Editorial: The Wall Street Journal

New York, NY, Saturday, August 16, 2008; Page A10

National Security Adviser to U.S. President Jimmy Carter

Time magazine, New York, NY, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008

The end of the Cold War was supposed to usher in a new age in which the major powers would no longer dictate to their neighbors how to run their affairs. That is why Russia's invasion of Georgia is so tragic and so potentially ominous.

Russia is now on watch: Will it continue to rely on coercion to achieve its imperial aims or is it willing to work within the emerging international system that values cooperation and consensus?

Moscow's ruthless attempt to suborn, subdue and subordinate this tiny, independent democracy is reminiscent of Stalin's times. The assault on Georgia is similar to what Stalin's Soviet Union did to Finland in 1939: in both cases, Moscow engaged in an arbitrary, brutal and irresponsible use of force to impose domination over a weaker, democratic neighbor.

The question now is whether the global community can demonstrate to the Kremlin that there are costs for the blatant use of force on behalf of anachronistic imperialist goals.

This conflict has been brewing for years. Russia has deliberately instigated the breakup of Georgian territory. Moscow has promoted secessionist activities in several Georgian provinces: Abkhazia, Ajaria and, of course, South Ossetia. It has sponsored rebellious governments in these territories, armed their forces and even bestowed Russian citizenship on the secessionists.

These efforts have intensified since the emergence in Georgia of a democratic, pro-Western government. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's resentment toward Georgia and its President, the U.S.-educated Mikheil Saakashvili, has seemingly become a personal obsession.

The international community has not done enough to push back. In recent weeks, a series of incidents along the fragile cease-fire lines that cut across Georgian territory helped prompt the escalation of violence, including Georgia's abortive effort to remove the "government" of South Ossetia, a small region with a population of about 70,000 people.

That rash action was perhaps unwise, but it is evident from Russia's military response that Moscow was waiting for such an act to provide a pretext for the use of force. Large Russian contingents quickly swept into South Ossetia and then into Georgia, sending tanks to Gori and bombing Gori and the capital, Tbilisi.

Russia's aggression toward Georgia should not be viewed as an isolated incident. The fact is, Putin and his associates in the Kremlin don't accept the post-Soviet realities.

Putin was sincere when he declared some time ago that in his view, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was "the greatest geopolitical disaster of the [20th] century." Independent democracies like Georgia and Ukraine, for the Putin regime, are not only historical anomalies, but also represent a direct political threat.

Ukraine could well be the next flash point. The Russian leadership has already openly questioned whether it needs to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. Russian leaders have also remarked that Crimea, a part of Ukraine, should once again be joined to Russia. Similarly, Russian pressure on Moldova led to the effective partition of that small former Soviet republic.

Moscow is also continuing to try to economically isolate central Asian neighbors like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. And the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have been the object of various threats from Russia, including economic sanctions and disruptive cyberwarfare.

THE STAKES ARE HIGH

The stakes are high. Ultimately, the independence of the post-Soviet states is at risk. Russia seems committed to the notion that there should be some sort of supranational entity, governed from the Kremlin, that would oversee much of the former Soviet territories. This attitude reflects in part the intense nationalistic mood that now permeates Russia's political élite.

Vladimir Putin, former President and now Prime Minister, is riding this nationalist wave, exploiting it politically and propagating it with the Russian public. Some now even talk of a renewed Russian military presence in Cuba as a form of retaliation against the U.S. for its support of the independence of the post-Soviet states.

For the West, especially the U.S., the conflict between Russia and Georgia poses both moral and geostrategic challenges. The moral dimension is self-evident: a small country that gained its independence only recently, after almost two centuries of Russian domination, deserves international support that goes beyond simple declarations of sympathy. Then there are questions of geostrategy.

An independent Georgia is critical to the international flow of oil. A pipeline for crude oil now runs from Baku in Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea, through Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean coast. The link provides the West access to the energy resources of central Asia. If that access is cut, the Western world will lose an important opportunity to diversify its sources of energy.

The West needs to respond to Russia's aggression in a clear and determined manner. That doesn't mean with force. Nor should it fall into a new cold war with Russia. But the West, particularly the U.S., should continue to mobilize the international community to condemn Russia's behavior.

Presidential candidates Barack Obama (whom I support) and John McCain should endorse President George W. Bush's efforts to oppose Russia's actions and form a bipartisan stand on this issue. It is unfortunate that some of the candidates' supporters are engaging in pointless criticism of each other's public statements on the Georgia crisis. This is too important for that.

It is premature to specify what precise measures the West should adopt. But Russia must be made to understand that it is in danger of becoming ostracized internationally. This should be a matter of considerable concern to Russia's new business élite, who are increasingly vulnerable to global financial pressure.

Russia's powerful oligarchs have hundreds of billions of dollars in Western bank accounts. They would stand to lose a great deal in the event of a Cold War–style standoff that could conceivably result, at some stage, in the West's freezing of such holdings.

At some point, the West should consider the Olympic option. If the issue of Georgia's territorial integrity is not adequately resolved (by, for example, the deployment in South Ossetia and Abkhazia of a truly independent international security force replacing Russian troops), the U.S. should contemplate withdrawing from the 2014 Winter Games, to be held in the Russian city of Sochi, next to the violated Georgia's frontier.

There is a precedent for this. I was part of the Carter Administration when we brandished the Olympic torch as a symbolic weapon in 1980, pulling out of the Summer Games in Moscow after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

The Soviet Union had planned a propaganda show reminiscent of Hitler's 1936 Olympics in Berlin. America's boycott delivered a body blow to President Leonid Brezhnev and his communist system and prevented Moscow from enjoying a world-class triumph.

The Georgian crisis is a critical test for Russia. If Putin sticks to his guns and subordinates Georgia and removes its freely elected President — something Putin's Foreign Minister has explicitly called for — it is only a question of time before Moscow turns up the heat on Ukraine and the other independent but vulnerable post-Soviet states.

The West has to respond carefully but with a moral and strategic focus. Its objective has to be a democratic Russia that is a constructive participant in a global system based on respect for sovereignty, law and democracy.

But that objective can be achieved only if the world makes clear to Moscow that a stridently nationalistic Russia will not succeed in any effort to create a new empire in our postimperial age.

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NOTE: Brzezinski, who was National Security Adviser to President Carter, is co-author, with Brent Scowcroft, of America and the World, to be published in September

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LINK: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1832699,00.html

Carlos Pascual, Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy
Steven Pifer, Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe
The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., Monday, August 18, 2008

Russian military operations against Georgia created the most serious crisis in that region since the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. Moscow has defined Georgia’s European aspirations as a threat to Russian interests.

At stake is more than crisis in the Caucasus – but also whether Russia and the West can share a core base of values to combat terrorism, stop proliferation, and promote energy security. The United States cannot meet this test alone; it must mobilize the international community.

The devastation in Georgia and South Ossetia make clear one point: this tragedy will not easily be put behind. Whatever Georgia’s grievances, Tbilisi plainly miscalculated. It should have anticipated that sending its forces into South Ossetia would trigger a massive Russian response. Now Georgia faces the intense ire among the people it hoped to court.

