THE ECONOMIST'S OPINION ON Russia and the West

After Georgia
Aug 21st 2008
From The Economist print edition

After Georgia’s defeat, the West struggles to deal with a newly belligerent Russia

Illustration by Claudio Munoz
IN LESS than two weeks—from the first heated discussion about Russia’s push into Georgia that took place between President George Bush and Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, to the supposed start on August 19th of the Russian army’s rifle-dragging withdrawal—the geopolitical map of Europe has been redrawn. Swathes of Georgia, not just the enclave of South Ossetia, the proximate cause of the fighting, are in Russian hands (see article). Surprised and shocked by the outbreak of war over a place few of their citizens had ever heard of, Western governments have scrambled to cover their divisions over how to respond. Yet for all its triumphalist taunts that “Russia is back”, there is no gold medal for the Kremlin for invading a neighbour for the first time since the end of the cold war.

The immediate damage to Russia’s relations with America and Europe is clear from NATO’s decision to suspend co-operation with the Kremlin until its “disproportionate” action ends and its troops are back in the positions they held before the fighting erupted on August 7th. Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, who is Mr Putin’s hand-picked successor, now says this will be done by August 22nd. But it is Mr Putin and the generals who call the shots—and they mutter that the Georgians have “not given up on their aggressive intentions.”

Mr Bush has already cancelled military exercises with Russia and withdrawn from Congress a civilian nuclear co-operation agreement that could potentially have netted Russia’s atomic industry billions. High-level visits have been put on hold. There is to be a fundamental review of relations with Russia. Beyond that, Russia’s hopes of getting into the World Trade Organisation this year have been dashed: Georgia, among others, would block it. Some, including John McCain, the Republican candidate in America’s presidential election, talk of expelling Russia from the G8 group of rich and supposedly responsible countries; others of diluting its influence by inviting China and others to join.

Some European governments have puffed hot, some cold over all this. But Germany’s Angela Merkel, often in the cautious camp when it comes to dealings with Russia because of her country’s extensive business and energy ties, has spoken with increasing sharpness of Russia’s obligations under the ceasefire agreement that she helped to nail down. Meanwhile the repercussions of this small war in the Caucasus will spread a lot wider.

The (dis)honours are shared. Georgia’s youthful president, Mikheil Saakashvili, made a terrible mistake in ordering attacks on civilian targets in South Ossetia on August 7th. NATO has set up a special commission with Georgia to oversee reconstruction and to help the country eventually fulfil its aspirations for membership, which Russia fiercely opposes. Yet Mr Saakashvili’s actions have made Georgia’s path longer and steeper. Once Russian troops go, the anger of ordinary Georgians at the catastrophe that has befallen their country may yet turn on the man who got them into this mess.

Mr Putin would count Mr Saakashvili’s scalp as another victory. Polls suggest that Russia’s leaders have popular backing at home. But Russia has also miscalculated by marching its troops into Georgia proper. That has lost it the propaganda war abroad, with the television pictures conjuring up memories of Prague in 1968 and, more recently, of Chechnya.

Russia’s interests will not go unscathed. Ukraine, another NATO candidate some day, far from being cowed by Georgia’s fate, promptly offered America and the Europeans access to its air-defence radars. Belarus, usually tightly allied with the Kremlin, took almost two weeks to declare its support; other neighbours have stayed stumm. Behind the cover of the Olympic celebrations, it will not have gone unnoticed in Beijing that China’s ally at the United Nations in opposing “interference” in a sovereign country’s affairs has just worryingly stepped over the line.

The new low in Russia’s relations with the West is one of a dispiriting series. Russia’s failed attempts to shape the outcome of Ukraine’s presidential election in 2004, followed by the orange revolution there (after Georgia’s rose revolution in 2003), hit a nerve with Mr Putin. Resentment that simmered at the continued expansion of NATO, and America’s plans to site parts of its missile defences in the Czech Republic and Poland, then boiled over after the announcement at NATO’s summit in Bucharest in April that both Georgia and Ukraine could one day join the alliance, albeit only when they were ready. Both Russia and Georgia were left itching for a fight.

That it came to one only makes difficult things harder. One is the effort to keep Europe, America, Russia and China united in the face of Iran’s defiance of UN calls for a suspension of its suspected nuclear activity. Another is the bid to resurrect an amended Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty. Russia stopped co-operating with CFE limits on troop movements last year. Shortly before the Georgia crisis, it came up with suggested troop limits that it could live with. The new chill will also kill Mr Medvedev’s proposed Treaty on European Security, an idea that a British official says now looks “slightly absurd”.

Efforts to overcome Russia’s objections to missile defences in eastern Europe will also suffer. It has slammed America’s new agreement with Poland and frozen its own links with NATO. It might have done this anyway, but the shape of a deal to address some of Russia’s fears about the system was in sight, argues Rose Gottemoeller of the Carnegie Moscow Centre. Now the next American president will find it harder to make the compromises needed to get Russia involved.

Indeed, in the run-up to the inauguration of a new American president in January, scores of think-tanks, commissions and working groups have been beavering away on advice for the next incumbent of the White House. Democrats in particular have been looking for ways for an Obama presidency to broaden relations with Russia, which they argue have been neglected, except in narrow nuclear matters, by the Bush administration. There is much nuclear work still to be done, including agreeing upon a new round of cuts in strategic arsenals. But they are now scratching their heads. How to take account of Russia’s interests, when its idea of respect from the outside world is based on fear? For more details click here