian ‘straightforward and trustworthy’ and that he ‘was able to get a sense of his soul’. However, the relationship had deteriorated long before the current crisis.
The expansion of NATO and the EU to include former Soviet bloc countries, US plans to position new missile-defence assets near Russia’s borders and Kosovo’s declaration of independence all enabled Putin to foment among his people a sense that there was an American-led conspiracy to encroach on Russia’s sphere of influence. He had dramatically launched a verbal counter-attack in a speech in Munich in February 2007. The hopes of the US and Europe that they could engage post-communist Russia in a strategic partnership based on shared interests had thus already fallen flat before the discord of 2008.
The most important question in the wake of the August crisis was what would be the future balance in Russian strategy between nationalistic chauvinism and the common interests that, in fact, it still had with the West.
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