Russia’s response – striking by air and land into undisputed Georgian territory and deploying troops into another breakaway region, Abkhazia – violated international law and made clear this is not just about South Ossetia.

Georgia’s independent foreign policy has angered Moscow, which has sought for years to re-build influence in the post-Soviet space. And it has become personal. Russian Prime Minister Putin, in particular, despises Georgian President Saakashvili and wants to bring him down.

This crisis comes when Washington is preoccupied, Russia is energy-rich and U.S.-Russian relations are strained. Washington, NATO allies and the European Union must stay on the same page when dealing with Moscow – whether in bilateral contacts with Russia or multilateral fora such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) or UN Security Council. The Kremlin will happily exploit any Western splits.

Here are ten points for a way forward.

[1] First, Washington and the EU must sustain personal and high-level engagement with Putin, Russian President Medvedev and Saakashvili. This conflict is tragically personal. Without personal engagement each actor will be swayed by anger. Sarkozy, French Foreign Minister Kouchner, Finnish Foreign Minister (and OSCE Chairman) Stubb, Secretary Rice and EU High Representative Solana must stay involved.

[2] Second, Washington will need to continue to reinforce European efforts to sustain the ceasefire completed on August 17. The United States cannot serve as an honest broker; Moscow sees Washington as too close to Georgia and unacceptable as a mediator. Paris has the hotline now with Moscow. Washington’s pressures have to be carefully in sync.

[3] Third, the UN and OSCE should expand their observers on the ground to help make the parties accountable. Moscow and Tbilisi offer wildly diverging narratives as to what is going on. The international community needs eyes in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and elsewhere in Georgia to establish ground truth. The OSCE or UN Security Council should organize the observers, and the UNSC should approve the mission. Russia obsessively calls for respect for the UN – it should now respect its rhetoric.

[4] Fourth, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon should use the authorities under longstanding General Assembly Resolution 46/182 to deploy a humanitarian planning mission to South Ossetia and undisputed Georgia. By most accounts, over 100,000 have been displaced. If Russia and Georgia want to stem the human suffering and begin to rebuild, they should accept and guarantee safety to humanitarian workers. Such a UN Mission does not need Security Council approval.

[5] Fifth, the G-7 should make clear that it wants Russia as a partner, but that means a partner that does not assault small neighboring states. Secretary Rice’s August 11 conference call to consult with G-7 foreign ministers was a smart move, clearly signaling that Russian actions could put its seat at the G-8 table at risk.

[6] Sixth, the West should build a coalition of nations around common respect for international borders. Washington should engage China, which shares a long border with Russia and cannot be happy about Russian military actions. Beijing, moreover, holds a veto on the UN Security Council. The U.S. government should talk to the Central Asian states as well; Russia’s pummeling of Georgia must have set off alarm bells in their capitals.

[7] Seventh, NATO should send a clear message about the desires of Georgia (and Ukraine) to ultimately enter the Alliance. NATO should ask itself what it means if Russia concludes that its tactics have won itself a veto over decisions on NATO membership. NATO should act on the merits of the case, and Russia should know that NATO is not deterred. Georgia (and Ukraine) should know that acceptance is not automatic.

[8] Eighth, Saakashvili, and every Georgian, should register that Georgia needs more than the assurances of good will from its friends. It needs an alliance. Now is the time to galvanize Georgian democracy, free the Georgian press, and meet the criteria for a NATO membership action plan.

[9] Ninth, the United States, EU and NATO should reassure Ukraine, whose European desires also draw Moscow’s ire. Ukraine should reduce its vulnerabilities to Russian pressure by paying debts on time, enhancing its energy security, and ending the infighting between the president and prime minister. Now is not the time for a divided government in Kyiv.

[10] Tenth, France (acting as EU president) should seek the UN Security Council’s support to host within three months negotiations with Georgians and South Ossetians and, in parallel, with Georgians and Abkhazians to settle these conflicts. The status quo is not sustainable. Yes, it is a long shot, but the alternative is two flashpoints that could very quickly trigger a new conflict.

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NOTE: Carlos Pasqual and Steven Pifer have both served as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.

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LINK: http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/0818_georgia_pascual.aspx?emc=lm&m=217734&l=37&v=98378

By Micholas Kulish, Kiev, and Sara Rhodin, Moscow
New York Times, NY, NY, Saturday, August 16, 2008

KIEV, Ukraine — For 18 years now the countries along the border with the former Soviet Union have cherished their democracies, all made possible from the simple premise that the days of Russian dominance were over.

The events in Georgia over the past week have made them rethink that idea. Poland announced Thursday that it had reached a deal to base American missile interceptors on its territory, after months of talks. But then a Russian general went so far as to say that Poland might draw Russian retaliation, sending new shudders through the region.

The sense of alarm may be greatest in Ukraine. Since the Orange Revolution in 2004, when the pro-Western Viktor A. Yushchenko came to power after widespread protests, Ukraine has been a thorn in Moscow’s side, though perhaps not as sharp as the outspoken Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

“We’re the next,” said Tanya Mydruk, 22, an office assistant who lives in Kiev, the capital. “Sooner or later our president is going to say or do something that goes too far and then it will start.”

Ukraine has done little to win Russia’s favor since the crisis in the Caucasus began. First the Kiev government announced that it would restrict the movements of Russia’s Black Sea fleet into Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula. On Friday, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it was prepared to give Western countries access to its missile-warning systems.

“What happened here in the last week certainly came as a shock, not only to Georgia but to a lot of others as well,” said Peter Semneby, the European Union’s special representative for the South Caucasus. “A lot of people will, as a result of this, want to build a closer relationship with their Western partners as quickly as possible.”

Vadym Karasyov, a political scientist here, said the Georgia conflict would start “a new circle of militarization in this region.”

Feelings toward Russia are complex here. Ukraine has a sizable Russian ethnic minority, roughly 17 percent of a total population of 46 million. Many Ukrainians speak first of their fraternal bonds to Russia, not of enmity. And Russian speakers watched the conflict in Georgia through the prism of state-controlled Russian television channels broadcast here.

Asked whether she thought Ukraine’s future lay with Russia or the European Union, Lena Stepnevska, 24, who works at a construction company and was out for a walk with a friend Friday, opted for the former. “I would like to believe it will be Russia, because we are fraternal nations and have to support each other,” she said.

Though he supports membership in both NATO and the European Union, Anatoliy Grytsenko, the head of the national security and defense committee in Parliament and a former defense minister, said that Russia could not be ignored. “Russia will not disappear tomorrow, as well as in a century or two. We will always wake up and it will be there, not Canada,” he said.

The Baltic states, meanwhile, are also gravely concerned about what a newly resurgent Russia could mean for them. “In the public, there’s a certain anxiety,” said the Estonian president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves. “Given our history, we understand why people feel anxious.”

While Mr. Ilves claimed that fears that Russia would invade Estonia were unfounded, he stressed the serious consequences of Russia’s actions in Georgia on the international scene.

“The assumption of the post-1991 settlement has been that the old Russia is in the past — that it is not a country that invades its neighbors,” he said. “Basically the entire European security architecture is based on this premise.”

