The New Republic

It's laughable to watch the likes of Stephen Cohen and the other frozen-in-the-Amber-Room lefties contort themselves trying to make excuses for a criminalized Russian state whose only ideology is that of John Gotti. Putin's regime has no ideology, neither  soviet nor Great Russian nor Orthodoxy/Autocracy. His grand strategy begins and ends with his offshore personal accounts, and the commodities that generate the cash flowing into same. If the Fulda Gap still has any interest to him and his fellow FSB thieves, it's as a glide path for their Gulfstreams enroute to their private bankers in Zurich or Liechtenstein.

If Putin were truly interested in advancing Russian national interests in any diligent or coherent way, he would have

reformed and modernized the Russian military, which is a shambles;

reformed and improved Russian higher education, technology and scientific research, which have declined sharply since 1990 not because of brain drain but due to his government's neglect and corruption;

pursued a policy of intensified trade, cross-border investment and military cooperation with China, rather than passively watching his Far East turn into a de facto Chinese province and doing nothing on the military or economic fronts.

Instead Russia is even more isolated diplomatically than it was 8 years ago and more economically dependent on commodity exports, and Putin's foreign policy is mainly a series of stunts involving Gotti-style threats to make Ukrainians, Czechs, Lithuanians etc freeze in the dark plus pointless freebooter adventurism involving bandit-officers and ex-FSB goons running weapons, drugs, and god knows what else, and causing mayhem and mischief, across Moldova and the Caucasus.

Encirclement, right. The wealthiest man in the world-- he's easily over $100b by now-- is "encircled."  

Think Collor, Suharto or Mobutu, not Andropov or Alexander III.

- teplukhin2you

August 11, 2008 at 11:53pm

Mr. Wieseltier! What a (what I thought would be pleasant) surprise! I must say, I find the demeaning and scathing tone of this post rather jarring, and it detracts greatly from its substantive value. In your last paragraph, you finally arrive at a sound point -- that trying to fit this conflict and Russia's rise in general into a model that may not fit after all can be counter-productive.

But most of this entry is composed of straw-man arguments and a misplaced anger at people who are re-examining their approaches to foreign policy in Eastern Europe. As a committed neoliberal myself, I must admit that I am tempted to reconsider Niebuhr more after these events have unfolded, and why is this so bad? Our foreign policy at least verbally is committed to the defense of democracies around the globe, but "reality," both actual and imagined, presents obstacles to this goal. I am not arguing -- nor is Judis -- that we should reverse our policy 180 degrees. However, a reassessment is in order. Your criticism of this rather lassez-faire approach to the problem of Russia would not be so unfair if you actually had your own policy prescription for the dilemma -- which, you concede, you do not.

You write this in response to Judis: "Of course, a Russian invasion of Georgia could also fuel a new Cold War." Judis (presumably) would not deny this, nor would I. Neither side is absolutely responsible for the current divergent directions that Russia and the US are headed in, and neither is blameless. The percentages of blame are irrelevant in this matter; all Judis sought was the concession that "Russia's turn toward an aggressive nationalism was triggered at all by American moves[.]" Those American moves, which Judis lists in the blog post, did not cause Putin's aggressive and domineering vision for Russia. But the point is that they did _exacerbate_ the tensions. Complexity IS in fact what Judis appears to seek, because the truth IS complex.

- rozenson

August 12, 2008 at 12:05am

This is as morally and factually confused mess as I have read in a long time.  It is not liberals who have suddenly it awakened to the realities of power politics.  It is neo-cons such as Wieseltier who should have but are still sleep-walking.  

Take note, Leon, the bad guys do not surrender their interests to us because we are virtuous.  When we claim to be defending turf and interests vastly in excess of what we can in fact defend, we invite defeat.  When we attack the wrong enemy in the wrong place, as we did in Iraq, we invite defeat.  When we turn ourselves from the world's largest creditor into its largest debtor nation, we sap are economic power in the world and our economic leverage.  When we ourselves, not to mention our allies, are utterly dependent on imported oil, we are not in a position to do much to force energy exporters, such as Russia and Iran, to do what we want them to do.  Have you now "sagely grasped the limits of American force" and the danger of deploying it or threatening to deploy it beyond its limits?  I rather doubt it.  You are as benighted now as ever.l

All of you nuts who deluded yourselves into thinking that bluster and self-proclaimed virtue are sufficient for our defense in a dangerous world bear at least the moral burden of this disaster.  It is typical of you to lay your disgraceful failures at the feet of liberals.  "Stabbed in the back" were you, Leon?  Get the analogy?  Have a ball.

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 12:07am

It is not making excuses for Russia, teplukhin, to take note that when dealing with bad actors, actions have consequences that we ignore at our peril.  It is typical of the contortions of the self-righteous, faith-based neo-con goon squad that when their fabulist schemes -- "just tell the Russians to stick it and that we will do what we want"-- go awry because they are utterly divorced from the realities of the world, the first thing they do is blame liberals for their own stupidity and incompetence.

And what exactly was the point of inviting Georgia to seek membership in NATO?  What profound strategic insight did the emerge from?  Or was it nothing more than the payoff for "supporting" our misbegotten Iraq invasion with 2,000 troops.  Stupid beyond stupid.

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 12:13am

roi, calm down. No one's "blaming liberals"; LW's merely holding a mirror up to you. Your screeds are making you look ridiculous. Take a deep breath and look at the situation objectively. Start with the "correlation of forces," as the Soviets used to say.

Russia's position sucks. Putin's state is a shambles, his military is a mess, his population is literally shrinking, his far eastern regions are on track to become absorbed by China within another generation o two, and his technologic and scientific base now lags far behind China, not to mention former little southern brethren like India, Korea, or even formerly piss-poor neighboring Finland.

