Зачотный палитический каментарий
Aug. 13th, 2008 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krysochka613Карикатура из Independent: http://moebiuscat.livejournal.com/168918.html?thread=1143254#t1143254
А вообще, в сегодняшнем Глобе очень убедительная статья на эту тему
Электронное издание Глоба, впрочем, подписное, поэтому тут вся статья на случай, если её не дают бесплатно по ссылке
DISASTROUS MISCALCULATION
Georgia in the middle
MISHA GLENNY
Author of McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
The Globe and Mail
Section A
August 14, 2008
Georgia's decision to seize large parts of Tskhinvali - the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia that borders Russia - was a most disastrous political miscalculation. Within three days of the assault, Russian forces had responded by effectively neutralizing Georgia's military capacity, which President Mikhail Saakashvili's government in Tbilisi had spent several years, and considerable sums of money, building up.
Clearly, Russia has been goading the Georgian government for several years into making the big mistake. The parastates of Abkhazia and, above all, South Ossetia, have been under the control of a toxic coalition of criminals and both former and serving Russian security service officers. Russian soldiers have been acting as their protectors under the guise of a peacekeeping mission, preventing Georgia's attempts to seek a negotiated reintegration of the two areas. The Georgian crisis has clearly benefited the standing of hard-liners in Moscow still aggrieved at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's decision to have the moderate, business-friendly Dimitry Medvedev succeed him in the Kremlin.
But under the influence of an energetic neo-con lobby in Washington and with considerable support from Israeli weapons manufacturers and military trainers, Mr. Saakashvili and the hawks around him came to believe the farcical proposition that Georgia's armed forces could take on the military might of their northern neighbour in a conventional fight and win.
So the Russians set a trap, and prodded by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney's people, Georgia walked right into it. The consequences of this egregious error begin in Georgia itself. Not only is it now defenceless, it can kiss goodbye to any restoration of sovereignty over both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Even though French President Nicolas Sarkozy received tentative agreement from both Moscow and Tbilisi for the establishment of international talks to settle the status of the two areas, they are unlikely to rejoin Georgia any time soon. The loss of Abkhazia, with its considerable economic potential, is a huge blow. The European Union and the United States will argue there is no parallel to be drawn between Kosovo and the Georgian breakaway regions. But that is not how much of the world, including China, South Africa and Indonesia see it. And it is certainly not how Russia sees it. The first chickens of Kosovo's independence are coming home to roost.
Second, President Saakashvili is now very vulnerable. The Russian invasion has cut communications between Tbilisi and the main port in Poti. BP has closed down the pipeline running from Baku to Ceyhan in Turkey through Tbilisi, and Georgian banks are freezing all loans and blocking capital flight. After only a week, the Georgian economy is teetering. And if the wheels do come off the economy, it is hard to see how Mr. Saakashvili might salvage his political position - such a combination of economic distress and military defeat is usually fatal. If he goes, Georgia is likely to fracture politically into a variety of fiefdoms familiar from the 1990s, and living standards will plummet. There is one faint consolation. The West may be impotent when it comes to responding to the situation militarily but it can rally round by offering the country a financial and commercial lifeline.
Meanwhile, the foreign implications of the error are graver still. Russia is placing a marker on Ukraine. Do not, Moscow says, even think of allowing Ukraine into NATO, otherwise what we have seen in Georgia will be child's play. So the West will have to think hard how to play Ukraine's application to join the military alliance.
This, in turn, has accentuated the divisions within the EU between those countries, including Germany, which remain cautious about a course of open confrontation with Russia, and Britain which has echoed calls from Washington demanding that Russia's application to join the WTO be reconsidered.
But the Georgian fiasco has even broader political implications. For the Bush administration (or for its hawks at least), the Georgian mistake presents an opportunity - let us recast Russia as a threat to global stability and a potential enemy. Predictably, the toughest response to the Russian invasion came from Mr. Cheney on Sunday. The outbreak of the crisis coincided with U.S. President George Bush horse-playing with beach volleyball players in Beijing and the Vice-President was in operational control at the time. Mr. Cheney immediately announced the Russian invasion could not go "unanswered." Mr. Cheney has been spoiling for a fight with the Russians for a couple of years, and he and his allies have seized upon Georgia's and Ukraine's stated aims to join NATO as a way of riling Moscow. By cranking up the dispute with Russia over NATO, Mr. Cheney is also shifting the political debate in the United States away from the state of the economy and toward the issue of national security.
If the presidential election is fought on the former issue, Democratic candidate Barack Obama is a shoo-in. But if the central issue is national security and who would be best at dealing with a major crisis like Georgia, then his Republican opponent John McCain has to be the favourite. Mr. McCain's response to the Georgia crisis was almost as tough as Mr. Cheney's, perhaps explained in part by the fact his chief foreign policy adviser worked as a former lobbyist for the Georgian government.
This political dynamic is driving the West toward a rift with Russia that will polarize a number of other issues, including policy toward Iran. On this latter issue, Russia has played a relatively constructive and, perhaps more importantly, a moderating role. In the next three months, the issues of Ukraine and Iran will loom large in global politics and they may well have a decisive impact on the outcome of the U.S. election. Who set the trap in Georgia? Mr. Putin and his thuggish security service pals or Mr. Cheney and his equally unflappable neo-con friends?
Whether Georgia was defeated by the Russians or lost by the neo-cons, a touch of diplomatic sobriety on both sides would be a welcome development if the Georgian conflict is not to mark a very dangerous new phase in the development of global politics - serial confrontation between the West and Russia.