Estonia has been at the forefront of states giving aid to Georgia. The country not only provided humanitarian assistance, but also sent Internet security specialists to Georgia and agreed to host Georgian Web sites. Like Georgia, Estonia was also subject to cyberattacks against its government Web sites in April 2007.

As much as there is fear in the region, there is also anger that more could have been done by Western allies to rein in Russia. In an interview with a Polish newspaper on Saturday, Lech Kaczynski, Poland’s president, criticized the European Union for being too soft on Moscow.

Elka Krol, a Warsaw resident who organizes photo exhibitions, said in a telephone interview that she was angry about what had happened and particularly the impotence of the Western powers to fix it. “From point of view, everyone just shouts and says empty words, but nobody is doing anything.”

But she said she felt no imminent danger from Russia, which stemmed partly from a sense that Poland is much more developed and much better integrated into the West. “The difference between Poland and, for instance, Ukraine is really quite big, I think,” she said.

At Shevchenko Park in the heart of the Ukrainian capital, card games have gotten pretty heated since the war between Georgia and Russia began.

“Smart Russians keep silent and they still think about their fate in Ukraine,” said Vasyl Marsiuk, 70. He was there to play cards with friends on a hot Saturday morning, sitting at one of the granite tables where the older men also play dominos or checkers in the shade of chestnut trees.

In Mr. Marsiuk’s eyes, the Russians are the clear aggressors in the Caucasus conflict, and they are by no means finished with their ambitions for the region. “Ukraine is under the same threat, the same kind of Damocles sword,” Mr. Marsiuk said.

Mr. Marsiuk spoke Ukrainian, but a man overhearing him quickly launched into a defense of Russia, in Russian. “It was Georgia that started the conflict,” said Pyotr Lyuty, 53, who said he had served in military intelligence in Soviet times.

Asked if he thought the Soviet Union should have broken up, he replied with a simple and direct, “No,” before adding, “My grandfather explained it to me. You can break a bunch of twigs one by one, but if we take a bunch of twigs you can never break it.”

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LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/world/europe/17ukraine.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Western politicians and commentators have been quick to seize on the conflict in South Ossetia as a defining moment in world history, or their careers. Some have been clambering to play peacemaker (Sarkozy, Kouchner), others want to boost their reputations for taking a strong line with Moscow (McCain, Miliband). But closer to Russia, in the neighbouring countries of Ukraine and Belarus, some politicians have been conspicuous by their silence.

In Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenka has stunned the Russians with his lack of overt support. In an outburst on Tuesday, Russia's ambassador to Belarus said he was "perplexed by the modest silence on the Belarusian side. You need to express yourself more clearly on such issues."

Belarus is a member of a union state with Russia, has close economic, political and social ties with the country, and has enjoyed much support from Moscow in the past – from cheap gas to the congratulations Putin sent to Lukashenka on his re-election in 2006, while others were declaring him "the last dictator in Europe".

But in the isolation from the west that followed his re-election in 2006, including travel bans and economic sanctions, Lukashenka also started to find that money from Russia was beginning to dry up as Moscow hiked the price of gas.

Since then, the Belarusian leader has taken a series of steps to persuade the west that he is opening things up, notably by releasing a number of political prisoners. His reaction to the July bombing of a concert he was attending can be viewed as a further attempt to give his regime a better image in the west.

The EU and the US have responded, but made it clear that any concessions are dependent on a greater degree of openness in the parliamentary elections in September.

Coming out in support of Russia's war in Georgia could have caused irreparable damage to his plan, given the predominantly anti-Russian mood in western political circles. Lukashenka's silence, therefore, should be understood as consistent with a gradual shift in his policy towards appeasement with the EU and the US.

He is, of course, playing each side off against the other. He has no desire to open politics in Belarus up any more than is necessary to get what he wants. Furthermore, the opposition in Belarus is divided and weak.

But any opening up in Belarus must be welcomed: it shows that the west's soft power is in a position to have a positive effect in the region and may give the opposition a chance to put forward their views in a less hostile environment. Before making any concessions, however, the EU and the US need to ensure that Lukashenka is not just window-dressing.

In Ukraine, prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has had nothing to say about the war. With her ability to attract support in all parts of the country, Tymoshenko is a unique figure in Ukrainian politics. As the leading contender for the 2010 presidential elections, she has no intention of alienating any part of the electorate, as demonstrated by her non-committal position on joining Nato.

More interestingly, Tymoshenko's predecessor, Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovich, whom the Russians tried to propel to victory in the 2004 presidential elections, has been restrained in his comments. His party as a whole has been calling for peace and criticising President Viktor Yushchenko's one-sided support for Georgia, without decisively coming out on the Russian side.

This reflects a mood in the Party of Regions – whose main support base is in the Russian-speaking east of the country – that is split between pro-Russian elements and groups with a more pro-western orientation. A Party of Regions deputy in the Verkhovna Rada I spoke to last month told me that they were in favour of Nato.

The party's major backer and Europe's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, is part of a more liberal wing of the party which is purportedly in favour of a move towards Nato for business reasons. The party did not take part in anti-Nato protests during exercises in Odessa last month, nor when the secretary general visited Kiev in June.

The Party of Regions is not likely to start campaigning in favour of Nato membership any time soon and has a tendency to exploit and inflame this divisive issue – such as during the Nato exercises in Feodosia in 2006 – in order to garner votes. But these are further signs that the west's soft power is having an influence on Ukrainian politicians.

The reactions of Lukashenka and Yanukovich to the conflict in South Ossetia show that Russia's military victory does not herald the whitewash in the region that many have been proclaiming. If Russia's intervention in Georgia has made some fear that the country's territorial ambitions are unstoppable, calm analysis points to a more complex picture.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk:80/commentisfree/2008/aug/17/ukraine.belarus?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews
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The Moscow Times, Moscow, Russia, Monday, August 18, 2008

The war between Russia and Georgia is not about disputed territory or the personal animosity between Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Nor is it about Moscow's moral claims to defend the Ossetians -- whether they are South Ossetians or North Ossetians.

After all, Russia bears responsibility for not only failing to avert the tragedy in Beslan, located in North Ossetia, but also for the botched rescue attempt that resulted in unnecessary casualties. The current armed conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi is about power and survival.

True, there are other factors that contributed to the conflict, such as Russia's failure to play a stabilizing role in the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as Saakashvili's reckless provocations. But even if you combine all of these elements, they probably wouldn't have been enough to trigger last week's war.

The deciding factor was Georgia's intention to join NATO and NATO's plans to eventually offer membership to the two countries, which Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer reiterated at the April NATO conference in Bucharest. The worst nightmare for the Russian elite would be Georgia (and Ukraine) becoming full NATO members.

NATO encirclement would be a serious threat for a state that defines itself through highly personalized power and a constant search for internal and external enemies. Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev cannot control the country without maintaining this image of Russia as a "besieged fortress."

The elite, who have relied on hyped-up anti-Western and especially anti-U.S. rhetoric as a key component of their foreign policy and as a means to mobilize public support, had to strike before they lost their strategic backyard to the West. Ossetians and Georgians were, unfortunately, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

By teaching the Georgians a lesson, Moscow sent Ukraine and other countries it considers within its sphere of influence a warning: It may be dangerous to have such warm relations with the West.