Putin looks at this mess and thinks to himself-- cue a Russian version of John Gotti-- "Self, we gotta do somethin', whaddya got, hey... we gots OIL! Oil = security. That's it: let's call it 'energy security.'"

The grand strategic insight of this little trumped-up former KGB washout is to map the region's pipelines and then bully anyone on the receiving end. There's nothing more to Russian foreign policy than this.

Now compare Putin's thuggery with China's careful, strategic global outreach.

Putin: haphazard, freebooter adventurism in Chechnya, Moldova, the Caucasus; bullying stunts vs Ukraine, Estonia, Czech; fioolish assassinations in London and Moscow coupled with farcical bullying ot major western corporations and investment managers; a stupid intervention in Georgia that has already cost him dearly and will deprive him of the best card in his hand, his ability to play off Germany against the rest of E-Cent Europe. He's achieved in one stroke what not even the most strident neo-con Russophobe could achieve: awakened and begun to unite the West against Russia.

Hu/China: patient, careful, concerted efforts to build ties and expand its influence across the globe without antagonizing either the US or its Asian rivals. A deliberate strategy to gain regional hegemony in Asia via complex diplomatic overtures, deepen economic ties across Africa and Latin America, and ensure a tight and symbiotic economic relationship with its most important counterpart.  

To which your response is, in essence, "Chimpy BusHitler suxxx!!!!"

- teplukhin2you

August 12, 2008 at 12:39am

Nonsense, teplukhin,

Is your point supposed to be that no one should care one way or the other if Putin invades Georgia because Russia is destined for the junk-heap of history?  Or is it that China is far more dangerous than Russia? "A deliberate strategy to gain regional hegemony in Asia via complex diplomatic overtures, deepen economic ties across Africa and Latin American, and ensure a tight and symbiotic economic relationship with its most important counterpart."

That latter bit is a fair description of what used to be US policy in world affairs through the Cold War, more or less until Darth Cheney and his wonder pet, Chimpy Bush, occupied the White House.  Smart, patient, deploying all of our advantages, economic, moral, cultural, diplomatic, financial, and military toward the goal of containing communism, getting others to follow our lead, and maintaining world order.  Now we have American foreign and military policy as a cowboy movie where all you have to do is say, "Bring 'em on" and the bad guys run straight into your deadly rifle fire and fall down dead by the zillions, with, of course, virtue triumphing at the end.  "Screw economic, moral, cultural, diplomatic, and financial power.  We have the biggest military budget in the world."  But it isn't working, is it?  Even pitiful Russia can invade a neighbor, and ostensible ally of ours, right under our noses and we cannot do a thing about it.

My point is that this vacuous, fantasist "policy" doesn't work because it is utterly disconnected from reality.  Putin and Russia may not be the most threatening power in the world (although the fact that he is a kleptocrat, like Bush, rather than a patriot hardly seems like reason for cheer as you seem to think).  But he has taken the measure of the US and we are going to pay for it.  Will this be the end of the world as we know it when Russia again dominates Georgia?  Hardly.  But it will further disclose to all the bankruptcy of our policies and our impotence to protect the stunningly broad array of interests that we claim.  In light of that, it ill becomes the neo-con nuts to point fingers when their own stupidity becomes patent.  It is they, after all, who believe that a bottomless well of self-righteousness, the words of Saint Niebuhr, and aircraft carriers are all you need to dominate the world. My point is not that Bush and his neo-con cheerleaders equal Hitler.  It is that they equal The Three Stooges.

Let me make it simple:  It is immensely stupid in a still dangerous world for us to claim vast interests, such as the spread by force of democracy and "our way of life" around the world, that we intend to defend all by our lonesome when we are in fact powerless to do so.  When events then reveal our geo-strategic and rhetorical over-reach, we endanger, not our ability to spread our way of life, but our own ability to live our way of life.  Our incapacity to defend what we lay claim to makes it more likely that we and our core interests will be attacked and that we will be unable to defend them, particularly when we have abandoned all of the sort of patient effort you correctly ascribe to China in favor of exclusive reliance on a pair of six-shooters.

If it makes you feel better to think of that as a screed, why go right ahead.  You deserve a break today as your McCain hobby-horse isn't making much progress.

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 1:18am

tep to roi: "Your screeds are making you look ridiculous."  Now *that's* rich.

- hemlock41

August 12, 2008 at 1:32am

Did Wieseltier just use the word "bummer"? Whoa.

- hemlock41

August 12, 2008 at 1:33am

roid - you've made yourself into a caricature of the Bush-obsessives. I especially liked your (apparently unconscious) mouthing of the "Chimpy" epithet. Maybe I should just let you step in the sh*t and make a fool of yourself.  

As to the matter at hand, ie that far off country about which you know nothing: the origins of this crisis have f-all to do with Bush or anyone else in Washington, or for that matter anyone in the western world. Its roots are local and derive from the violent banditry that exploded across the region the early 1990s, most of it stoked by former Red Army and KGB officers, the rest of it due to the incompetence and colossal corruption of ex-soviet hacks like Shevardnadze. (Great line from Eduard S during the Gorbachev era, per Seweryn Bialer: "I'm honest-- see, I never made any bribes, I only took them!").

The current Georgian president is a normal political leader, ie, someone interested more in the welfare of his nation than in the size of his personal account or the number of yachts and villas he owns off hte Cote d'Azur. Part of his normality is the wish that his country not be enslaved to Russian thugs. For which crimes his nation has been repeatedly subjected to provocations by Russian "peacekeepers" stationed in territories that remain lawless fiefdoms of feebooter ex-Red Army and KGB officers.

