Watch out for the elephants

Since the end of the brief war between Russia and Georgia there has been a worrying escalation in confrontation between the US and Russia.
This whole mess occurred because Georgian President Mikeil Saakashvili did not understand his role in big power geopolitics. He made the mistake of believing the public rhetoric coming from Washington and thought that he was an ally of the US. He didn’t realize that Georgia was a client state of the US and he did not understand the role of a client state.
In the client - patron relationship, the patron provides political, diplomatic and economic support to the client and in return the client is supportive of the patron’s interests in the region. However, the client has the obligation not to embarrass or put the patron in a difficult position. His ill conceived and impulsive attack on the breakaway province of South Ossetia which triggered a disproportionate response by Russia certainly put the US in an embarrassing and difficult position. The US had few if any realistic options for response and the most economically and militarily powerful nation in the world was exposed as a “paper tiger”.
Since the cease fire there have been a series of “tit for tat” verbal and military escalations. The escalations began following the refusal by Russia to immediately remove all of its troops from Georgia proper as agreed to under the ceasefire agreement negotiated by France. This led to an increase in belligerent rhetoric from Washington and the delivery of “humanitarian aid” to Georgia using US Navy warships. This generated belligerent rhetoric from Moscow and a threat about their ability to destroy the NATO ships in the Black Sea. Following the entry of US warships into the Black Sea, Venezuela has invited the Russian fleet to visit and Russia has said that it will send warships to the Caribbean before the end of the year.
These increasing confrontations between two nuclear armed powers with the risk of miscalculation are very dangerous. Rational leaders (if there are any) need to “cool it”. The little guys, (Georgia, Ukraine, and Venezuela) need to remember that when elephants start stomping around it is usually the mouse that gets squashed.

Russia, Georgia and the Middle East

The war between Russia and Georgia is having reverberations in Middle East geopolitics. Israel has become a major worldwide supplier of arms and security services. Georgia is an important client.

The collapse of the Georgian offensive against the Russia supported province of South Ossetia was another blow to the myth of Israeli military prestige and prowess which had already suffered from their failures during the 2006 war with Lebanese Hezbollah.

The key Israeli liaison with Georgia was Brigadier General Gal Hirsch who resigned from the IDF after being severely criticized by the Winograd Commission investigating the Lebanese war. Israel was taunted by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah saying that it was no wonder that Georgia was defeated since they were trained by Hirsch.

It is apparent that US adversaries in the Middle East are taking advantage of Russian annoyance with Israel for supporting Georgia. Syrian President Bashir Assad is visiting Russia this week for the stated purpose of “expanding military ties”. Moscow and Damascus are reportedly preparing a number of deals involving anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

Secretary of State Rice called the Israeli overreaction which resulted in destruction and killing in Lebanon and Israel “the birth pangs of the new Middle East” whereas she called the destruction and killing caused by the Russian overreaction in Georgia a “return to 1938”.

In fact the Georgia war may have been the “birth pangs” of the old Cold War Middle East: US diplomatic and military support for Israel and Russian support for the Arab states.

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.