Russia's military response had another purpose as well -- to show that the Medvedev-Putin tandem can be tough. This show of strength was particularly important because the elite had started to fragment and the public was starting to wonder who was really in control of the country.

The war has demonstrated the emergence of the Kremlin's new "containment policy" targeted at the West. The country's elite have turned fiery anti-Western and anti-Georgian rhetoric into military action by attacking beyond Russia's borders.

Yet it is the West that has given the Kremlin the justification it needs. Russian propaganda has taken full advantage of the West's double standard and hypocrisy regarding its selective interpretation of "regime change, ethnic cleansing, genocide and humanitarian intervention" in Iraq and Serbia.

Georgia needs to forget about its territorial integrity and accept the loss of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Further, if Georgia wants to put an end to the conflict, it might need Saakashvili to step down and allow a more pragmatic leader to come to power. Ironically, Moscow, by attempting to oust Saakashvili, may actually facilitate Georgia's NATO membership.

The war has intensified a conservative backlash in Russia. The country is now highly unified against the West -- not unlike the consensus before the second Chechen war, which helped Putin's rise to power.

Even those that have traditionally belonged to the liberal camp quickly switched gears to support the official line and blast the Georgians. The Kremlin has convinced most Russians that the West, under the banner of liberalism and democracy, has been able to carry out color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia.

This helps explain why there is no strong democratic opposition in Russia; no one wants to be considered a U.S. stooge or a fifth column. When the country is so united against its "enemies," there is no need for the Kremlin or the White House to restart reforms. Why rock the boat?

If Medvedev had any serious modernization plans before the war started, he has no other choice now but to drop these plans now. His top priority is to show that he is a strong commander-in-chief during a military conflict.

There is evidence, however, that the Russian ruling tandem may also be seeking reconciliation with the West, following Putin's model of "for and against the West at the same time." Some members of the elite feel that its time to mend fences in order to prevent Western ostracism of Russia, which may put their accounts in Western banks at risk.

Ukraine will be a test as to whether the Kremlin still feels a need to flex its muscles. If Kiev insists on joining NATO, Crimea could easily become a point of heightened conflict between Russia and Ukraine, particularly if Crimea seeks some kind of union with Russia.

What about the West? It is split between the hawks, such as U.S. presidential candidate John McCain, who has repeatedly called for kicking Russia out of the Group of Eight, and the doves, such as Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Up to this point, the West has not been able to pursue a dual policy of engaging Russia and getting Moscow to abide by the membership rules it has pledged to follow as a member of certain international organizations.

In any case, the drama in the Caucasus continues. It could destroy not only Medvedev's political future, but it could also dampen investor confidence in the country for years and cripple Russia's ability to modernize.

Moreover, this conflict could have a long-term negative impact on U.S.-Russian relations and become an important factor in whom the American voters choose in the presidential election in November.

And so much of this mess was caused by the Kremlin's inferiority complex.
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LINK: http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/600/42/369860.htm

Emeritus Professor of strategic studies at Australian National University

The Australian, Sydney, Australia, Monday, August 18, 2008

RUSSIA'S attack on Georgia shows that it is back as a force to be reckoned with.

It reflects Moscow's view that the US and NATO are not to be taken seriously when it comes to what it calls its "near abroad" blizhnoe zarubezhe'e. The message being sent to Ukraine and the Baltic countries is brutally clear: Russia is returning to great power status and that is being demonstrated to them by its military operations in Georgia.

This is the first time Russia has used military force against another state since the USSR pulled out of Afghanistan. In the intervening two decades, the Soviet Union ceased to exist and Russia experienced a massive collapse of its economic and military power and a dramatic reduction in its importance in world affairs.

Worse still, despite promises to the contrary by the US, NATO has expanded its presence to the very borders of Russia and occupied parts of the former Soviet strategic space in the Baltic countries and Eastern Europe.

Now, the US wants Ukraine and Georgia to become members of the alliance. This has angered Moscow enormously.

Russia rejects American criticism of its invasion of Georgia and responds that "the invaders and occupiers of Iraq" lack the moral authority to offer such criticism. It points to the evidence that Georgian aggression against South Ossetia was responsible for Russia's military response.

The great puzzle here is how President Mikheil Saakashvili could make such a gross miscalculation given the closeness of his relations with the US and the presence of American military advisers in Georgia.

Even Mikhail Gorbachev believes that such a reckless decision could only be made by the Georgian leadership "with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force".

Even if that is not true, America's reputation has been seriously damaged. It was understandable for the leaders of Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to meet in Tbilisi last week, stating that the time of Russian dominance is over and calling on the EU and NATO "to oppose Russia's imperialist policy to Georgia".

But do they actually believe NATO is going to go to war with Russia, given Europe's heavy dependence on Russia for energy supplies and the fact that America is over-extended militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan?

None of this is to defend Russia's disproportionate and brutal attack on Georgia. Nor is it to condone Moscow's bullying of its former East European captive nations. But it is to recognise that America's dismissal of Russia as a third-rate power after the collapse of the USSR was a great mistake. The unseemly haste in deploying NATO military forces within striking range of Russia has played to Moscow's worst historical paranoias.

And while Condoleezza Rice dismisses as "ludicrous" Moscow's fears about US plans to place ballistic missile defence forces in Poland and the Czech Republic, Vladimir Putin suggests that Moscow will retaliate by targeting its nuclear missiles on Europe, or base them in the Kaliningrad enclave (which adjoins Poland), should the US system be deployed. From Moscow's perspective, another EU error was to encourage Kosovo's independence from Serbia, a fellow Slav country.

Putin warned about the repercussions of this and he cites South Ossetia and Abkhazia as having the same rights. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov very clearly stated: "One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity because, I believe, it is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state."

Russia's President, Dmitri Medvedev, now claims: "Historically Russia has been, and will continue to be, a guarantor of security for peoples of the Caucasus." This is plainly a declaration that the Caucasus is part of Russia's strategic space.

So, what does all this mean for Russia's future geopolitical stance?

As the US internet report Stratfor observes, what Russia has done in Georgia is on a new order of confidence and indifference to world opinion. Putin did not want to confront NATO directly, but he did want to confront and defeat a power closely aligned with the US. Given that the US is absorbed in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he judged correctly that the US was in no position to intervene anywhere on the Russian periphery.

Russia will now be more confident and self-assured with its status as a great power velikaya derzhava. This promises greater tension - perhaps serious tension - between Russia and the West.

America's relations with Russia are now at the most serious level of disagreement in the past 25 years. Even so, US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates makes it clear that he does not see any prospect for the use of American military force.

Moscow will seek to reassert Russia's natural sphere of influence in the "near abroad", where some 25 million ethnic Russians live. Russia will seek to establish Russian dominance in its neighbourhood, especially in Ukraine and the Baltic countries. If this means clashing with NATO, it will be prepared to use its energy supplies as a lever or even threaten the use of force.

Russia's weakness for the past 17 years is an aberration that is about to be rectified. The new Russia will be assertive in its foreign policy and aggressive in its neighbourhood. Moscow is no longer prepared to allow the shift in the military balance on its borders to go unchallenged.