You're making yourself into a caricature of an American naif, the innocent for whom everything that happens outside the US is a reflection of the US.

Now carry on with your key to all mythologies, the evil darkness that is Bush. Just do it somewhere else like MyDD or HuffPo. We're trying to understand this crisis on its own terms and can do without self-absorbed rants by American naifs.

- teplukhin2you

August 12, 2008 at 2:00am

Dear whoever runs the TNR site, if such a person exists: this post is by leon wieseltier, but in the RSS feed it says it's by greg veis. this happens periodically, and is a small thing, but it would be nice to fix it. also a lot of posts by various people say they are by "tnr1.com". maybe fix that too. thanks.

- perkowitz

August 12, 2008 at 2:51am

Tep, if you're going to lecture roid on how he knows little he knows about the start of the war, then don't provide the patronizing Saakashvili=Great, Putin=Gotti analogy.  Perhaps if you included more time in your posts to decent argument and less to snearing, sarcastic insults, they would have more substance.  Saakashvili may not be a kelptocrat a la Shevardnadze, but he helped provoke this my moving his army into South Ossetia in the first place while he was stuck in a No Mans Land between being in NATO and not being in it.  Dismissing the impact of the Bush administration shows your ignorance.  Making big shows, as Bush did during their visits. only served to embolden the Georgian leadership even though the US did not have the capability (and even then, did not have the intentions) of backing up Georgia sufficiently in the event of crisis to deter Russia.  And the reason the US did not have the capability in large part falls to the Bush Administration.  Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mismanaged, have weakened US power and their capability to project it.  Currently, Georgia lies "a bridge too far" so to speak, but the Bush Administration did not make that abundantly clear to the Georgians in the first place.  Of course, some may also liken Georgia's situation to the roots of the Korean War, where some Americans blamed a speech by then Secretary of State Dean Acheson that did not include South Korea in the US's Pacific Defense Perimeter.  However, part of being the remaining Superpower means that the world's problems end up on your desk, whether you like them or not.  

- Crock1701

August 12, 2008 at 2:54am

roid, your point boils down to noting that the Iraq invasion was a huge strategic mistake for the US. Hardly earth-shattering stuff. If it weren't for that misallocation of resources, the US might well today be in a position to defend its ally in the Caucasus.

- kyrreholm

August 12, 2008 at 2:56am

Not a regular poster here, so I step in hesitantly. But the issues are so important, however heated the rhetoric, that I'd like to get clearer on them myself.

Granted that tep is right in his estimation of V. Putin's leadership, sic, and that Wieseltier was not wrong in saying that we can't reduce our understanding of others' actions to our own actions, still...how much real leverage do we currently have in Georgia, given our overreach elsewhere?  My basic sympathy in the current thread is thus with roi's view of the limits of American power.  

As for the immediate background of the current crisis, why were we so invested in Georgia? Why should they have been encouraged to seek NATO membership?  Were we being played by Saakashvili?  Was he dreaming of a Greater Georgia?  The background questions are real and I have no basis for giving firm answers -- help appreciated.  

- mjhollerich

August 12, 2008 at 3:11am

Sorry to jump into the fray here guys, but I can't help feeling that somehow the issue is being used, perhaps even sub consciously, as a front to to vent old arguments; war in Iraq, neocon vs neolib, etc.

Everyone involved has raised important points (including Judas) so please, try to keep the acid out of your voice.

As for my two cents, a Russian friend of mine explained Russian foreign policy to me 15 years ago as being very simple:  "This is Mine!  Oh, that's yours?  Today it's yours tomorrow it's mine."

Roi is right in pointing out that we have A LOT less leverage on Putin due to the Neocons (especially the War in Iraq which rumor has it, having offered to take out Saddam, he took as a personal insult and a national affront) and that the "encirclement strategy" really is a set up for American failure at this point.

Tep, your measure of Putin's character and the state of affairs in Russia (i.e. what makes them tick) are most astute and amongst the most helpful that I have come across.

Keep in mind everyone, these events bring us into a new era of American Foreign Policy vis-a-vis Russia in particular and the world in general.  We're bound to grasp for some outmoded analogies from time to time as we all grope this new elephant in the room.

None of us have all the answers, so let's share whatever knowledge we have and try to chart a course through this minefield.  Do any of us really want Cowboy Bush and Rowdy Outlaw Putin to meet up at the OK Coral for a showdown?

I would say step one is to release one months worth of our strategic reserve to lower oil prices in the short term.  Step two is to provide humanitarian assistance to Georgia in the form of airlifts, medical evacuation and food supplies that are secured by US, European and Asian armed forces.  Third, certain areas, once said armed forces are in place to secure the humanitarian work should be declared Humanitarian DMZ's with neither sides military being allowed in.  One such  DMZ, which would treat and evacuate Russian and Georgian casualties alike, would be set up essentially as a buffer zone between Tiblisi and the Russian Army.  Cease-fire negotiations would follow rather naturally after that.

It's an aggressive strategy that would involve tremendous brinkmanship, but while I think Putin would risk a face off with George Bush, he would not take such a risk with the EU, Japan and South Korea.

- Gavriel Meir-Levi

August 12, 2008 at 3:12am

Excellent post Leon. This needed to be said, and you've said it well. Description must precede prescription; clarity must precede policy. Indeed.

Absolutely no one is advocating the kind of cartoonish policy described by roi, much less taking military action against Russia. But as Holbrooke wrote in his excellent WaPo essay linked in another post on this subject below, there are a lot of things we can do short of that, and we need to get busy doing them.

This is a classic case of unprovoked aggression for political purposes. Attempting to blame US policy is the flip side of the same kind of America-centric analysis lefties love to mock "neocons" for.

