After losing the Second World War, Germany has undergone a remarkable transformation. In repudiating its past, it also abandoned the aspiration of being a major player in world affairs, agreeing instead to become a part of the trans-Atlantic system, the group of Western democracies protected by the might of the Pax Americana.
For a brief period after the end of the Cold War, it appeared that Russia would do the same. Abandoning the power politics of the Cold War days, Russia grew closer to the West. Significantly, it saw its former satellites in Eastern Europe going West - joining the EU and NATO, and adopting pro- Western governments. Like Post WW2 Germany, Russia in the 1990s seemed content to border with pro-Western states.
For whatever reason, this pro-Western episode in Russian history came to an end. The most spectacular sign of the new winds blowing from the Kremlin was the ascension of Vladimir Putin. Putin's Russia has no use for sentimental yearnings to go West, and no interest in being a second-rate nation within the American hegemony. The loss of power over Russia's European neighbors is to be lamented, reversed if possible, and certainly not to be repeated. Looking at the world through a telescopic sight, so to speak, the new Russia remembers all too well what NATO was created against in the first place.
Thus when Georgia, one of Russia's Caucasus neighbors, underwent a democratic revolution in 2003, and started to pursue a pro-Western course, Russia was not happy. Georgia's President, the young (b. 1967), US educated Mikheil Saakashvili has led Georgia since the Rose Revolution of 2003, sought closer ties to the West, becoming a major contributor to America's "Coalition of the willing" in Iraq and trying to join NATO and the EU. Putin's Russia would see such a course as a threat to its rights and interests. It would respond accordingly.
The instrument of Russia's opposition to the Saakashvili regime were the "Frozen Conflicts" in the ethnically mixed Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Both regions contained mixed population, and the non Georgian elements (or at least their leadership) did not desire to be subject to Georgian rule. After military conflicts in these areas during the 1990s, the early 2000s saw a kind of status Quo settlement, in which both regions contained a mixture of local and Georgian forces, as well as "Peacekeepers", mostly Russian troops. The regions would abrupt in periodic - but contained - violence almost every summer.
Saakashvili's government was committed to Georgian Territorial Integrity, meaning that it opposed any notion of independence for the regions. Instead, Saakashvili tried to suggest far reaching compromises that would allow the regions some amount of autonomy within the Georgian state.
Saakashvili, whose American-philia apparently does not extend to rock music, might have benefited from Mick Jagger's advise that "You Can't Always Get What You Want"; As long as Georgia pursued a course that was inimical to Russia, it could expect Russian push back against Georgian integration. Putin's Russia aggressively promoted the breakaway side in the conflict. In addition to supporting the would-be-governments of the provinces, it also started massive issuing of Russian Passports to the non-Georgian residents of the territories, and would now claim the right to intervene in the areas on behalf of its newly minted Citizens.
Two developments in 2008 were seen as special provocation in Russia's eyes, and may have constituted the war's unofficial casus beli. The first was Western support for Kosovo's independence, against Russia's wishes. The unilateral decision not only angered Russia, it also created precedent for Russian recognition of the Independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The second was the decision by NATO (in its 2008 Bucharest summit), as a compromise between its pro-expansion and anti-expansion factions, to issue a statement that said, in effect, that Georgia would be a NATO member some day. This arguably spurred Russia to take advantage of the NATO split, rather than bid its time.
In August 2008, Russia's soldiers entered South Ossetia in large numbers, provoking a Georgian attack on the invaders and their South Ossetian allies. Georgia proved spectacularly unprepared for the conflict: amazingly, it had no plans for a South Ossetian campaign, too little ammunition for its new US-made weapons, and insufficient manpower - one of the republic's four combat ready brigades was deployed in Iraq, and the rest were not in battle positions. Yet given the imbalance in power between Georgia and Russia, its unlikely that even a competent Georgian military would have significantly changed the military outcome.
The Georgian sued for peace, and an international diplomatic effort, spearheaded by France (One of the most interesting revelation of the book is that the United States outsourced its work on the crisis, arguably abrogabdicating its responsibilities as the leader of the free world), reached terms which sacrificed Georgian territorial integrity, but allowed the Saakashvili government to stay in office. Georgia did not like the deal, but had no choice; Asmus lacks sources on the Kremlin to inform us of Russia's reasoning. Following the cease fire, Russia recognized the independence of the provinces.
Ronald D. Asmus narration of the crisis and its origin is on the whole compelling, but highly unequal. Asmus excels at description of high-level diplomacy; The chapter about the machinations of the NATO summit is particularly breathtaking and analytically sophisticated. But as a military history the book is a total failure: the complete absence of battle field maps (the entire book has only one map!) is especially damning.
Perhaps the book's greatest failure, however, is its naivete. Asmus seems to have expected the post Cold War world to become a paradise of democracy "...our commitments to... the right[s] to territorial integrity, sovereignty, equal security, and to choose one's own alliance affiliation... were supposed to be the bedrock of a new post-Cold War security order" (p. 13). Did Asmus really expect the Cold War to have been the War to End All War?
It seems obvious to me that the key to the Georgian situation is the fact that the West in unwilling to fight in the Caucasus, while Russia is. This makes the region a part of the Russian sphere of influence. The new, pro-Western regimes in Eastern Europe constitute a remarkable achievement from the Western point of view - most of Eastern and Southern Europe is now on our side - but it is not a post - power politics Utopia.
Perhaps one day, Russia would be willing to join in the Western world order. But today it isn't, and the West has to deal with it. If nothing else, the cease fire agreement proved that we can do business with Russia - and cooperation is better than confrontation, especially when one side is either unwilling (NATO) or unable (Georgia) to effectively confront the other. I think this is a lesson worth reflecting upon, whether in Brussels, Washington, or Tbilisi.
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Top reviews from other countries
Matt Lerner
as it allows him to get a better understanding of what happened internally (at least in Georgia)
Reviewed in Canada on February 15, 2016
I. P. H.
An eye opener to those who were ignorant
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2010