Those theorists who have been proclaiming that future wars will not be between states over territory and will not involve conventional conflict have been proven wrong by Russia, as have those who assert that the major threats to world order no longer come from rivalry between great powers.

The implications of all this for Australia is that an authoritarian Russia, as well as an authoritarian China, is on the move.

And they both perceive America to be a weakened and distracted power. That should have important implications for our forthcoming defence white paper.

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Paul Dibb is emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University. His article The Bear is Back was published in The American Interest in December 2006.
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LINK: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24196162-7583,00.html

The Moscow Times, Moscow, Russia, Monday, August 18, 2008

WARSAW -- Poland strikes a deal on a U.S. missile-defense base. Ukraine tries to limit the Russian navy's movement in its waters. The Czech Republic's leader warns his nation is in danger of being sucked back into Moscow's orbit.

Russia's attack on Georgia has sparked fears across the young democracies of Eastern and Central Europe that Moscow is once again hungry for conquest -- and they are scrambling to protect themselves by tightening security alliances with Western powers.

Around the region, memories are being revived of the darkest days of Soviet oppression.

In Prague, where Czechs on Wednesday will mark the 40th anniversary of the Soviet invasion that crushed a reform movement, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek expressed fears of history repeating itself.

"The Russian tanks on the streets of Georgian towns remind us ... of the invasion in 1968," Topolanek wrote in Mlada Fronta Dnes daily, the country's biggest newspaper.

"But it is not just history. It is still, even now, a relevant question whether we will or will not belong to the sphere of Russian influence."

Since fighting broke out 10 days ago between Russia and Georgia, the crisis has dominated headlines and sparked pro-Georgia rallies across the region.

Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and the leaders of four ex-Soviet republics journeyed together to Tbilisi last week to show solidarity with Georgia. At a demonstration there, Kaczynski declared that the Russians had again "shown the face that we have known for centuries."

"I am scared of those things that are happening in Georgia now," said Juste Viaciulyte, a 23-year-old student at a rally Thursday in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, to protest Russia's actions in Georgia.

He noted that the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad borders his country "and is beefed up with Russian soldiers, missiles and tanks. It would take just several hours for them to ignite a similar nightmare here in Lithuania if something turned really wrong."

The most vulnerable country is probably Ukraine, wedged between Russia and NATO states.

Eugeniusz Smolar, director of the Center for International Relations in Warsaw, said countries like Poland and the Czech Republic are safer because they already belong to NATO and the EU.

"But not so with Ukraine; with Ukraine there is fear," Smolar said. "It's very unstable politically, there is a strong pro-Russian political element, plus there's strong activity of Russian intelligence." And there are signs Central and East European countries feel that their NATO membership isn't sufficient protection.

As part of the preliminary missile-defense deal that Poland struck with the United States on Thursday, it secured from Washington a commitment of swifter help than that offered by NATO.

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LINK: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1010/42/369855.htm

By Henry Meyer, Bloomberg, Wednesday, August 13, 2008

MOSCOW- Now that Russia has humiliated Georgia with a punishing military offensive, it may shift its attention to reining in pro-Western Ukraine, another American ally in the former Soviet Union.

Moving to counter any threat, Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko today restricted the movement of Russia's Black Sea fleet, based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, citing national security. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow denounced the decision as a ``serious, new anti-Russian step.''

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's first order of business in confronting Ukraine likely will be to try to thwart its bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

``We still don't know who's next,'' said former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, who was foreign minister under the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, who helped end the Cold War. ``Ukraine most likely,'' because of its Russian- speaking population and naval base in the Crimea, Shevardnadze said in an interview today.

The U.S. has long seen Georgia and Ukraine as counterweights to Russia's influence in the region. Opposition leaders in the two countries came to power after U.S.-backed popular protests in 2003 and 2004.

Their ascension advanced an American strategy that seeks to expand NATO to include both countries and secure energy routes from the Caspian Sea that bypass Russia. The BP Plc-led Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline to Turkey runs through Georgia.
Policy in Doubt

The future effectiveness of that policy is now in doubt, with Georgia's U.S.-educated president, Mikheil Saakashvili, 40, weakened by a five-day blitz that his American patrons were powerless to halt.

Medvedev, 42, and Putin, 56, say Russia began the offensive in response to a drive by Georgia to restore control over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Now Russia has ousted Georgian forces from there and from Abkhazia, another separatist region, and destroyed much of the central government's military.

``Georgia will be enormously more careful in its actions in the future, and much less confident of its relationship with the United States,'' U.S.-based geopolitical advisory group Stratfor said in a research note.

NATO is scheduled to review the two countries' bids to join the Western military alliance in December. NATO leaders in April promised Ukraine and Georgia eventual membership while declining them fast-track status. Russia, which has also denounced U.S. plans to station missile defense sites in former Soviet satellites Poland and the Czech Republic, says the expansion of the Cold War-era alliance to its borders is a security threat.
`Similar Fate'
NATO should affirm the potential of Georgia and Ukraine to become alliance members in the face of Russia's incursion into Georgia, senior U.S. officials said yesterday in Washington.

``Russia may find it convenient to raise the level of tension with Ukraine in the run-up to the December NATO review,'' Citigroup Inc.'s London-based David Lubin and Ali Al- Eyd wrote in a note to clients. ``If the conflict with Russia decelerates or reverses Georgia's integration with the West, a similar fate could also affect Ukraine.''

Ukraine, a country of 46 million people that's almost as big as France, has a large Russian-speaking population in the south and east that opposes NATO entry and looks to Moscow. Russian officials warn that if Yushchenko pushes Ukraine into NATO, the nation may split in two. Russia has made its displeasure with Ukraine clear, temporarily cutting off gas supplies to the country 2 1/2 years ago and reducing deliveries last March.
Show of Solidarity
Yushchenko, 54, yesterday flew to the Georgian capital Tbilisi to show solidarity with Saakashvili along with the leaders of four ex-Communist eastern European nations that joined NATO as a bulwark against Russia.

Today, he cited national security needs when he insisted Russia's Black Sea fleet coordinate its movements with Ukranian authorities. Russia has leased the port since 1991, and ships from there took part in hostilities against Georgia.

``The previous liberalized regime for Russian fleet movements gave the opportunity for Russia to cross Ukrainian state borders and to move across the Ukrainian part of the Black Sea without any control,'' Yushchenko said in a decree, published on his Web site.
`A Warning'
The military operation in Georgia will serve ``as a warning'' to Ukraine that it should desist from petitioning for NATO entry, said Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ``Otherwise, Moscow may intervene to protect the allegedly threatened interests of the Russian population.''

Russian Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu today rounded on Ukraine for its public support of Georgia in the conflict.
``One week before these events, we send a column of humanitarian aid to Ukraine to help flood victims and the next we find they're offering military aid, arms for the destruction of civilians,'' Shoigu told reporters in Moscow.

Germany and France opposed NATO entry for Georgia, a country of 4.6 million people that is almost as big as the U.S. state of South Carolina, and Ukraine because of the Georgian separatist disputes and opposition to membership among some Ukrainians. They now will feel their concerns have been justified, said Cliff Kupchan of New-York based Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm.