- Robert Powell

August 12, 2008 at 3:22am

I have to say that I agree with a good deal of Leon Wieseltier’s rejoinder to me, and I’ll keep it in

- Anonymous

August 12, 2008 at 3:44am

Well, shit. I'm just a dumb-fuck medico trying to earn a living out here in regional Australia, and I couldn't hope to speak today's topic in our seminar on Grand Strategy one quarter as eloquently as Judis, Wieseltier, teplukhin, or roid.  But, mates, I gotta tell ya, from where I sit it seems like you're all just blowing smoke.  ALL of you.  You each have your retrospective axes to grind, of course, but it seems the main point of all your verbiage is to show us all how goddamn smart you all are.  What's missing from any of your posts--and I'm including the paid writers on an equal footing with the Plankton--is any recommendation for a course of action.  Honestly, I don't give a damn whether Putin moved into Georgia because Bush fucked up US foreign policy or simply because VP is the antichrist.  As LW said, Georgia is about Georgia.  What are we going to do about it?  I don't profess to have any idea whatsoever.  I just wish we could trade with the competing descriptions of how we got to now for competing description of how we should get to tomorrow.

- aeromonas

August 12, 2008 at 7:48am

Thanks, Judis for lowering the testesterone in the room.  This conflict in the pages of TNR does remind of the old conflict between East and West, as the two sides in the West blame each other for the actions taken in the East.  That is of course simpler than crafting a strategy for deterring Russia from further expansion.  Yes, at bottom that is what this is all about.  Expansion.  Containment alone at this point is not the answer, for it implies that the horses have already left the barn.  The strategy must include all that is available in our arsenal, including force if necessary, for as history teaches freedom once lost may take generations to recover.  True, the US cannot go it alone, and recent actions of the US will make it exceedingly difficult to assemble our historic allies.  But such are the challenges facing the next administration, which will need much more than angry words and blame from the two sides in the West.

- raylward

August 12, 2008 at 7:52am

I've hopped to the Judis response thread upstream to avoid redundancy, but advise aero to read Holbrooke's remarked linked below, or suffer with my synopsis above.

We need to be doing things right now that mitigate the effects of the Russian aggression, starting with an immediate ceasefire. And making it unmistakably clear that "regime change" in Tiblisi will be resisted with all practical means in perpetuity--that it will never be accepted by an future administration.

- Robert Powell

August 12, 2008 at 9:27am

When the headlines broke about this inexplicable ‘invasion’ it was easy to say condemn outright but as more information about this poorly understood region of the world becomes apparent there are a number parallels to Kosovo. Are we saying Kosovo good because the West was involved, South Ossetia bad.

Now time or further information may show these parallels to be bogus, but if Russia did set some trap do we really want leaders who will walk into it. Much of the tone of this article and the follow up discussion seems to be about the world as we want it rather than it is.

- Tim Bywater-Lees

August 12, 2008 at 9:35am

Tep,

I’m not going to bother trading insults with you because you are so obviously wrong and your thinking so irrelevant in any case that doing so would merely take everyone’s attention from the obvious.  That there are provocations to Georgia and/or provocations to Russia is almost certainly the case and largely the irrelevant to the basic point which is not about Russia – whether it is good, bad, justified, unjustified, authoritarian, kleptocratic, or proto-democratic -- but about the consequences in the real world of ignorant neo-con bellicosity that exceeds any conceivable scope of actual American power, combined with an exclusive focus on military power that actually degrades severely our ability to control events.  The success of the Chinese policy of patiently building power and influence without force is obvious to you.  You said so.  Yet the loss of major pillars of American power due to our abandonment of the same eludes you.

Incredibly, even now that the policy of American chest-thumping has been shown by the Russians (not to mention a handful of al Qaeda, Taliban, and miscellaneous Iraqis) to be empty, tough-sounding rhetoric that is not backed by the actual ability, physical and political, to use force whenever and wherever to “defend our interests and our allies,” the neo-cons prescribe what? – why, more of the same!  If it doesn’t work, just do it some more. The liberals who shaped our strategy in World War II and the Cold War, including the alliance with Soviet Russia, were  consummate realists who understood that, even in a conflict as stark as WW II, the real world seldom presents clear-cut, inevitable moral choices.  The first point of clarity for Wieseltier and fellow-travelers to understand is that their longed for clarity and simplicity seldom exist.  Complexity and a corresponding need for a response that is subtle, varied, and contingent is the way the real world works, day after day, year after year.  And when you throw away almost all other forms of power than military, you discover that you really don’t have much.  The essence of power, the single thing that the neo-con delusionists fail all the  time to understand about power, is that, if it is necessary to apply force constantly, there is NEVER enough.  Only the credible threat of force, and the rare demonstration that the threat will be made good if necessary, allows a tissue of force to constrain an elephant.  But to do that successfully, you need to keep your threats in line with your abilities so that people believe that your threats are good and, when they are challenged, you actually have the means to make them good.  There is nothing worse than an empty threat.

All of this has absolutely nothing to do with the facts peculiar to the conflict between Russia and Georgia.  There are going to continue to be a range of threats to us from many sources with an endless variety of “causes.”  If we continue to defend ourselves and our “interests” with neo-con stupidity, we are going to end up dead.  The issue I am discussing is the nature of and use and abuse of American power, not the history of the Caucusus.  