А вообще, в сегодняшнем Глобе очень убедительная статья на эту тему
Электронное издание Глоба, впрочем, подписное, поэтому тут вся статья на случай, если её не дают бесплатно по ссылке
DISASTROUS MISCALCULATION
Georgia in the middle
MISHA GLENNY
Author of McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
The Globe and Mail
Section A
August 14, 2008
Georgia's decision to seize large parts of Tskhinvali - the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia that borders Russia - was a most disastrous political miscalculation. Within three days of the assault, Russian forces had responded by effectively neutralizing Georgia's military capacity, which President Mikhail Saakashvili's government in Tbilisi had spent several years, and considerable sums of money, building up.
Clearly, Russia has been goading the Georgian government for several years into making the big mistake. The parastates of Abkhazia and, above all, South Ossetia, have been under the control of a toxic coalition of criminals and both former and serving Russian security service officers. Russian soldiers have been acting as their protectors under the guise of a peacekeeping mission, preventing Georgia's attempts to seek a negotiated reintegration of the two areas. The Georgian crisis has clearly benefited the standing of hard-liners in Moscow still aggrieved at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's decision to have the moderate, business-friendly Dimitry Medvedev succeed him in the Kremlin.
But under the influence of an energetic neo-con lobby in Washington and with considerable support from Israeli weapons manufacturers and military trainers, Mr. Saakashvili and the hawks around him came to believe the farcical proposition that Georgia's armed forces could take on the military might of their northern neighbour in a conventional fight and win.
So the Russians set a trap, and prodded by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney's people, Georgia walked right into it. The consequences of this egregious error begin in Georgia itself. Not only is it now defenceless, it can kiss goodbye to any restoration of sovereignty over both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Even though French President Nicolas Sarkozy received tentative agreement from both Moscow and Tbilisi for the establishment of international talks to settle the status of the two areas, they are unlikely to rejoin Georgia any time soon. The loss of Abkhazia, with its considerable economic potential, is a huge blow. The European Union and the United States will argue there is no parallel to be drawn between Kosovo and the Georgian breakaway regions. But that is not how much of the world, including China, South Africa and Indonesia see it. And it is certainly not how Russia sees it. The first chickens of Kosovo's independence are coming home to roost.
Second, President Saakashvili is now very vulnerable. The Russian invasion has cut communications between Tbilisi and the main port in Poti. BP has closed down the pipeline running from Baku to Ceyhan in Turkey through Tbilisi, and Georgian banks are freezing all loans and blocking capital flight. After only a week, the Georgian economy is teetering. And if the wheels do come off the economy, it is hard to see how Mr. Saakashvili might salvage his political position - such a combination of economic distress and military defeat is usually fatal. If he goes, Georgia is likely to fracture politically into a variety of fiefdoms familiar from the 1990s, and living standards will plummet. There is one faint consolation. The West may be impotent when it comes to responding to the situation militarily but it can rally round by offering the country a financial and commercial lifeline.
Meanwhile, the foreign implications of the error are graver still. Russia is placing a marker on Ukraine. Do not, Moscow says, even think of allowing Ukraine into NATO, otherwise what we have seen in Georgia will be child's play. So the West will have to think hard how to play Ukraine's application to join the military alliance.
This, in turn, has accentuated the divisions within the EU between those countries, including Germany, which remain cautious about a course of open confrontation with Russia, and Britain which has echoed calls from Washington demanding that Russia's application to join the WTO be reconsidered.
But the Georgian fiasco has even broader political implications. For the Bush administration (or for its hawks at least), the Georgian mistake presents an opportunity - let us recast Russia as a threat to global stability and a potential enemy. Predictably, the toughest response to the Russian invasion came from Mr. Cheney on Sunday. The outbreak of the crisis coincided with U.S. President George Bush horse-playing with beach volleyball players in Beijing and the Vice-President was in operational control at the time. Mr. Cheney immediately announced the Russian invasion could not go "unanswered." Mr. Cheney has been spoiling for a fight with the Russians for a couple of years, and he and his allies have seized upon Georgia's and Ukraine's stated aims to join NATO as a way of riling Moscow. By cranking up the dispute with Russia over NATO, Mr. Cheney is also shifting the political debate in the United States away from the state of the economy and toward the issue of national security.
If the presidential election is fought on the former issue, Democratic candidate Barack Obama is a shoo-in. But if the central issue is national security and who would be best at dealing with a major crisis like Georgia, then his Republican opponent John McCain has to be the favourite. Mr. McCain's response to the Georgia crisis was almost as tough as Mr. Cheney's, perhaps explained in part by the fact his chief foreign policy adviser worked as a former lobbyist for the Georgian government.
This political dynamic is driving the West toward a rift with Russia that will polarize a number of other issues, including policy toward Iran. On this latter issue, Russia has played a relatively constructive and, perhaps more importantly, a moderating role. In the next three months, the issues of Ukraine and Iran will loom large in global politics and they may well have a decisive impact on the outcome of the U.S. election. Who set the trap in Georgia? Mr. Putin and his thuggish security service pals or Mr. Cheney and his equally unflappable neo-con friends?
Whether Georgia was defeated by the Russians or lost by the neo-cons, a touch of diplomatic sobriety on both sides would be a welcome development if the Georgian conflict is not to mark a very dangerous new phase in the development of global politics - serial confrontation between the West and Russia.