NATO Membership
``Considering both European reticence and possible fears about Ukraine, I think it is very much on the slow track,'' he said, referring to NATO membership for both states.

The assault by Russian artillery, tanks and bombers inflicted significant damage on Georgia's armed forces, which last month increased their size to 37,000 soldiers. Russia's military has 1.13 million personnel. The U.S. trained and equipped Georgia's military and in 2006 approved almost $300 million in aid over five years.

Ukraine has about 214,000 soldiers, which include 84,000 paramilitary troops, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
``A substantial part of our military power has been destroyed,'' said Georgian National Security Council chief Kakha Lomaia. ``However, we did preserve the core of our army, and have managed to regroup it close to the capital.''

An airbase in Senaki was destroyed and three Georgian ships were blown up in the Black Sea port of Poti, he said.
Base Bombed
A month ago, about 1,000 U.S. soldiers joined 600 Georgians and 100 from Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia in joint exercises at the Vaziani military base near Tbilisi. Russia repeatedly bombed the base during this month's war.

``The American role in the region has been weakened,'' Jan Techau, a European and security affairs analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, said in an interview. ``It's a reassertion of Russia's dominant role in the region.''

Ian Hague, a Bank of Georgia board member and fund manager with $1.8 billion in the former Soviet Union, said the attack on Georgia discouraged Western investments in energy infrastructure by raising the risk premium.

``It's somewhat reminiscent, in 1939, when Stalin attacked Finland,'' former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told Bloomberg Television. ``I think this kind of confrontation is the best kind of answer as to why they are seeking to be members of NATO.''

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Henry Meyer in Moscow at Hmeyer4@bloomberg.net.

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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]

New York, New York, Friday, August 15, 2008

Washington hawks insist that the remedy to Russia's military humiliation of Georgia is to expedite the smaller country's incorporation into NATO. After all, Moscow might think twice about attacking any nation able to trigger the Atlantic Alliance's Article 5, which obliges all member states to respond militarily to an attack on any one of them.

President Bush, in fact, toured Europe last spring to stump aggressively for Georgia and Ukraine to be granted Membership Action Plans, the first step toward joining the Alliance.

But despite Bush's high-profile campaigning, the proposal was rebuffed at NATO's April summit by 10 member states, led by key U.S. allies Germany and France. That rejection, said Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain, "might have been viewed as a green light by Russia for its attacks on Georgia," and he urged European NATO members to "revisit the decision."

But many of the Europeans draw the opposite conclusion. They see last week's events in Georgia as vindicating their caution over granting Georgia NATO membership. Indeed, many in Europe see the Bush Administration's military support for Georgia and its trumpeting of Tbilisi's cause in NATO as having emboldened President Mikheil Saakashvili to launch his reckless attack on South Ossetia.

If Russia's brutal response to Georgia's provocation had, in fact, obliged NATO to intervene, the Atlantic Alliance itself might have faced a terminal crisis. Most of its member states have no enthusiasm for confronting a resurgent Russia in the Caucasus, traditionally a Russian sphere of influence.

The Alliance, for one thing, is having enough trouble maintaining 71,000 troops in Afghanistan, where they are managing only to tread water against mounting odds.

Other arguments against confrontation: much of Western Europe is wholly dependent on Russian energy supplies, and European negotiators believe there is little chance of a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear standoff without committed support from Moscow.

So, regardless of the appeals of Senator McCain — and his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama — the events of the past week have more likely placed Georgia's NATO membership in the deep freeze for the foreseeable future, even if the Alliance remains rhetorically committed to the idea in principle. If so, Moscow can count what has transpired as a major victory: it has prevented the advance of a rival military alliance into Russia's backyard.

Russia's very purpose in its "punishment" of Georgia has been to warn neighbors inclined to challenge Moscow from under a Western security umbrella that if a storm is provoked, that umbrella offers precious little protection. The conflict was never simply about Georgia and its restive minority regions; it was always about NATO, as well as the regional balance of power between Russia and the U.S.

Putin has used the opportunity presented by Saakashvili to show Russia's neighbors that Washington's tough talk could not be matched by any meaningful response to the Kremlin's military campaign.

Bush may now be trying to play catch-up with his tough talk, but reversing the impact of the Russian offensive will require a lot more than stitching up a bloodied Georgia and casting Russia out of the G-8 or boycotting the 2014 Winter Olympics.

(Thursday's announcement of a deal between the U.S. and Poland to station missile interceptors on Russia's doorstep over increasingly bellicose objections from Moscow may have been timed to signal resolve in the face of Russian aggression, but that plan was in the works long before the Georgia showdown and is unlikely to have any effect on the Georgia situation.)

When NATO holds its last summit of the Bush presidency in December, the symbolic language may remain soothingly supportive of membership for Georgia, but don't expect to see it granted a Membership Action Plan. Indeed, the events of the past week have called into question the very purpose of NATO and its relationship with Russia.

While many Western critics declared the Russian actions of the past week a reversion to Cold War tactics, Moscow sees NATO itself as a Cold War relic.

The Russians complain that following the demise of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Treaty Organization, the U.S. reneged on promises to create a new global security order and instead moved to expand its own Cold War military alliance — NATO — into Moscow's own sphere of influence.

NATO's very purpose had been to contain the Soviet Union in the wake of World War II. The Red Army had just broken the back of Hitler's Wehrmacht and put Moscow in control of the Baltic states (annexed at the outset of the war), Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.

Having watched Central Europe transformed by Soviet military power into a patchwork of authoritarian vassal states, Western Europe was only too willing to join an all-for-one military alliance with the U.S. and Canada to even up the odds in the event of further Soviet expansionism.

Nor was it surprising that decades later, those Europeans who had actually lived under the Soviet heel would race to join the same alliance at the first opportunity. The anti-Moscow military alliance not only remained intact in the decade after the Cold War but also advanced toward Russia's shrinking borders. Russians saw all of that as strategic encirclement with hostile intent.

Last month, General Norton Schwartz, nominated as chief of the U.S. Air Force, said at his confirmation hearing that the U.S. needed to send a warning to Moscow in the wake of Russian media reports claiming that Moscow was weighing the deployment of nuclear-capable bombers in Cuba in response to U.S. missile-defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The Russians should be told that moving bombers to Cuba "crosses a red line for the United States of America," he said. Let's just say that the Russian military brass have long felt the same way about Ukraine and Georgia being militarily integrated into a rival alliance.

Russia could do little to stem NATO's advance during the economic and social collapse presided over by Boris Yeltsin. But Putin's Russia, flush with petrodollars, has re-emerged as a geopolitical player at the same time that U.S. influence has been waning.

With the bloodletting in Georgia, the Russians are telling Europe that the current security architecture is dysfunctional — a message Moscow sent earlier in the year through a vague proposal to replace NATO with a pan-European security structure in which Russia would be an equal partner.

In Washington and in many former Soviet satellite states, the response to the Georgia debacle will be to continue NATO's eastward expansion and stiffen its resolve to contain a resurgent Russia. But in Western Europe, there will be growing doubts over the value of a security system built upon a structure designed to isolate and contain Russia.