Kyrreholm, my point is also only marginally about the fact that Iraq was a strategic mistake, although it surely was.  Iraq is but the most egregious example of the failure to understand either the limits or the proper use and proper context for use of American military power.  The rhetorical extension of an invitation to Georgia to join NATO is another.  The unwillingness to tell the Kosovars that they are going to have to live with political ambiguity because they live on a fault-line is another.  They all stem from the same fundamental, neo-con error that we have sufficient force to defeat everyone and intimidate everyone if only we have the unbridled will to use force whenever anyone in the world threatens or uses force against some interest we have claimed as ours.  We do not, and despite the initial shock and awe generated by Iraq, the world has been recovering its sense of our limits, even as we have been oh-so-convincingly demonstrating them.

For those who ask plaintively, well, forgetting who or what is at fault, what are we supposed to do now?,  the only possible answer is to continue to appeal on humanitarian grounds for an end to fighting, with constant emphasis on the civilian losses being incurred, in order to raise the diplomatic stakes for Russia, and the exploitation of the occasion to form as firm a consensus as possible amongst our allies about policy toward Russia so that the Russians start to worry that they may be provoking a consensus against them that will ultimately cost them more than they stand to gain in Georgia and look for a way to stand down.  We have nothing else with which to sanction them, and no following with which to do so in the present, because our idiot government has stripped us utterly bare of the means.  We have at this point little direct leverage with anyone in the world.  Our clientele at this point consists of Poland, Georgia, and a collection of trivial countries.  And with the Russian demonstration in Georgia, even all of them are soon going to be re-thinking their relationship with us.

In short, the argument against the constant rhetorical resort to force (followed with misapplied force that succeeds only in demonstrating our incapacity) is not moral, the inability to perceive clearly what morality demands, as Wieseltier would have us believe.  It is practical.  It is destined to fail.  It is failing.

(And for RP, the empty threat that we will resist Russian domination of Georgia in perpetuity is not going to help either.  The likelihood that we will compromise all of our other interests upon the principle of the defense of Georgia is nil, which merely makes the proposition laughable, one more empty threat.  We are a great power and we act like one, even when acting stupidly.  We are not a font

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 10:23am

We are not a font  .   .   .   of morality in international affairs.

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 10:37am

aeromonas - "What's missing from any of your posts--and I'm including the paid writers on an equal footing with the Plankton--is any recommendation for a course of action"

1. Unite the West. Specifically, along with the Swedes, Poles and the rest of Germany's neighbors, prevail upon that country's leaders to junk their foolish and self-destructive "partnership" with Russian bandit energy extortionists and make common cause with all those in Europe who recognize that Putin's Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere must not come into existence.

2. Offer Russia a carrot that also triangulates them into a partner against Iran. Expand on the Azeri anti-missile placement initiative which intrugued Lavrov and Putin the last time it was floated. Give them access to the anti-missile technology and gain a foothold in Azerbaijan, next to Iran.

3. Get the French esp, also Britain and Germany, to go out on point in pushing the Ukrainians for EU and NATO membership. Accelerate this, now. Ditto for Turkey and EU membership. No time to split hairs. Make the club of western nations (club as in group, not stick) as large and as united as fast as we possibly can.

There you go, walto. Don't say I never did anything for you.

- teplukhin2you

August 12, 2008 at 10:40am

roi - you're right, sorry. I admit that in my ignorance I failed to see that Central Command launched an invasion of Caracas. Cheney's challenged Chavez to a duel,a dn Chavez accepted. Pistols, dawn, the Moncado barracks outside Havana. I humbly and penitently await your tome, _Why America Slept_.

- teplukhin2you

August 12, 2008 at 10:43am

I find it astonishing that roi can energetically extol the virtue of not making threats one can't back up,  while simultaneously advocating with at least equal vigor that Iraq's comprehensive violation of the '91 ceasefire and 16 subsequent Chapter VII Resolutions should have been responded to with a policy of essentially "one more chance ad infinitum".

I'm pretty flexible when it comes to taking real-world facts into consideration. But if there is any international norm that has been developed over the last century or so that's worth standing up for, it's the one that opposes unprovoked aggression for political purposes. Russia's action in Georgia is a least as clear an example of unprovoked aggression as we've seen since the invasion of Kuwait.

We need to make it clear as a matter of basic principle that we and our like-minded allies will never, ever, accept regime change in Tiblisi on the backs of Russian tanks ,  and moreover that are prepared to work assiduously in every available forum to reverse it if it occurs. We can, and usually must, be patient. But that doesn't mean we can't be clear about red line issues of our basic values.

- Robert Powell

August 12, 2008 at 10:44am

"Briefly, I see no reason almost ever to reduce their actions to our actions."

Am I the only one to find this line of Wieseltier's just outright stupid?  I mean, not intellectually stupid - the abstract point of countries having free will and being free agents is interesting and all, but surely, any pedestrian student of history would see that nations, as well as individuals, *respond* and *react*  as well as act, and they react within specific contexts that, upon reflection, might not appear to be entirely rational. (Unless of course you believe in Dialectical Materialism, or whatever it was that Scientific Marxism expounded, but I suspect WeasleTier does not.)

This does not mean that you can blame everything on the actor, but that the actor has to shoulder some responsibility for choices that lead, inexorably, to reaction.  You propose to encircle Russia; they will do what they can to break the chain around them.  You weaken yourself by undertaking ill-advised wars unprepared; expect your enemies to take advantage of your distraction and move to advance their interests.  And so on.  Why is it that when the US moves, it is not always a wilful action in pursuit of self-interest (Oh, I don't know, Iraq I and II?), but in reaction to aggressive move by others; but when others propose to move in reaction to *perceived*  aggression or weakness on our part, we suddenly deny our part in stoking the whole thing in the first place?

