The European Union unites in rather mild and belated criticism of Russia’s war
in Georgia
Jupiter ImagesDiverging footsteps
DEPENDING where you live in Europe and whom you blame for the Russian-Georgian
war, the European Union’s emergency summit meeting on September 1st was a
triumph, a failure or just the best that could be expected. Against objections
from some Russia-friendly quarters, chiefly Italy’s prime minister, Silvio
Berlusconi, the EU condemned Russian actions in Georgia, agreed to step up
efforts to help ex-Soviet countries under threat and blocked talks on a new
partnership deal.
Even agreeing that was tricky. Britain had been demanding a “root and branch”
re-examination of the EU’s relationship with Russia—a critical viewpoint shared
with Poland, the Baltic states and Sweden, whose foreign minister, Carl Bildt,
has explicitly compared Russia’s tactics with Germany’s in the 1930s. Most of
the big European countries are a lot more cautious. They blame Georgia, seen as
an irresponsible American protégé, for starting the war but object to Russia’s
precipitate diplomatic recognition of Georgia’s two breakaway territories,
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the lingering Russian military presence in
buffer zones. Above all, they are glad that a row with an important trading
partner has cooled.
The hope is that France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is visiting Russia on
September 8th, will bring back agreement on a Russian withdrawal in accordance
with the ceasefire he brokered. Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, has
promised this on at least four occasions. But Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir
Putin, has declared that the port of Poti, a long way from the separatist
regions, is part of Russia’s self-declared “security zone”. His spokesman,
Dmitry Peskov, said that Russian troops (now labelled peacekeepers) would
maintain their “temporary presence”. Even so, optimists think that it will soon
be business as usual, particularly as Russia starts to count the economic cost
of the war, which has sent shares plunging and encouraged capital flight.
Maybe, but what is happening in practice is another story. Even the details of
implementing the ceasefire are unclear. One reason is that the document itself
is so vague. Veterans of the many ceasefire negotiations during the wars in
former Yugoslavia in the 1990s were aghast when they saw the text, which exists
in multiple inconsistent versions and lacks the vital specifics of dates and
placenames, leaving far too much wiggle room. Russian officials now say that
their forces will move back only when Georgia also abides by the agreement as
they define it. They are demanding that Western countries observe an arms
embargo on Georgia, the “aggressor” party. That leaves plenty of scope for
quibbling and delay.
A second problem is the role of the international monitors from the EU and the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a Vienna-based
international body that supposedly defuses the continent’s conflicts. Will
these people be allowed to move freely inside all of what the West regards as
Georgia, including South Ossetia and Abkhazia where Russian-backed militias are
engaged in purges of the ethnic Georgian population? Russia, at present, says
that it is too dangerous to allow this. But if they are allowed in, on what
terms will that be? Foreign journalists and diplomats are repeatedly told that
they need documents issued by the separatist authorities—or in some cases, as
shockingly happened to the French ambassador to Georgia, Russian visas. Georgia
and its allies will vigorously resist the application of such rules to
international officials.
It is still unclear what Russia really wants in Georgia—or elsewhere. In
Moscow, the mood is defiant, unrepentant and uncompromising. Mr Medvedev and a
raft of top officials have scoffed at talk of serious punitive action. “Bring
it on” appears to be their devil-may-care mantra. Convinced that the days of a
unipolar Washington-centric world are dead and buried, Russia believes it has a
privileged place at the top table of a fast-changing multipolar world. Any
attempt to mete out punishment will backfire. “The G8 will be practically
unable to function without Russia,” Mr Medvedev calmly told Italian television.
“That’s why we don’t fear being expelled.” On NATO’s freezing of ties with
Russia, he remarked: “We don’t see anything dramatic or difficult about
suspending our relations…But I think our partners will lose more from that.”
Unmentioned but clearly meant was NATO’s reliance on Russia to supply its
forces in Afghanistan.
The EU’s mild rebuke and tentative sanctions brought an outright welcome. The
freezing of talks on a new deal with the EU, already much delayed, is seen as
of little importance. Though junior officials expressed irritation at “biased
statements” in the EU declaration, Mr Medvedev hailed the union’s avoidance of
real sanctions as “reasonable” and “realistic”. The president seemed to put all
disagreement with Russia down to a temporary misunderstanding: it was “not
fatal” because “things change in the world.”
Political corpse
But not, it seems, as far as talks with the Georgian leadership is concerned.