The problem, of course, is that NATO operates strictly by consensus, and in the absence of such consensus, paralysis may set in. Indeed, it may yet emerge that Putin's campaign in the Caucasus has succeeded not only in keeping Georgia out of NATO but in dealing a body blow to the Alliance itself.

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LINK: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1832988,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-sidebar

The Wall Street Journal, New York, NY, Tuesday, August 12, 2008

The farther Russia's tanks roll into Georgia, the more the world is beginning to see the reality of Vladimir Putin's Napoleonic ambitions. Having consolidated his authoritarian transition as Prime Minister with a figurehead President, Mr. Putin is now pushing to reassert Russian dominance in Eurasia.

Ukraine is in his sights, and even the Baltic states could be threatened if he's allowed to get away with it. The West needs to draw a line at Georgia.

No matter who fired the first shot last last week in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, Moscow is using the separatist issue as an excuse to demolish Georgia's military and, if possible, depose its democratically elected government. Russian forces moved ever deeper into Georgia proper yesterday.

They launched a second front in the west from another breakaway province, Abkhazia, and took the central city of Gori, which lies 40 miles from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. These moves slice the country in half and isolate its ports, most of which Russia has bombed or blockaded. Moscow dismissed a cease-fire drawn up by European nations and signed by Georgia.

Russian bombers have also hit residential and industrial areas, making a mockery of Moscow's charge that Georgia is the party indiscriminately killing civilians. Russian claims of Georgian ethnic cleansing now look like well-rehearsed propaganda lines to justify a well-prepared invasion. Thousands of soldiers and hundreds of tanks, ships and warplanes were waiting for Mr. Putin's command.

While the rape of Chechnya was brutal, this is the most brazen act of Mr. Putin's reign, the first military offensive outside Russia's borders since Soviet rule ended.

Yet it also fits a pattern of other threats and affronts to Russia's neighbors: turning off the oil or natural-gas taps to Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, and even to NATO-member Lithuania; launching a cyberassault on Estonia; opposing two antimissile sites in NATO members in Eastern Europe that couldn't begin to neutralize Russia's offensive capabilities.

Our emphasis on NATO here is no coincidence. The Georgia invasion is a direct slap at the Western alliance. Tbilisi, like Kiev, has been pushing for NATO membership. Mr. Putin decided to act while some alliance members, led by Germany, dallied over their applications. Georgia was first. Ukraine, which has been pushing Russia to move its Black Sea fleet's headquarters out of the Crimea, could be next.

The alliance needs to respond forcefully, and it can start today. NATO officials have granted Russia a special meeting before deciding what to do about Georgia -- though we don't recall Russia briefing NATO about its plans in the Caucasus.

The meeting is an opportunity to relay to Moscow that Georgian and Ukrainian membership is back on the table and that the alliance is considering all options for Georgia, from a humanitarian airlift to military aid, if Russia doesn't withdraw immediately.

Mr. Putin is betting that the West needs him for oil and deterring Iran's nuclear ambitions more than he needs the West. He's wrong -- not least since his "cooperation" on Iran consists of helping Tehran stall for time and selling the mullahs advanced antiaircraft missiles. Russia also needs the West's capital and especially its expertise in developing its oil and gas fields at least as much as the West needs Russian energy supplies.

The U.S. and Europe need to make all of that clear. Forcing Russia to veto a strong condemnation of its own actions at the U.N. Security Council would be one way to turn the pressure up. And speaking of pressure, where are all the peace protesters during this war? They can't all be in China.

As for the U.S., this is perhaps the last chance for President Bush to salvage any kind of positive legacy toward Russia, amid what is a useful record elsewhere in Eurasia.

While Mr. Bush has championed the region's fledgling democracies, he and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice badly misjudged Mr. Putin. Now would be a good moment for Mr. Bush to publicly acknowledge his misjudgment and rally the West's response.

John McCain had the Russian leader pegged better, which speaks well of his foreign-policy instincts. The Republican Presidential candidate has long said that Russia should be booted from the G-8 and yesterday he outlined a forceful Western strategy on Russia that stops short of military action.

Barack Obama has in the past indicated support for the Georgia and Ukraine NATO bids, but the Democratic candidate has yet to explain in any detail how he would respond to the current conflict.

There's one other way the U.S. could hit Russia where it hurts: by strengthening the dollar. The greenback's weakness has contributed greatly to the record oil prices that have in turn made Russia flush with petrodollars and fueled Mr. Putin's expansionist ambitions. Crude prices continued to fall yesterday, below $115 a barrel, and further deflating that bubble would do more to sober up an oil-drunk Kremlin than would any kind of economic sanctions.

Vladimir Putin's Russia isn't the former Soviet Union, bent on ideological confrontation around the world. But it is a Bonapartist power intent on dominating its neighbors and restoring its clout on the world stage. Unless Russians see that there are costs for their Napoleon's expansionism, Georgia isn't likely to be his last stop.

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EDITORIAL: The Wall Street Journal Asia

The Wall Street Journal, New York, NY, Thursday, August 14, 2008

On June 13, 1948, the day after the Soviet Union took the first step in its blockade of Berlin, U.S. General Lucius Clay sent a cable to Washington making the case for standing up to the Soviets. "We are convinced that our remaining in Berlin is essential to our prestige in Germany and in Europe. Whether for good or bad, it has become a symbol of the American intent." The Berlin Airlift began 13 days later.

Sixty years on, U.S. credibility is again on the line as the Bush Administration stumbles to respond to the Russian invasion of Georgia. Until yesterday, the Administration was missing in action, to put it mildly. The strategic objective is twofold: to prevent Moscow from going further to topple Georgia's democratic government in the coming days, and to deter future Russian aggression.

President Bush finally announced a plan of action Wednesday -- an airlift of humanitarian supplies to Georgia and the dispatch of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Paris and then Tbilisi. That followed his condemnation on Monday of Russia's actions after a weekend of Olympics tourism in Beijing while Georgia burned.

The State Department had sent a mid-level official to Tbilisi over the weekend, and unnamed Administration officials are carping to the press that Washington had warned Georgia not to provoke Moscow. That was hardly a show of solidarity with a Eurasian democracy that has supported the U.S. in Iraq with 2,000 troops.

Compared to the U.S. lethargy, the French look like Winston Churchill. In Moscow Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, acting as president of the European Union, got Russia to agree to a provisional cease-fire that could return both parties' troops to their positions before the conflict started. His next stop was Tbilisi, on the heels of a visit from Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

If both sides agree to a cease-fire, Mr. Sarkozy promises that Europe will consider sending peacekeepers to enforce it. We trust he will find volunteers from the former Soviet republics, which see the writing on the wall if Russian aggression in Georgia is left unchallenged. The leaders of Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia flew to Tbilisi this week in a show of solidarity.

NATO met Tuesday and denounced the invasion, while stopping short of promising military aid to Georgia. Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the allies "condemned and deplored [Russia's] excessive, disproportionate use of force," and demanded a return to the status quo ante.

The NATO leader also said Georgia's potential membership remains "very much alive" and that it would be a member of NATO one day. Georgia and Ukraine's applications come up again in December, and perhaps even Germany, which blocked their membership bids earlier this year, will now rethink its objections given that its refusal may have encouraged Russia to assume it could reassert control over its "near abroad."