This is not to pass judgement one way or another on the Georgian situation.  I actually agree with both Tep and Roid: Putin is a megalomaniacal kleptocrat who is aided and abetted, indirectly, by American distraction elsewhere; Russian oligarchs, whether protecting their oil concessions or defending the Motherland, react or are pushed to reaction when they fear encirclement by NATO, etc.  It's just that we cannot hope to actually deal with issues - to do something - if we deny our own agency and actions in developing crises.

- icarusr

August 12, 2008 at 11:00am

Rather than enter this discussion I lazily refer to and heartily recommend www.antiwar.com/justin.

- lesserliz

August 12, 2008 at 11:01am

RP: while the US is talking Regime Change in Tehran with the threat of military action on the table, it is not exactly in a position to lecture Russia on avoiding regime change in Tbilisi on the backs of Russian tanks.  Whatever you (and I) might think about Iraq, the headlong rush to invade the country, the constant denigration of international law in doing so and the pissing on our allies in the process - plus the endless sabre-rattling of the last six years - put the United States in a precarious moral, ethical and political position to now raise the standard of South Ossetia.

Let's be clear to ourselves: John Bolton and John Yoo damaged the US's ability to rely on and advocate *the rule of law* internationally.  Their actions was built on a sound foundation of anti-internationalism promoted by Reagan.  Daniel Patrick Moynihan's "On the Law of Nations" sets this sorry history out and warns of what would ensue if we continued on this path.  This is not to say, pace the earlier the discussion, that Russia would have forebore from invading Georgia solely because of concerns about international law.  Only that the "red line" of which you speak is one we ourselves have crossed with abandon many times over.

- icarusr

August 12, 2008 at 11:07am

Your ignorance is excused, tep.  You can't help yourself.  I understand

Robert,

"One more chance ad infinitum" is your characterization.  It doesn't change the reality that we were faced with no imminent threat emanating from Iraq and would have been far better off using the time afforded by the lack of threat to build the international consensus for use of the UNSC mechanism, rather than a failed, unilateral American expedition.  Whenever Hussein perceived that the UNSC was united against him he bent.  (The same is true of Iran now.)  Of course, being a crook he tried never to give in fully and always to see what he still might get away with, but he gave ground.  Had we managed to create a credible threat of unified UNSC action, I think he would have caved in to the inspections that would have revealed he had nothing.  But, even if he had not, we would not have given ourselves the tremendous headache we have now, including the loss of our prestige and status as "Leader of the Free World."  We took a very valuable resource -- time -- and threw it away for nothing.  In contrast, we patiently contained the Soviet Union for half a century despite plenty of provocation because we remained conscious of the strategic realities.  When our self-righteousness got the better of us in Iraq, we stumbled badly.

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 11:10am

Tim, as the WSJ points out today, Kosovo is just a smokescreen.  Remember the brutal war Putin is waging in Chechnya.  He is for or against states' rights only as they serve his larger imperialist designs.  "Liberating" S. Ossetia serves the greater good of sticking it to Georgia.

- satyendra

August 12, 2008 at 11:16am

Why thank you lesserliz.  Very helpful if not quite the Bible.

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 11:16am

ick - "Russian oligarchs, whether protecting their oil concessions or defending the Motherland"

There's the flaw in your analysis. Men whose wealth, families, corporate structures, playthings and even key investments are all outside of Russia do not recognize the concept of a "motherland."

Again, consider the counterfactual. If these men were patriots, they'd be doing everything in their power to fix what those Russian institutions whose decay has reached third-world proportions. Starting with the military-- what kind of nationalist is it who allows the military to be as chaotic, incompetent, corrupt, and demoralized as a Russian military that kills more of its own soldiers each year in officer-sanctioned hazing incidents than it does enemy soldiers? That operates a series of lawless gangs all throughout the FSU?

How is it that men who are wealthy enough to buy a Cote d'Azur villa for $800m -- yes, you read that right -- cannot manage to create a legal or investment climate that would allow Russian technology to at least catch up to India, the formerly third world "little brother" that has vaulted miles ahead of Russia in the past 15 years? Or even catch up to Finland?

How could any patriot allow his country's economy to shift from a major first-world producer of manufactured goods to a third-world  commodity-based African-style economy?

Today's Russia is Nigeria North. That's the essential starting point for any analysis of Putin's intentions and capabilities here.

- teplukhin2you

August 12, 2008 at 11:18am

Tep,

Your argument with yourself about whether Putin is a kleptocrat or a patriot is pure distraction, a straw man with which you are obviously entertaining yourself and only yourself.   No one that I recall has argued that Russia's actions are justified.  The argument is about what posture in the face of threats the US has had during the Bush administration and whether it is efficacious, as well as whether we ought to continue in the same vein.  The neo-con answer to strategic failure is to engage in more of the same self-righteous bombast and bluster ("This shall not stand."  Oh, really.), only louder if possible.  That foolish point of view is not vindicated in any degree if one and all accept every one of your claims about Putin and his motivations.  I accept them.  So what?

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 11:39am

Yes, satyendra, Russia has aggressive designs within its means and uses American rights' rhetoric and past behavior to screen its actions.  SURPRISE!

Proving what about how the US should conduct its foreign and military policy?

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 11:41am

Teplukhin, point taken about Putin's "patriotism."  Perhaps more apt word is "nationalist" with all the authoritarianism and bellicosity that connotes.  Nationalists simultaneously stir up the fears of their populace while presenting themselves as the only one who can allay those fears, the better to consolidate their own power and wealth.  In reality, of course, Putin's "nation" really consists of himself and cadres.

- satyendra

August 12, 2008 at 11:57am

Roi, I sure don't have any answers about what to do.

Yes, Russia is using American rights' rhetoric and past behavior to screen its actions.  "Chechnya" lays the Kosovo screen bare.

