As noted just about everywhere in the media, Russian troops have taken towns and military base in western Georgia, and they’ve now taken Gori, indicating that Russia’s intent probably is to capture or force from office Georgia’s government. About the only Russian thing that is retreating is its markets, which are continuing the slide they started when Russian tanks first started moving into South Ossetia. As this conflict drags on, it will be interesting to see how Russia’s economy responds.
I agree with Josh, Russia is weak. And I concur that talking up Russia does quite a bit of harm.
As much as I hate giving the impression that I find a Kaplanesque framework useful, this Coming Anarchy post does at least highlight that Russia and the West see the environment in which they operate very differently. Dmitri Trenin hits the nail on the head in writing that all the talk of a new Cold War is off. What is going on is much easier to see. Russia is making abundantly clear that it is operating within the framework or realpolitik. The West is — now, as it has been more or less since the collapse of the USSR — staying in its comfort zone of norms and international institutions. Both are incredibly powerful weapons for the weak, and Russia is using them quite ably with its talk of bringing war criminals to the Hague, preventing genocide, and protecting the rights of the oppressed.
Unfortunately, I cannot see the assault on Georgia really changing minds in the West about how to relate to Russia. Its actions will only feed the perception that it is powerful, further reducing European will to move beyond normative and institutional relations with Russia. The US does not ultimately have all that much to gain from confronting Russia more forcefully. Russia poses no existential threat to the US, and it has very little ability to do more than irritate with its aging fleet of bombers. Regardless, the West needs to reexamine its relationship with Russia and find ways to credibly threaten to exploit its vulnerabilities in order to force it to the negotiating table.
Unrelated, but drugoi has photos from various wires here and here.
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2974 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan is the Founding Editor and Publisher of Registan.net, which he launched in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with private and government clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural and political factors shape risks and opportunities and how organizations can adjust their strategic and operational plans to account for these variables. Nathan is currently seeking research, analysis, and consulting opportunities. He can be contacted via Twitter or email.
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{ 8 comments }
Hmm, sir, surprisingly one-eyed analysis here? Given the humiliation of Russia over the Kosovo question and Georgias open agression against Russian “peacekeepers”, how could you expect russia to behave differently? If the Serbs had attacked the US forces in Kosovo, how would the US have responded? To me, this smells of a mafya war, where Putin is showing who has the power of the oligarch-clans.
If you mean one-sided, sure it is.
I certainly could expect Russia to behave differently. Kosovo did not determine that Russia would necessarily send troops into Georgia, especially since the years of bullshit stories of Georgian fascism and looming genocide in the Russian media predate Kosovo’s independence. And I could certainly expect Russia to behave different if the West did not build it up to be more powerful and important than it really is.
Why would you expect Russia to behave differently. Did Russsia achieve anything with its pleas and talk about international law? It is quite obvious that some countries respect only force.
Talk about ‘teritorial integrity’ in the case of Georgia – nobody mentions it in the case of Serbia? Georgians attacked Russian peace-keepers and citizens and got a response, did Serbia attack American or NATO citizens in Kosovo? For what reason was Iraq attacked and occupied?
Who has the moral right to criticize Russia in this case, especially after what happened in Serbia and Iraq?
Dan, you’re missing that many people in the U.S., including at least me, felt the recognition of Kosovo was a really bad idea for precisely that reason.
Nathan, your last link is missing.
Uhm, I might point out that Russia still has several hundred nuclear-tipped missiles that do indeed pose an existential threat to the United States if ever fired our way?
Granted, Russia’s military poses no conventional threat to the EU or anybody else armed with modern weapons. Probably only 5% of Russia’s military has been brought up to modern standards of weapons and training. The rest is half-starved draftees armed with old Soviet-era weapons that are now operable (unlike during the Yeltsin years) but still far from threatening to anybody armed with modern weapons (a T-72 going against any modern tank is scrap metal). Still, 50,000 well trained and equipped soldiers is not something to sniff at if you’re someplace like Georgia that has no soldiers with modern weaponry or advanced training. And you simply can’t ignore someone who has nuclear weapons, no matter how poorly their economy is faring outside of resource extraction, or how ill-equipped their army is.
In other words, it is certainly possible to over-estimate Russia. They are a regional power, but they are not a superpower. They have no ability to project military power beyond states neighboring their borders short of those nuclear warheads that neither they nor anybody else wants to ever see used, and it’s unclear they even have much of a desire to do so, given that they do not face any existential threat from the EU or the various trashcanistans on their southern border. That said, you can’t just ignore them as just another Trashcanistan. Anybody with nuclear warheads deserves at least some modicum of respect.
Agreed, more or less. Russia does deserve respect as a regional power. But the difference that, at least in my opinion, makes Russia very different from the Soviet Union is that the Russian Federation does not profess to one day tear down all societies unlike it and remake them in their image. That makes those nuclear weapons mean something very different.
This operation reminds me of the movie “Air Force One” with Harrison Ford where the President of Russia is trying to appear in control of his troops, but really is not at all. Russia is weak. I say we enter Georgia now and destroy their troops. If they don’t do anything, we continue to attack.
“Russia is weak. I say we enter Georgia now and destroy their troops. If they don’t do anything, we continue to attack.”
Please don’t. All that fallout will mess up things in Canada.