Vladimir Putin's Mastery Checkmates the West
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Vladimir Putin's Mastery Checkmates the West
Russia has been biding its time, but its victory in Georgia has been brutal - and brilliant
The Times
By Michael Binyon
August 14, 2008
Link to the original article
The cartoon images have shown Russia as an angry bear, stretching out a claw to maul Georgia. Russia is certainly angry, and, like a beast provoked, has bared its teeth. But it is the wrong stereotype. What the world has seen last week is a brilliant and brutal display of Russia's national game, chess. And Moscow has just declared checkmate.
Chess is a slow game. One has to be ready to ignore provocations, lose a few pawns and turn the hubris of others into their own entrapment. For years there has been rising resentment within Russia. Some of this is inevitable: the loss of empire, a burning sense of grievance and the fear that in the 1990s, amid domestic chaos and economic collapse, Russia's views no longer mattered.
A generalised resentment, similar to the sour undercurrents of Weimar Germany, began to focus on specific issues: the nonchalance of the Clinton Administration about Russian sensitivities, especially over the Balkans and in opening Nato's door to former Warsaw Pact members; the neo-conservative agenda of the early Bush years that saw no role for Russia in its global agenda; and Washington's ingratitude after 9/11 for vital Kremlin support over terrorism, Afghanistan and intelligence on extremism.
More infuriating was Western encouragement of “freedom” in the former Soviet satellite states that gave carte blanche to forces long hostile to Russia. In the Baltic states, Soviet occupation could be portrayed as worse than the Nazis. EU commissioners from new member states could target Russian policies. Populists in Eastern Europe could ride to power on anti-Russian rhetoric emboldened by Western applause for their fluency in English.
Nowhere was such taunting more wounding than in Ukraine and Georgia, two countries long part of the Russian Empire, whose history, religion and culture were so intertwined with Russia's. Moscow tried, disastrously, to check Western, and particularly American, influence in Ukraine. The clumsy meddling led to the Orange Revolution.
Georgia was a different matter. Relations were always mercurial, but Eduard Shevardnadze, the wily former Soviet Foreign Minister, knew how to keep atavistic animosities in check. Not so his brash successor, Mikheil Saakashvili. From then on, hubris was Tbilisi's undoing.
It was not simply the dismissive rhetoric, the open door to US advisers or the economic illiteracy in forgetting dependence on Russian energy and remittance from across the border; it was the determined attempt to make Georgia a US regional ally and outpost of US influence.
Big powers do not like other big powers poaching. This may not be moral or fair but it is reality, and one that underpins the Security Council veto. The Monroe Doctrine - “hands off the Americas” - has been policy in Washington for 200 years. The US is ready to risk war to keep out not only other powers but hostile ideologies - in Cuba and Nicaragua.
Vladimir Putin lost several pawns on the chessboard - Kosovo, Iraq, Nato membership for the Baltic states, US renunciation of the ABM treaty, US missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic. But he waited.
The trap was set in Georgia. When President Saakashvili blundered into South Ossetia, sending in an army to shell, kill and maim on a vicious scale (against US advice and his promised word), Russia was waiting.
It was not only Mr Saakashvili who thought that he had the distraction of the Olympics to cover him; the Kremlin also knew that Mr Bush was watching basketball, and, in the longer term, that the US army was fully engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. From the day that the Russian tank brigade raced through the tunnel into South Ossetia, Russia has not made one wrong move. Mr Bush's remarks yesterday notwithstanding, In five days it turned an overreaching blunder by a Western-backed opponent into a devastating exposure of Western impotence, dithering and double standards on respecting national sovereignty (viz Iraq).
The attack was short, sharp and deadly - enough to send the Georgians fleeing in humiliating panic, their rout captured by global television. The destruction was enough to hurt, but not so much that the world would be roused in fury. The timing of the ceasefire was precise: just hours before President Sarkozy could voice Western anger. Moscow made clear that it retained the initiative. And despite sporadic breaches - on both sides - Russia has blunted Georgian charges that this is a war of annihilation.
Moscow can also counter Georgian PR, the last weapon left to Tbilisi. Human rights? Look at what Georgia has done in South Ossetia (and also in Abkhazia). National sovereignty? Look at the detachment of Kosovo from Serbia. False pretexts? Look at Ronald Reagan's invasion of Grenada to “rescue” US medical students. Western outrage? Look at the confused cacophony.
There are lessons everywhere. To the former Soviet republics - remember your geography. To Nato - do you still want to incorporate Caucasian vendettas into your alliance? To Tbilisi - do you want to keep a President who brought this on you? To Washington - does Russia's voice still count for nothing? Like it or not, it counts for a lot.
Comments
Incorporating former soviet states in NATO when it promised it wouldn't, NATO surrounding all its borders, breaking the IBM treaty, illegally bombing Serbia and Kosovo and ethnically cleansing the Serbs. The dioxin farce in Ukraine http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13192, the Litvechenko farce in London, these George Soros/CIA mickey mouse revolutions and this latest assault on S.Ossetia it looks like western powers are the ones playing the chessboard except this time with there latest assault they got checkmated by Russia.
Posted by: james | August 14, 2008 7:30 AM
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=19574|
Ted Galen Carpenter is spot on. I wonder if the likes of kabud or La Russophobe will denounce him as a Kremlin stooge or "useful idiot" for working at the Cato Institute and advocating that America cut its foreign commitments in the interests not of leftist appeasement but of limited government and lower taxes at home? Carpenter is not Pat Buchanan, he is not singling out Israel for criticism or vitriol or rewriting the history of World War II. If the British Commander Jackson wasn't willing to start WWIII over Pristina Airport (in spite of Gen. Wesley Clark's stupid order) after NATO's Kosovo war in 1999, why risk it for the Tblisi airport in 2008?
Thank God the Russians appear to have stopped short of Tblisi, going in there would trigger a bloodbath and clearly unacceptable to the U.S. But in a tiny country with Georgia, it's hard to drive much beyond South Ossetia's frontiers without ending up within artillery range of Tblisi. Think of all the Israeli-Syrian battles over the strategic Golan Heights from 48 until the Yom Kippur War in 73. South Ossetia is even smaller than the Golan. And the Syrians want the Golan back not so that they can resume shelling Israeli towns around Galilee, but so they can have the headwaters to the Jordan River. When I was in Israel in 2003 I quickly realized every ancient Tel-fort that commanded the Valley of Megiddo, dating back to King Solomon's time and untold civilizations before that, had water cisterns.
I don't if there are any natural resources in South Ossetia that make it worth the Georgians beating their head against the unmoving Bear. However, Abkhazia has some wonderful Black Sea beach front real estate that buyers in Moscow will probably start snatching up before the Olympics in neighboring Sochi. Both Stalin and Kruschev used to spend their winters there.
Perhaps that is the Russian endgame - without 24 hour UAV coverage paired with incredibly accurate artillery (something only the U.S., and Israel due to its small size and sophistication, are capable of), they cannot possibly kick every Georgian soldier out of cannon or rocket range of the rebel provinces in their own country. And the Russians have no desire to occupy the whole country with their still-hobbled military. But the Russians can occupy South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the commanding heights near the same, and basically return to the status quo, but with a much heavier footprint on the ground. Hopefully that is what Medvedev and Putin will do.
At the very least, any Americans left on the ground doing humanitarian work need to work as far away from the Russians and the loose cannon South Ossetian militias as possible. And what happens when Russian sailors board an American flag vessel to make sure all of the supplies on board are of a humanitarian nature? That could be tense, a sort of Cuban Missile Crisis situation in reverse. All the warmongers over at Little Green Footballs and calling in to talk radio shows who want to send in the F-22s and 82nd Airborne need to think for a second...August 1914...August 1914...China has restive provinces of its own, and China has a diaspora that has historically been discriminated against by their Asian neighbors.
The precedents that were set in Kosovo when Clinton unleashed Albright to carry out her maxim of "what's the point of having this great military if you never use it" are coming back to bite America in the butt. This is real blowback, not the "oh jee radical Muslims don't like America for its policies" kind Michael Scheuer and the leftists talk about, as if jihadists weren't killing people in Egypt, Algeria, all over the Muslim and non-Muslim world.
I just hope the Russians pull back to South Ossetia and Abkhazia while all American forces are withdrawn from the country, except for the Embassy detail in Tblisi. The U.S. does not need this hassle right now. And in the long term, having made its point about former FSU countries provoking it by inviting in foreign troops and bases, neither does Russia. As Henry Kissinger has pointed out, the last thing Russia needs with its declining demographics and manpower pool for an army is a bunch of simmering wars or hostile powers on its enormous borders. And contrary to what the Kremlin may think now, there is only one nation in this world that has designs on Russian territory in the long term. And they are far more patient than the Americans, who merely want unfettered access to Central Asian natural resources and are exploiting Georgia and Ukraine as pawns for this purpose. Well, there are millions of people in eastern Ukraine who linguistically, ethnically, religiously, and culturally consider themselves to be Russian. What happens if Moscow starts issuing them passports before a razor-thin majority Orange Government can barely cobble together a coalition to get Ukraine into NATO? Am I an "appeaser" or leftist for asking such questions of the maximalist, triumphalist fools that are running the show in D.C.? I pray to God that Bush would call his father and the others around him who handled the breakup of the Soviet Union in a way that limited bloodshed from what was indeed, "a geopolitical catastrophe". The collapse of the Soviet empire was no more bloodless or less catastrophic in terms of the millions it displaced than the end of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, or German empires. Putin had a point.