- satyendra

August 12, 2008 at 12:07pm

I've just finished rereading "The Great Game," Peter Hopkirk's history of Russian-British imperial rivalry in and around Central Asia in the 19th century. Victorian Britain was slow to learn that Russia was an incorrigibly expansionist power, and that only a robust military presence near its borders, couped with distractions elsewhere (the Crimean and Russo-Japanese wars) checked its conquests. Soviet history powerfully reinforces that lesson. Putin's behavior shows that Russia remains intent on enlarging its "sphere of influence," but how far? To the old Soviet borders, or beyond?

So we're back to Kennan, Acheson and containment, aren't we? Where do we draw the lines? The eastern or western borders of Ukraine and the Baltic states? Do we concede the 'stans to Russia and hope their Muslim populations will destabilize Putin's empire? Do we or our proxies covertly help, a la Afghanistan? Post-Iraq, is there any hope that Islamic countries will side with us? Do we try to rekindle Russian-Chinese rivalry? Will the Europeans sit this one out?

I think the most constructive - and nonviolent - response to this revived Russian expansionism is to weaken Putin's petroleum trump card. The U.S., EU, Japan and Asian tigers should go balls out to develop post-petroleum energy technologies. Free the democracies ASAP from dependence on Russia and other hostile/unstable/crazy sources.

I trust the Western powers also are strengthening defenses against cyberwarfare, as that seems to be part of the new Russian M.O.

- cbustard

August 12, 2008 at 12:15pm

The point, dear Roidus, is that Putin's Russia is far weaker than it seems. Putin has seriously overreached here. Case in point, the Germans are already reversing their attitude toward Ukraine's EU membership bid. Putin's put Ukraine on a fast track to joining the West and transformed Germany from his lapdog into, if not a foe, then at least a very wary partner who will no longer oppose efforts by the Poles, Balts, Swedes etc to stand up to Russian bullying. This is a turning point. That's GOOD news for us.

- teplukhin2you

August 12, 2008 at 12:56pm

Tep: I was not suggesting Russian Oligarchs worry about the Motherland; the whether or not was not an assessment of their actual motivations.  I don't think it matters what their motivations are; they have interests, whatever they may be, and they will protect to move those interests from threats or perceived threats, wherever they may originate from.  US policy is one element among many, as is US capacity in formulating and implementing policy.  This is not to blame the US, but to suggest that a strategic view of what the US can do and what its interests are would have suggested, for example, that recruiting Georgia as a NATO Member was not a good idea.  And a strategic overview of Russia's behaviour over the past three hundred years would have concluded that regardless of who is in power and for what end, Russia will react badly to actual or perceived encirclement reaching its borders.  Finally, a broad view of Russia's actions throughout the twentieth century and especially since the end of the USSR would suggest that Russia may be contained only where its opponents are strong and have ability to move, unconstrained by distractions elsewhere.  

Now, the US moved to encircle Russia even as it is distracted in Iraq; not a good thing, to quote Martha.  Russia took advantage and moved against Georgia; not a good thing either, but they seemed to have gotten away with it.  The US has not the freedom of action it had in 2001, or even 1991; it can do nothing except issue threats it cannot carry out; not a good thing.  As for Germany - your notes on that blessed country are somewhat contradictory, but that is not the point - we will see how Germany reacts as winter arrives and as Russia decides it wants to shut down the pipelines.  They will pay for their foolheardy energy decision as the US will pay for its own.  Does not look pretty either way.

- icarusr

August 12, 2008 at 1:19pm

No one's "encircling" Russia. The notion of Russia being strangled by Estonians, Georgians and Ukrainians is ludicrous. The encirclement argument is backwards: it's Putin's thuggish attempt to dominate every single source of energy he can find that flows to Germany and the rest of Europe.

The interests here that matter to Putin's FSB handlers and their thieves are maybe 20% national prestige and 80% Euro-energy market domination. Which is what produces ludicrous, mafioso-style stunts like trying to shut off (insert here name of E European "nose-picker" country -- Putin's lovely phrase) from energy supplies during the winter.

As to the motivation behind assassinating journalists and critics in the streets of London and Moscow, creating a PutinJugend bullyboy force to kick the sh*t out of small groups of protestors in Moscow, rewriting the Russian history books to make Stalin into a kindly version of Ded Moroz, expropriating private energy companies' assets via bogus auctions in which the sole bidder is a shell company with no visible ownership... I could go on, but you get the point: this is not a normal regime that calculates its interests in a rational way. We're not dealing with the Chinese here. These are bandits first, nationalists  a very distant second.

- teplukhin2you

August 12, 2008 at 2:08pm

Some very intriguing ideas here from Joe Biden in today's FT-- note the last one especially, which is clearly the best way to hit these thieves:

"in the past two months I sponsored two legislative measures intended to nudge Russia toward a closer, more constructive relationship with the United States, including action to allow for increased collaboration with Russia on nuclear energy production. Russia has also lobbied to repeal an old trade provision – the Jackson-Vanik Amendment – which currently blocks the country’s integration into the World Trade Organisation. The fighting in Georgia has erased the possibility of advancing those and other legislative efforts to promote US-Russian partnership in the current Congress. It may derail them permanently if Russia does not reverse course.

"For Moscow, the most obvious casualty of the fighting could be the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 – supposedly the crown jewel in the country’s campaign to reinvent itself. Sochi is only a few miles from the border with Georgia’s other breakaway region of Abkhazia. Regardless of any political consequences, if fighting spreads, it could drive up insurance rates for the games to the point that it becomes prohibitively expensive to hold the Olympics in the region at all.

Russia may face other costly consequences for the violence. Vladimir Putin’s plans to make Moscow an international financial centre may evaporate as the prospect of sanctions on the country rears its head. Western financial institutions, which have done little to expose evidence of official Russian corruption, may start pursuing the issue much more publicly...."

