Russian Challenge To The West
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday August 12, 2008
FOR Vladimir Putin - former KGB agent, judo black belt and ruler of Russia whether as president or prime minister - Friday must have been enjoyable enough mixing with the world's great and powerful at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. But he might have been quietly signalling Mikheil Saakashvili, the President of Georgia: Go ahead, make my day. And unwisely, Mr Saakashvili did, sending the Georgian army into the breakaway region of South Ossetia held by wannabe Russians since Georgia broke away from the collapsing Soviet Union in 1991.
This is just what Mr Putin wanted, an excuse to flex Russian military muscle in its traditional Caucasus frontier-lands of the last two centuries. The air and ground barrage against Georgian-held areas began instantly, with Mr Putin supervising from the sidelines after eagerly flying directly back from Beijing. It has been conducted with a savagery not seen since the Yugoslavian wars, and has been extended to the other Russian-protected enclave, Abkhazia, and to selected targets around the Georgian capital Tbilisi itself. Mr Putin wants to make a very big point. This is that Russia wants to call the shots in the former republics of its Soviet-era empire. If the West can remove a territory, Kosovo, from a fellow-Slav friend, Serbia, then Russia can do the same in its own backyard. If a pro-Western democrat like Mr Saakashvili wants to reorient his country to Europe, make moves to join NATO, send troops to help the Americans in Iraq, and open his territory to gas pipelines that bypass Russia, let him see how much help he gets when Moscow puts its chips down.The conflict is an ugly reminder that Mr Putin's Russia doesn't play by the same rules that, perhaps too complacently, the Western world assumes to be spreading since the end of the Cold War. His Russia guns down its internal critics like Anna Politkovskaya, sends secret agents to assassinate defectors like Alexander Litvinenko, and forces out foreign executives as it moves to appropriate their assets. An emerging tyrant scents weakness.The West is now wavering. It would like Moscow to help persuade Iran to curb its nuclear weapons program, even though Russia supplied the civilian reactors that gave the Iranians their cover. Some big members like Germany are dependent on Russian energy. The Georgians overplayed their hand. Yet without necessarily sending the US Navy's 6th Fleet into the Black Sea, it's a time to stand by a thriving democracy - however ill-judged its decision to move against Russia's long meddling. There was little of the Kosovo type of repression of a minority, no religious divide, no particular historical reason for Moscow to "protect" the so-called Ossetians. With firmness from the Western world, this and the Abkhazia dispute can be settled with Georgia's borders intact.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald