The Georgian Mess

I had dinner Sunday evening with a former US ambassador to Moldova who described his conversation that afternoon with a retired US ambassador to Georgia. The latter’s take on the situation in Georgia was that Mikheil Saakashvili was an aggressive Georgian nationalist who had promised in his electoral platform to restore control over the entire territory of the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Saakashvili may have felt empowered by the prospect of NATO membership and the "you are our democratic beacon in the Caucasus" rhetoric that was coming from Washington. He appears to have discounted repeated private warnings from US officials that the West would not come to Georgia’s aid in the event that Georgian actions provoked a Russian military response.

The Russians have been upset with the US over our support for an independent Kosovo and our rapid recognition of Kosovo after its declaration of independence from Russian ally Serbia. The Russians told US officials that if the principle of ethnic self-determination applies to Kosovo, the same principle applies to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The US argued that Kosovo was “a special case that did not create a precedent,” but as the ambassador noted, there had been at that time a widespread feeling outside the US government that “you guys inside the Beltway can call this a special case, but nobody in the real world thinks that it is. This is going to be a problem.”

Despite disagreements within the Republican Party between those who wanted an aggressive approach to Russia (John McCain and his advisers being among them) and those who felt that Russia had legitimate security interests in the region, the US ambassador to Georgia and other senior US officials repeatedly told Saakashvili, "If you do something stupid, don't count on us to bail you out.” Saakashvili apparently didn't listen and did something stupid and now must face the consequences.

Incidentally, with regard to the breakaway Moldovan province of Transnistria, another focus of a “frozen conflict” in the former Soviet Union, my interlocutor said there are significant differences with the territorial disputes in Georgia. One, Moldova has no common border with Russia; Ukraine is in the way, making Russian military intervention more difficult. And two, if Russia forced Moldova to relinquish its claim on Transnistria, there is a good chance that the remainder of Moldova would opt to join Romania in the interest of securing the benefits of membership in the European Union. An extension eastward of the EU’s border would presumably not be in Russia’s perceived interest.