- teplukhin2you

August 12, 2008 at 4:57pm

I see now, tep.  The demonstration of the limits of American power in Georgia is actually GOOD NEWS for us because the response will leave Russia worse off and the states on its borders even more free to go their own way.  But then what are all those neo-con bozos like William Kristol whining about?  Why is St. Leon Wieseltier summoning us yet again to moral clarity?  Why are the neo-con fellow travelers on this blog site analogizing to Munich, the Anschluss, and god knows what else?  

I guess they haven't read your analysis.

You do make one interesting point:  that the Russians need to consider the response that their actions will evoke from other powers.  Hmmm.  Makes me wonder why you don't notice the the US too has to consider the response that its actions will evoke from other powers and that we too might be worse off for having done something rather than nothing because of that reaction.  I think you are coming around to my point of view.

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 5:38pm

teplukhin2you  said:

"No one's "encircling" Russia. The notion of Russia being strangled by Estonians, Georgians and Ukrainians is ludicrous."

Kind of like Allende or Chavez encircling the US, isn't it?

Funny how great powers don't cotton to hostile little powers near their borders, isn't it, whether those powers are democratic, authoritarian, totalitarian, or even kleptocratic.

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 6:56pm

Actually the best news is the prospect, thanks to Joe Biden's upcoming financial transparency push, of being able to feed the Russian people a weekly or even daily diet of revelations about the billions that Putin and his crew have stolen from dear old Mother Russia.

Just like Richard Roundtree in "Shaft": "He hit The Man where it hurts. In the money."

- teplukhin2you

August 12, 2008 at 7:08pm

kyrreholm said (eons ago, it sems):

"roid, your point boils down to noting that the Iraq invasion was a huge strategic mistake for the US. Hardly earth-shattering stuff. If it weren't for that misallocation of resources, the US might well today be in a position to defend its ally in the Caucasus."

I know I stand in a minority of one on this site, but at least one person cares to evaluate the invasion not only from the perspective you describe above, but also from the perspective of how things might possibly look had we not gone in.   One thing I never see is specualtion on whether the US would have been attacked 9/11 fashion many more times on our shores. You can't say for certain that this was a huge strategic mistake because you don't know what would have happened if we had not moved the center of the war from here  to there, focusing all of the enemy's efforts in cities other than our own.

Second, we might consider that being in a position to defend our ally in the Caucasus could also bring about unintended consequences for which none of us are prepared. We may be looking a gift horse in the mouth. (Of course there is the counter-argument that if we really were prepared to to defend them, that calculation may have kept Russia out.  But I doubt it.)

- elliesch

August 12, 2008 at 9:31pm

elliesch,

al Qaeda was not in Iraq before we invaded.  The idea that we have tied al Qaeda down in Iraq is fanciful.  We didn't move the war from anyplace to Iraq.  We just started an extra, pointless war in Iraq.

- roidubouloi

August 12, 2008 at 11:22pm

So roi, if I understand you correctly, you... don't like... the Iraq War....

- teplukhin2you

August 12, 2008 at 11:37pm

Not only do we not know what effect fighting in Iraq had on preventing possible terrorist strikes in the US, we most certainly do not know what sort of foreign policy choices doing so precluded for us. It has always seemed to me among the more ludicrous memes of the proponents of appeasement in Iraq that if only we hadn't invaded, we'd have been able to "deal" with Iran, North Korea, etc., now presumably Russia as well.  If invading Iraq prevented us from going to war with any of these states, then I'd say this is yet another great reason to have invaded Iraq.

- Robert Powell

August 13, 2008 at 4:26am

Tep,

Not at all.  I LOVE the Iraq war, sheer genius in both conception and execution:  We will invade a militarily weak country, kick the living crap out of it thereby demonstrating both our military prowess and intense resolve to take the fight to our enemies wherever they me be -- or not be.  Duly impressed and intimidated, friends and enemies alike will fall in behind our leadership in world affairs.  Our influence will grow, even as that of a prostrate Russia and undemocratic China wanes, all as the neo-cons assured us it would.  Nothing is needed in world affairs other than a steely resolve by the US first to threaten war and then to bring war whenever and wherever our ever-multiplying "interests" are threatened.

And its going so well, isn't it?  And now we have yet another reason to applaud the Iraq war, offered by Mr. Powell:  It keeps the US armed forces bogged down so that we are completely unable to engage in mischief anywhere else.  

Not only do I love the Iraq war, but I adore the neo-cons who gave it to us.  Thank god there are a few people who enjoy their incredible moral clarity, quickly discerning friend and foe and making the moral judgments upon which our foreign policy must be based.  But for them, we would probably being taking into account practical considerations, such as efficacy, the likely responses of others, what we might then do in response to their responses, whether we have the means to execute our strategy, whether we ourselves will actually be better off at the end.  But that stuff is so annoyingly unclear and requires so much thought, effort, intelligence, cooperation with other powers.  Fortunately, the neo-cons, the Peretzes, the Wieseltiers, have freed us from all of that.  The gift of moral clarity that they bring to all of us, the morally benighted, lights our way.

- roidubouloi

August 13, 2008 at 11:46am

What, no more "Chimpy" references? You disappoint, roi.

- teplukhin2you

August 13, 2008 at 2:58pm

You mean Chimpy Bush, the beach volleyball king?  How much more is there to say about him?

- roidubouloi

August 14, 2008 at 1:28am

Or do you mean Chimpy McCain who aspires to be the next Chimpy Bush and is at least both dumb and ignorant enough to do it?

- roidubouloi

August 14, 2008 at 1:29am