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=19574.
As Richard Fernandez has pointed out over at the Belmont Club website, every Russian soldier or border policeman in the Caucases is one less enforcing immigration laws on the wide-open Chinese border. Russia's real internal problems won't go away, and neither will the patient Chinese.
As for what the Russians have gained in the short run, this UK Times article fairly sums it up:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4525885.ece
Posted by: Wretchard Fan | August 14, 2008 8:54 AM
Since I'm not a head of state but only an anonymous American patriot, I express my professional respect for V. Putin. Still, it would be churlish not to tip my hat to him and to the fine game he has played. He hung a carrot on our nose alright!
Thank you for the lesson, Mr Putin.
Posted by: armchair pessimist | August 14, 2008 4:25 PM
So if Mr. Binyon is correct in his premise, this entire conflict has been nothing more than a game. There are no winners in zero-sum politics. Only losers.
Posted by: Cris Sabo | August 14, 2008 10:04 PM
This conflict is still a reminder of how incompetent Russian Public Relations (PR) office is...
They could have played this scenario out a lot better in the media.
These days MEDIA POWER is greater than military power.
And America is far ahead...
As for Checkmate?
I don't know that its quite there. Some things need to happen:
1. Recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia independence.
2. Russian PR should focus on aid missions inviting international media to understand the situation
3. Georgian president should be brought before internation court for war crimes against people of South Ossetia
Posted by: Alex | August 23, 2008 10:02 AM
I am quite disturbed, as I'm sure many of you are, regarding the recent developments in Russia and it's neighboring countries. The consensus seems to be that Russia has become needlessly agressive in Georgia, Abkhasia, and Southern Ossetia. Part of this consensus is that the issue is one-fold- oil. This was indeed a wake-up call to the civilized world that the Russian bear is far from asleep. We are suddenly reminded of sound bites in the 1980's about the Soviet Union being the number one sponsor of terrorism in the world 'at that time.' Now let us move to the recent announcement of upcoming "war games" in the Carribean in November with Argentina; they incidentally are a socialist state, who, also have a lot of oil. Now for some analysis. It is interesting to note that historically, Russia has taken a proxy role in the Vietnam and Korean Wars. In those days, the mission was clear, "to fight the spread of communism." To risk being redundant, the Russians barely lost a soul in those wars. Let us now look at the relationship between Venezuela and Iran- similar propaganda(not to be disregarded) and the surprise new connection with Venezuela, a socialist state. Now let us examine the recent sales of sophisticated weapons to Iran and Syria. These last two have been referred to as "sponsors of terrorism" in the world. Is anybody making a connection here? Am I naive. Am I alone? Or am I missing something? Is Russia, and has it been all along, a behind-the-scenes sponsor of world terrorism? Can anyone answer this? Now let's turn to the Arab, specifically the Muslims. Please note, who is actually dying(besides the Americans and the Israelis). Yes, friends, the Arabs people themselves. Notice also the absolute minimal loss of life by Russian soldiers and ordinary citizens. What shall we conclude. Hmmm, 'let's you and him fight.' Can we really go out n a limb and say the we, the Americans, all Westerners, and, guess who, the Arabs are all victims and pawns? Whose idea was paradise and seventy two virgens? Whose schools are teaching toddlers to hate Americans and Jews, Russia? Not on your life. Everyone in the Arab world, but not them else but them. They are preserving themselves while the rest of us fight among ourselves. Can Russia dominate the world? You bet it can. Does Russia have a large, very expendible population and military? You bet it does. Do the Russians have time on their side? You bet they do. Do we? Not really. Do we have many friends in the world? Not really. Have we been told by the proxy Iran that they intend to destroy the Israel and the United States? You bet we have. What role will the Russians have? Do you think that they have started to carry this out?
Your answer please.
May G-d preserve us.
Posted by: Ed Morgan | September 8, 2008 8:29 PM