Much as it respects and owes Georgia, the U.S. is not going to war with Russia over a non-NATO ally. But there are forceful diplomatic and economic responses at its disposal. Expelling Russia from the G-8 group of democracies, as John McCain has suggested, is one.

Barring Russia's long desired entry into the World Trade Organization is another. Russian leaders should also be told that their financial assets held abroad aren't off limits to sanction. And Moscow should know that the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi on the Black Sea are in jeopardy.

The Georgian people also deserve U.S. support. The airlift announced by Mr. Bush yesterday is a good start. The U.S. military will ferry humanitarian supplies to the Georgian capital, which is currently cut off by Russian troops from its Black Sea port. After the fighting ends, the U.S. can lead the recovery effort.

And since the Russians are demanding his ouster, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili deserves U.S. support too. Moscow wants a puppet leader in Tbilisi, and U.S. officials are playing into Vladimir Putin's hands with their media whispers that this is all Mr. Saakashvili's fault.

Reshaping U.S. policy toward Russia will take longer than the months between now and January 20, when a new President takes office. But Mr. Bush can at least atone for his earlier misjudgments about Mr. Putin and steer policy in a new direction that his successor would have to deal with. If that successor is Barack Obama, this is an opportunity to shape a crucial foreign policy issue for a novice who could very well go in the wrong direction
.
The alternative is ending Mr. Bush's tenure on a Carter-esque note of weakness. To paraphrase General Clay: Whether for good or bad, how the U.S. responds to Russia's aggression in Georgia has become a symbol of American credibility.

By trying to Finlandize if not destroy Georgia, Moscow is sending a message that, in its part of the world, being close to Washington can be fatal. If Mr. Bush doesn't revisit his Russian failures, the rout of Georgia will stand as the embarrassing coda to his Presidency.

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LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121865088838737547.html

KIEV - A top Ukrainian security official on Saturday discounted any notion of a separatist rebellion in the sensitive Crimea as President Viktor Yushchenko proposed Kremlin talks on the issue of the Russian fleet based there.

Ukraine's pro-Western leaders, brought to power by the 2004 "Orange Revolution" and committed to seeking NATO membership, have been increasingly at odds with Russia over foreign policy. Yushchenko, like the United States, backs Georgia in its conflict with Russia over separatist South Ossetia.

He further enraged Moscow this week by ordering restrictions on the movement of ships in the Black Sea fleet, based in the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Russia's military vowed to disregard the rules, saying the fleet answered only to Russia's president.

Russia's conflict with Georgia over the separatist region of South Ossetia has prompted suggestions that pro-Russian nationalism in the Crimea, strong in the 1990s, could be rekindled and undermine the authority of the Ukrainian state.

Crimea, part of Russia from the late 18th century, was handed to Soviet Ukraine by Kremlin leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. It became part of independent Ukraine in 1991 when the Soviet Union fell.

Valentin Nalivaichenko, acting chairman of Ukraine's SBU security service, said latent nationalism in Crimea could not be compared with South Ossetia's longstanding rebellion that ultimately led to the conflict between Georgia and Russia. "I am certain that such a scenario is not possible in Ukraine," he told the weekly Zerkalo Nedeli.

"Prosperity, peace and calm in Crimea is the very foundation on which the interests of Ukraine and neighboring Russia coincide. Everything else is of secondary importance."

Nalivaichenko said Ukraine had taken legal action to hobble nationalist groups in Crimea. "If we complete this stage and go on to the next one, we can be confident that there will be no Russian, or any other, destabilization scenario in Crimea."
LEASE TO RUN OUT
Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based in the port of Sevastopol under a leasing agreement due to expire in 2017. Yushchenko has made plain that the lease will not be renewed and talks should focus on overseeing the fleet's orderly departure.

Outbursts of pro-Russian nationalism in the 1990s prompted authorities in Kiev to reduce local autonomy. Kiev's jurisdiction over Crimea, populated mainly by ethnic Russians, remains a highly sensitive issue among nationalists in Moscow who periodically call for Sevastopol -- or the entire peninsula -- to revert to Russian jurisdiction.

In a statement on his website late on Friday, Yushchenko said his backing for Georgia was based on preserving the country's territorial integrity and similar concerns in Ukraine. Disagreements with Russia over the fleet, he said, could only be settled through a formal agreement.

"I have therefore sent an urgent proposal to the president of Russia to start talks on signing an agreement that would regulate our relations in the event of military action like that which we saw at the beginning of August," he wrote.

"In other words, we need to come up with clearer rules that would ensure Ukraine's national security in such situations." (Writing by Ron Popeski; editing by Robert Hart)

By Adrian Blomfield, Telegraph, London, UK, Sunday, 17 Aug 2008

Ukraine is investigating claims that Russia has been distributing passports in the port of Sevastopol, raising fears that the Kremlin could be stoking separatist sentiment in the Crimea as a prelude to possible military intervention.

The allegation has prompted accusations that Russia is using the same tactics employed in the Georgian breakaway regions of Abhkazia and South Ossetia in order to create a pretext for a war.

Russia handed out passports to the residents of the two provinces, which have long looked to Moscow for support, five years ago. The Kremlin has justified its invasion of Georgia in terms of defending its citizens in Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgian "aggression".

Mykola Stretovych, an MP with Ukraine's ruling orange coalition, claimed that Russia was engaged in a massive operation to hand out passports in Sevastopol, home to 400,000 people, many of whom have historic ties with Russia.

Anatoly Gritsenko, chairman of the Ukrainian parliament's national security committee, launched a probe into the claims which, if true, would represent "a threat to national security", he said.

Tensions between Moscow and Kiev have grown in recent days after Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's pro-western president, imposed restrictions on Russian ships entering the Black Sea Fleet's base in Sevastopol.

The decision to place limitations on movement to and from the base, which Russia rents from Ukraine, was taken after ships from the Black Sea Fleet were used in military operations in Georgia.

Ukraine further infuriated the Kremlin last week by offering Europe and the United States access to its missile warning systems.

Mr Yushchenko's alliance with Georgia has caused further resentment among the Crimea's overwhelmingly Russian-speaking population. The territory was historically part of Russia but was awarded to Soviet Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.

The head of Ukraine's security service, however, said that despite nationalist tensions in the territory, a rebellion in the Crimea with or without Russian support was inconceivable.

"Prosperity, peace and calm in the Crimea is the very foundation on which the interests of Ukraine and neighbouring Russia coincide," Valentin Nalivaichenko said.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, warned Russia that its actions in Georgia would further increase the alienation of Ukraine towards Moscow. Mr Yushchenko has applied for Ukraine's membership of Nato, a move bitterly opposed by the Kremlin.

"If the Russians intended this as intimidation, they have done nothing but harden the attitudes of the small states around them," she said. "I think the Russians have made a significant mistake here."
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/2575421/Russia-distributing-passports-in-the-Crimea.html

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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
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14. UKRAINE OFFERS WEST INFORMATION ON EARLY MISSILE WARNING

15. UKRAINE TORMENTS RUSSIA WITH SHOW OF SOLIDARITY