News, May 2008
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The Mouse That Roared: NATO, Georgia and Russia
By Eric Walberg
ccun.org, May 8, 2008
By Eric Walberg
ccun.org, May 8, 2008
While
Georgians see themselves as part of Europe, “the whole history of
Georgia is of Georgian kings writing to Western kings for help, or
for understanding. And sometimes not even getting a response,” said
its thoroughly Westernised president, Mikheil Saakashvili, in a
recent interview. “Not just being an isolated, faraway country, but
part of something bigger.”
With a
population of 4.7 million, this beautiful land, noted for its dozen
or so hot-blooded independent-minded peoples, is surrounded by at
best indifferent neighbours Armenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and of
course Russia. Its fiery 40-year-old president does not disappoint,
with his penchant for thumbing his nose at Russia and lavishly
admiring US President George W Bush.
In his short first term (he called early elections last year and won
a disputed second term, though his popularity even officially
dropped from 97 to 52 per cent), he combined scorning bluster at
Russia with oily praise for Bush and now presidential hopeful
Senator John McCain, who even brought him a bullet-proof vest, all
the time loudly demanding membership in NATO.
This may just look like pre-election posturing, with less than a
month to go before the country’s parliamentary elections, but
there’s just too much at stake to think so. It’s as if he is
determined to prove to the world that NATO is indeed primarily an
alliance to confront Russia.
In fact,
Georgia cannot by any stretch of the imagination become a legitimate
member of the “Atlantic” alliance, which according to its charter is
a North American-European alliance. Georgia, unlike Turkey, has not
even a fraction of its territory in Europe. So Saakashvili seems
determined to show the world that not only is NATO primarily an
anti-Russian alliance, but it is not even a European one. But then
we know what often comes out of the mouth of babes. Petulant
children are always revealing embarrassing truths which adults try
to keep hidden.
While
Europe’s “kings” demurred at Saakashvili’s noisy whining at the last
NATO meeting in April in Bucharest, the matter is far from settled.
Not a day goes by now without claims of the Russians shooting down
Georgian spy planes and counter-claims of Georgian troop build-up on
the border of the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia.
This is
all according to plan for Saakashvili. Georgia was the main topic at
an emergency 30 April NATO meeting in Brussels, following Russia’s
deployment of extra peacekeeping troops and setting up of
observation border posts in Abkhazia, in turn in response to
Georgia’s deployment of 1,500 troops in the mountainous Upper Kodori
valley — a small but strategic enclave inside the separatist
territory. It was “possible to conclude that Georgia is preparing a
base for a military operation against Abkhazia”, the Russian Foreign
Ministry reported. At the NATO meeting, it was announced that “NATO
ambassadors” would be coming to Tbilisi soon as a show of support
for this non-European country that just happens to be a vital
alternative energy transit route to Russia. Negotiations on
Georgia’s eventual membership to NATO are intended to begin in
December.
Under a key Soviet-era arms pact, Moscow should notify NATO nations
of any troop movements, as it has continued to do despite freezing
the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty last December. Despite the
claims and denials, the UN mission monitoring Georgia and Abkhazia,
UNOMIG, said on 21 April that its monitors “did not observe anything
to substantiate reports of a build-up of forces on either side.”
Whatever
the details, the Russians are clearly reinforcing the current status
quo in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where citizens have Russian
citizenship for the asking, while the Georgians — at least the
president — are determined to reincorporate the rebel territories.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, another breakaway region of Georgia, as legal entities this
month, prompting Tbilisi to accuse Russia of “de
facto annexation”. Georgia denied that it was planning to
recapture Abkhazia, but then Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
has said many times that Russia is duty-bound to protect
Russian-speakers in the breakaway regions and would use military
force if Georgia attacked either Abkhazia or South Ossetia.
Abkhazia’s Foreign Ministry said last week that the threat of a
Georgian attack was real. “We have a very distinct feeling that
Georgia is preparing something,” Maxim Gunjia, Abkhazia’s vice
foreign minister said. “We expect an attack from Georgia at any
time.”
Russia’s
government recently upgraded its trade relations with the breakaway
republics, while diplomatic relations with Georgia have chilled and
Georgian wines been banned, much to Saakashvili’s chagrin. Or is
this precisely what he wants? To provoke the giant and turn Georgian
against Russian, while alternately charming and shouting “wolf!” to
his new Western friends, drawing them into Georgia’s long, if
obscure, history of swashbuckling warfare? As if to make the point,
on 29 April, Georgia confirmed that it plans to block Moscow’s
accession to the World Trade Organisation.
Saakashvili attempted to smooth things over with the Abkhaz and
South Ossetian people during a televised address on 29 April in
which he offered to make the vice-president of Georgia an Abkhazian,
and described Russia as an “outrageous and irresponsible force”
attempting to “involve us in confrontation. The more we speak about
peace, the more this third force speaks about war. It is the force
that leaves you no right of choice and speaks on your behalf with us
and with the rest of the world that needs confrontation.”
The
leaders of both unrecognised republics rejected Saakashvili’s offer
of peace and friendship out of hand.
De facto Abkhaz President
Sergei Bagapsh said, “the existence of Abkhazia and Georgia in a
unified state is impossible,” while his South Ossetian counterpart,
Eduard Kokoity, accused Georgia of conducting a policy of genocide
against the Ossetians and stressed that, “the Ossetian people have
made their choice in favour of an independent state.”
There is
little likelihood that this brash youngster will revert to
realpolitik in the near
future. He seems to thrive on controversy. He has even invited the
Israeli army to train Georgian commandos. His rash and impetuous
style is increasingly alienating not only Russians, but his own
Georgians as well. Last November, opposition protests prompted him
to impose a state of emergency that included a blackout on all
non-state media.
Is NATO
the key to a return to glory for this beleaguered nation, or a
ticket to further misery and insecurity? As history has shown
Georgians time and again, Europe — let alone the US — is far away.
Saakashvili, seemingly looking for a doting parent across the
Atlantic, might pause to ponder an Arabic proverb: “A close
neighbour is better than a far distant mother.” He would also be
wise to take a lesson from his country’s often tragic history: while
Georgia flourished briefly as an empire in the 13th century, it has
fared best when it made peace with its neighbours and made the best
use of its rich endowments, both natural and human. This is
precisely what it did during its Soviet period, when its film
directors, composers, artists, writers, and athletes — not to
mention politicians — wowed the world, when its mountains yielded
world class wines and served as a playground for countless tourists.
While
Eastern Europe and the Baltics managed to jump into NATO’s embrace
with little protest from Russia, the attempt to suck Ukraine and
Georgia into what is clearly a US military alliance intended to
police the world will not be tolerated by Russia. Instead of making
peace with its increasingly robust neighbour, Saakashvili is doing
everything to provoke it into full scale confrontation, with the
intention of drawing the EU and US in to save its bacon.
So far
only a few sane voices have been heard from Europe, notably German
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. None from the US. Whether
NATO dresses up the need to leave Ukraine and Georgia out as a
sensible compromise with Russia or lets this squeaky mouse draw it
further into a very dangerous confrontation is increasingly an issue
that concerns the entire world. It is time for sensible NATO members
and non-NATO countries to speak out before shots are fired at more
than unmanned drones.
But even
if an acceptable comedown is achieved, the damage to NATO’s
peace-loving image will have been done. Saakashvili, by pushing the
boundaries of this bogus alliance into the realm of the surreal, may
just be the catalyst for its well-earned demise.
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