Domino Bluff in the Caucasus

There is important wisdom in a passage of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s new Journals, contained in a New York Times review posted today. It involves a post-mortem of the Cuban Missile Crisis by President Kennedy, as recounted by JFK's in-house intellectual.

The Times says: Schlesinger writes that Kennedy resisted seeing the missile crisis as part of a holy war with the Soviets. “Too many people will think now that all we have to do in dealing with the Russians is to kick them in the balls,” he says, after the Soviets back down. “I think there is a law of equity in these disputes. When one party is clearly wrong, it will eventually give way.” Read review

This is sharp counsel in the West's current standoff with Russia in former Yugoslavia. Eight years after halting Serbia's murderous assaults on its Balkan neighbors at Kosovo, the West supports finally recognizing the ethnic Albanian region's status as an independent nation.

The date set for that recognition is Dec. 10.

President Putin vehemently opposes Kosovo independence unless it's in agreement with its former aggressor, Serbia. He argues that, short of such an accord, uncontrollable warfare will re-ignite to the east in the former Soviet Union, specifically in the breakaway Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Balderdash. Putin's angst has nothing to do with a highly principled nightmare of dominoes falling and everything to dowith who calls the shots in Russia's claimed sphere of influence.

Putin's own intellectual cadre assert that Abkhazia and South Ossetia rose up in response to Georgian genocide. It is true that indefensible Georgian nationalism at the time is to blame for triggering the separatist revolts of the early 1990s. But what followed was inflamed and assisted by then-Russian siloviki only too happy to give the upstart Georgians a black eye.

Those events are not equatable with Serbia's ethnic cleansing.

Instead, Putin and his brain trust are making an empty threat. Putin no more than the Georgians wishes to re-ignite instability in the Caucasus.

Dominoes will not fall of their own accord in response to Kosovo any more than they did when the other parts of the former Yugoslavia became independent. Neither will Putin manufacture a cause-and-effect.

While Putin chooses to see issues like Kosovo as a humiliating physical blow, they are rather simpler matters. Most of the former Yugoslav provinces long ago chose not to be joined to Serbia any longer. Kosovo is merely the latest.

The Caucasus Three Years After Beslan

Three years after the siege of Beslan, in which some 334 people were killed at a schoolhouse, Russia’s Caucasus belt belies President Putin’s claim to bringing peace to the country.

Chechnya itself is comparatively peaceful after two ferocious wars over the last 13 years. But now the republics to either side of Chechnya are the scene of routine bombings, ambushes and murder.

In the latest incident, a car bomb today killed four policemen in Ingushetia, west of Chechnya. Read The AP story

Steve's comment: Perhaps no one could pacify the northern Caucasus. But there is little evidence that Putin, who prides himself on ultra-competence, has attempted anything more than the usual -- the appointment of governors whose prime qualification is loyalty to him.

Today's car bomb is a prism into the highly complex nature of the region's turbulence. The unrest in Ingushetia goes back at least to the 1940s and Stalin's expulsion of the Ingush to Kazakhstan and Siberia. Ever since the Ingush were permitted back, there has been a struggle over territory with the Ossetians next door. It erupted into outright warfare in 1992, a civil conflict that I witnessed. Russia as usual is caught in the middle, but principally sides with the Christian North Ossetians.

The bomb today was aimed at Ingush policemen nominally allied with Russia. It is possible therefore that it was aimed at intimidating Moscow and pro-Russian locals.

In a nice piece a week ago, Chris Chivers did a good job of connecting the dots of the unrest in Dagestan and Ingushetia to Chechnya.

One may argue with the approach, but the last time Russia attempted to find a middle ground with the Caucasus populations was a decade ago. Tomorrow, relatives of the 186 Beslan school children who died alongside their parents, teachers and friends will say again that the government could have done more to save lives.