“President [Mikheil] Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes,” said Mr
Medvedev. “He is a political corpse.” Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov,
advised Europe to decide its policy towards Russia based on its own “core
interests” (ie, without America) in a speech larded with snide remarks about
American arrogance and unilateralism. “The phantom of the Great Game wanders
again in the Caucasus,” he said. If America and its allies chose to side with
what he called “Saakashvili’s regime” it would be a “mistake of truly historic
proportions”.
That fits with earlier Russian demands for a change of Georgian leadership.
Russia has said that its prosecutors are collecting evidence in South Ossetia
with which to indict Mr Saakashvili as a war criminal. Many of Georgia’s
Western friends would be delighted if someone with an easier personality (and
greater readiness to listen to advice) were in charge. But they want that to
happen as part of Georgia’s normal internal politics, not as a putsch dictated
by Moscow. As the box on the last page of this section points out, Georgian
politicians now think the same.
The double-act between Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin creates extra scope for
manoeuvre. Mr Medvedev promises to calm things down. Then Mr Putin stirs them
up again, accusing in all seriousness the Bush administration of staging the
war to boost John McCain’s election chances.
Part of the motive for the war may have been to distract attention from
problems inside Russia, such as inflation, corruption, squabbling inside the
circles of power and the failure to distribute fairly the proceeds of the oil
and gas bonanza of past years. As the oil price falls towards $100 a barrel,
the focus on that will sharpen.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the most unpleasant side of Russian
politics is leaking to its near neighbours. Over the weekend, Mr Medvedev said
that protecting the lives and dignity of Russian citizens abroad was an
“unquestionable priority”, as well as protecting the interests of Russian
businesses there. He also spoke of “countries with which we share special
historical relations” where Russia has “privileged interests”. Though Mr
Medvedev stressed the need for friendly relations, he also implied that such
countries might not have the option of following policies that Russia deemed
unfriendly (such as wanting to join NATO or host American bases). It would have
been hard to find anything more likely to make the fears of Russia’s neighbours
seem justified, to stoke Western support for them and to undermine those who
think that Russia will soon return to “normal”.
Diplomatic support for Russia has been scanty, even among close allies. No
country, Russia apart, has given the two statelets formal diplomatic
recognition. Belarus and Tajikistan say they will do so, but the former, which
is being squeezed by Russia over energy supplies, spoke in notably lukewarm
terms and only after Russia’s ambassador to Minsk decried the government’s
“incomprehensible silence”.
Perhaps most significant has been the critical reaction from the
intergovernmental Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, which Russia has been
building up as a counterweight to American influence. A statement from its
meeting last week supported Russian peacekeeping efforts but stressed the
importance of territorial integrity and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
This was a clear snub that showed a startling lack of support for Russia’s
actions both from the four Central Asian members of the SCO and from China.
Chill from China
China’s leaders have enjoyed unnerving America by flirting with Russia, but
this has always stopped well short of any hint of confrontation. Although
China’s state-run media has avoided criticising Russia, and has highlighted the
West’s discomfort at Georgia’s defeat, China’s official position on Russia’s
recognition of the breakaway regions has been surprisingly chilly. A Chinese
spokesman said his country was “concerned” and called for “dialogue and
consultation”. That reflects both China’s pragmatic desire for good economic
relations with the West, and also its dislike of both separatism and
interference in other countries’ internal affairs. With Tibet, Taiwan and
restive Muslims to contend with, China takes a dim view of anybody chopping up
other countries and declaring the results to be independent states.
The same thinking has marred Russia’s image in normally friendly countries such
as Greece and Cyprus (which bristles about the Turkish-backed “pseudo-state”)
and Spain (which is twitchy about Basque and Catalan separatism). All this
suggests a degree of miscalculation in Moscow. Over the past decade, the future
of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was a useful bargaining chip. Now it has been
cashed in, without much benefit.
Cooking up new Russia policies will take time. The result may well not be to
the Kremlin’s taste. “We are back to square one,” says Alexander Stubb,
Finland’s foreign minister. Many Western countries are now reassessing their
relations with Russia in ways that range from the need for higher defence
spending to a reduction in dependence on Russian energy. Mr Sarkozy says that
France, which holds the EU presidency, will launch a big new defence initiative
in October.
The EU is better at giving carrots than wielding sticks. It will find it easier
to provide generous support for the reconstruction of Georgia than do anything
that might be seen as punishing Russia. Even so, timid as this response may
seem, it is also something of a watershed: for the first time the EU’s 27
countries got together and agreed on sharp public criticism of Russia.
