Georgia and NATO

Sarah Mendelson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) makes some important observations in An August War in the Caucuses 08/11/08 about the Russia-Georgia War. She argues that the Russian action has effectively blocked the option of making Georgia a NATO member:

This conflict is a tragedy for the people of this region. Instead of negotiating over the hotels, golf courses, and resorts that ought to be built along Georgia's Black Sea coast, bringing tourists and needed revenue to the citizens of the region, Russia and Georgia have gone to war. At this moment, it is hard to see where or how the conflict will end. The Georgian government has called for a ceasefire. There are also fears that Russia might overrun Georgia, bringing down the government of Mikhail Sakashvili through the use of force. Whatever the outcome, Russia has all but obliterated Georgia’s possibility of joining NATO as it cannot belong to this alliance if it has unresolved border disputes. Russia has successfully burned Georgia’s NATO card. (my emphasis)

She also makes a point I haven't seen anywhere else, which is that Russian polemics against Georgia has set that country up as a serious foreign policy challenge:

The Russian authorities have run an anti-Georgian campaign inside Russia for several years. Boycotts of products followed periodic expulsions of diplomats. The threat factor seemed to be seeping into the public consciousness: in a CSIS survey in May 2007, we found that fully one-third of a nationally representative sample of 1,800 Russians aged 16 to 29 believed Georgia was Russia’s enemy. At the time, we focused on the fact that 22 percent regarded the United States that way. We should have zeroed in on the finding that over twice as many young Russians viewed Georgia as an enemy as viewed Iran that way—31 percent versus 14 percent. (We also found that only 6 percent viewed China as an enemy, and a tiny 3 percent and 2 percent respectively thought that about Belarus and Germany.) In other words, of all these countries, Russian respondents viewed Georgia, a NATO and EU aspirant, as enemy number one. If these findings are representative of how the population as a whole feels, Russians will believe that Vladimir Putin's war in Georgia is justified.

Which is another way of saying that for the Russians, what happens about Georgia is very important. Americans not only don't feel a similar stake in events there. There's no reason we should.

Janusz Bugajski also writes for CSIS on Georgia: Epicenter of Strategic Confrontation 08/12/08. His piece is pretty much just a statement of the neocon New Cold War position, i.e., Russia wants to take over the world, yadda, yadda.

Tags: georgia, russia