Georgia: An Exercise in Image-Building
Six days before Dmitri Medvedev takes over the helm of Russia, Vladimir Putin has put the country on a war-footing with its favorite punching bag, the neighboring nation of Georgia. Putin has shifted troops to the seaside Georgian region of Abkhazia -- just in case, Moscow says, Georgia mounts a military attack against the separatist region.As readers recall, Georgia and Abkhazia fought a brutal war during the early 1990s that left the two divided.
Igor Yurgens, a brainy and urbane Medvedev adviser who is making the rounds in Washington, London and Paris, told me in a phone chat yesterday that Moscow "will not use military force" in order to absorb Abkhazia, whose citizens already have been given Russian citizenship.
Yet Putin is still in a lather over the West's decision to recognize Kosovo's independence from Serbia, and this most recent flareup of tensions with Georgia seems to me of a different order from the countless previous flareups between the two over the last seventeen years. Putin is sticking his chin out.
NATO ambassadors said yesterday that the move "risks undermining stability." But Yurgens doesn't seem swayed. "We are not going to be pushed and bullied on this question after Kosovo, that's for sure," he told me.
What is Russia's move really all about? Surely it's not concern over Abkhaz security -- a Georgian military attack in order to bring the region back into the Georgian fold verges on ludicrous, mainly since Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili knows he would lose, either to the Abkhaz themselves or a predictable Russian counter-offensive.
Is Putin simply demonstrating yet again that Russia won't be pushed around? Is he bestowing an image-building conflict on his successor, in the way that Chechnya built up Putin's own nationalist credentials when he took power in 1999 with a popularity rating of 2%? Perhaps Putin simply couldn't resist lest anyone forget what he has done for Russia's feeling of well-being? According to Itar-Tass, he is leaving office with an almost 85% approval rating.
When pressed on its general foreign policy, Russia says the West is mired in Cold War thinking, and that its strategy is straightforward and not political. If that's true, one wonders why Putin been unable to strike win-win deals with Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltics.
The prevailing wisdom is that nothing will change under Medvedev, whom experts think will keep the wheel straight and hope that things turn out as well for him as they did for Putin. Nothing Medvedev has said seems to argue otherwise.
Photo: Argenberg
Rights: Creative Commons
5 Comments:
"When pressed on its general foreign policy, Russia says the West is mired in Cold War thinking, and that its strategy is straightforward and not political. If that's true, one wonders why Putin been unable to strike win-win deals with Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltics."
He has, with a willing partner. Relations with Poland and Latvia are much improved over a couple years ago. And things were looking up in Russian-Ukrainian relations, until the golden-haired Gas Princess took over.
This is kinda tough to do with people determined to pick fights though, like when the Terrible Twins ran Poland.
Welcome anonymous. Putin has shown a capability to compromise sufficiently to strike a deal when HE is eager to do so. The most glaring example has been his and Dmitri Medvedev's enthusiastic courtship of Serbia, Austria, Greece, Turkmenistan, Bulgaria, Hungary and so on in order to win in the pipeline war. If one is a former satellite state, it has not been difficult to get into a fight with Putin, however; one has only had to assert one's independence. Thanks for the comment and best, Steve
Actually, Putin is perfectly willing to deal with independence. He's made up with the Poles, and no one questions their independence vis-a-vis the Russians.
Again, its leaders who come into the game with a chip on their shoulder that get problems with Putin.
Thanks for the latest anonymous.
I think, there is a principled resolution here. Russia and Georgia can let North and South Ossetias become an independent Ossetia. Same with Abkhazia. Russia can withdraw all those Russian passports it has distributed there and Georgia can let Abkhazia become an independent state. Otherwise,the Ossetians and Abkhaz, in case of secession from Gerogia, will face an extinction through assimilation, along the lines of what is already happening to the Mari, Bashkirs, Tatars and other ethnic minorities in Russia. And I don't see them making peace with the Georgians any time soon. Unless Tbilisi can boost its economy and democracy, proving it can offer a better, freer life. Much like the West did with West Berlin to show the people of East Germany that capitalism was a better choice.
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