Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 52, no. 4, August–September 2010, pp. 183-190
Order a copy of the issue here
<First 500 words>
A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West
Ronald S. Asmus. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. £20.00/$27.00. 254 pp.
The trouble with this excellent, eloquent and informative book, very adequately subtitled ‘Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West’, is that its title is misleading. The little war in Georgia did not shake the world. Maybe it should have: this is certainly the opinion of the author, and to some extent of this reviewer. But the fact is, the war shook only Russia’s neighbours, particularly the former Soviet republics, but not the West, let alone the world. It did not interrupt the process of détente, rapprochement or ‘reset’ between the United States, Western Europe and Russia. On the contrary, it may have given relations an important boost by encouraging Russia, once it no longer feared the colour revolutions or the enlargement of NATO and the European Union to Georgia and Ukraine, to shift from a strident anti-Western stance to a conciliatory and cooperative one, based on a new partition of Europe into spheres of influence.
Is this outcome acceptable for the West? If not, should it be replaced, as Asmus argues, with a return to the policies and agreements of the 1990s? Or should ‘spheres of special interest’ and the conciliation between them, the sovereignty of states and the respect of human rights become essential themes of East–West negotiations for a new European order?
These are the most challenging questions raised by the book, and will be the main theme of this review. But first we should briefly examine Asmus’s account of the origins and the course of the 2008 war, his designation of responsibilities and his analysis of the diplomatic reactions and moves which led to the settlement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
A disunited front
Over all, Asmus’s narrative of the war is informed, detailed and precise. But while he is often critical of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s individual moves, his book was clearly written from a pro-Georgian perspective, and he gives Saakashvili every possible benefit of the doubt. In this respect, the Tagliavini report for the European Union and the review of the present book by Thomas de Waal in The National Interest offer a useful corrective, especially regarding Saakashvili’s supposed intention of avoiding civilian casualties. Equally, Asmus seems to accept without criticism Saakashvili’s justification for toying irresponsibly with a totally unrealistic military option to recover at least part of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, arguing that Saakashvili thought he could not keep power if he lost both. Yet it is hard not to agree with the author that whoever fired the first shot and whatever the tactical faults or guilt of Saakashvili, it is the Russians who, for years, were preparing and implementing a strategy aimed at overthrowing him and regaining control of Georgia, and that their central concern was less with Abkhazia and South Ossetia than with stopping Georgia’s attempts to join the West and the latter’s attempts ...
Get full article here
Pierre Hassner is Research Director Emeritus at the Centre D’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales in Paris and a Contributing Editor to Survival.
Related Articles
Georgia's Story: Competing Narratives since the War by Lincoln Mitchell (August-September 2009)
A War with No Winners by Oksana Antonenko (October-November 2008)
One Cold War Among Many? by Pierre Hassner (October-November 2008)