The United States has announced a $1 billion aid package for Georgia. The
International Monetary Fund has agreed to lend the country $750m. Underlining
Georgia’s importance as an energy corridor, America’s vice-president, Dick
Cheney, visited the region this week.. He hopes to get Azerbaijan to commit gas
exports to the €8 billion ($11..5 billion) Nabucco project, which extends a gas
pipeline to Europe from Georgia and Turkey. But Nabucco’s chances are looking
increasingly slim. This week Russia stepped up its energy diplomacy, agreeing
on a deal with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on a new pipeline via Russia that
would entrench the Kremlin’s hold on east-west gas supplies. Though the EU is
Russia’s largest customer, individual countries’ dependency (see chart) has
undermined the union’s collective bargaining power.
America is also supporting Georgia’s demand for a tough non-recognition policy
towards South Ossetian and Abkhaz independence. Companies doing business in the
two self-proclaimed countries will find that their managers and shareholders
cannot get American or European visas, officials say. But will big European
countries such as Germany go along with that? Outsiders will be scrutinising
closely the atmosphere at the annual German-Russian intergovernmental meeting
in October—an occasion normally marked by warm rhetoric about the two
countries’ mutual interdependence.
The mood in NATO is noticeably more hawkish than in the EU. A senior official
says that the days when it was regarded as “taboo” to discuss any military
threat from Russia in the alliance’s contingency planning are all but over.
When NATO defence ministers meet in London on September 18th, a big question
will be how to defend existing members, chiefly the Baltic states, which are
small, weak and on Russia’s border. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined the
alliance in 2004, when such questions were dismissed as too theoretical to
worry about (or alternatively too provocative to consider). Now they are
unavoidable.
Minorities as ammunition
The potential flashpoint, as with the war in Georgia, is a legacy of the Soviet
Union (see table). Russia says that the language and citizenship laws in
Estonia and Latvia discriminate against Russian-speakers. The hundreds of
thousands of people (mainly from Russia) who moved to these countries during
the Soviet occupation did not automatically become citizens when Estonia and
Latvia regained independence. Many were naturalised in the 1990s, and a steady
trickle continue to pass the language exams and apply for citizenship. But an
alienated minority of stateless people, and tens of thousands who carry Russian
passports, are a potential nightmare for the Baltic states and their friends.
Disturbances in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, last year over a clumsy
government decision to move a Soviet war memorial inflamed feelings that have
not yet subsided.
Lithuania’s problems are different (it has a small Russian minority which
gained automatic citizenship in 1991). But it is a transit route for Russian
troops to the exclave of Kaliningrad. That offers plenty of scope for
provocation. Russia has cut off oil supplies, ostensibly because the pipeline
is decrepit (but has refused a Lithuanian offer to pay for its repair). And
populist parties led by politicians with strong Kremlin links are doing well in
the run-up to a general election in October.
Getty ImagesDiverging footsteps
The Baltic armed forces are tiny and are configured to support NATO efforts in
faraway countries such as Afghanistan, not to defend the region against a real
attack from Russia. NATO’s military presence consists only of a handful of
fighter aircraft (currently four from Germany) based at an air base in
Lithuania. It also has a cyber-defence centre in Estonia, and all three
countries have NATO-standard radars that can look deep into Russia.
Beefing that up without feeding Russian paranoia will be tricky. “Don’t expect
a fanfare,” says the NATO official. “We will do it in a low-key, professional
way.” The Baltic states themselves will be expected to spend more on defence—no
easy task as a sharp economic slowdown bites.
Another question for NATO is how much help to offer in restoring Georgia’s
armed forces. Although Western military advisers have been surprised, and even
scandalised, by the poor showing of the Georgian army, which retreated in poor
order, dumping huge quantities of donated American equipment and ammunition,
Georgia itself is optimistic about rebuilding it.
The other country most threatened by Russia is Ukraine. Mr Putin said in April
that it risked dismemberment if it tried to join NATO, and opinion inside the
country is deeply divided on the issue. Politics is unstable too: this week
Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yushchenko, threatened to call a snap election to
defend himself against what he termed a “putsch” by parliament, which wants to
strip him of his powers. The West will tread gingerly into that, though NATO
may step up its fairly uncontroversial defence training activities.
Yet NATO is barely less divided than the EU. It is not just that European
countries blocked the American plan to give Ukraine and Georgia a clear path to
potential membership at the alliance’s summit in April. Turkey, the most
important NATO member in the Black Sea region, is torn between the competing
claims of strategic partnership with America and its strong trading links with
Russia (which supplies most of its gas). Although Turkey has helped to train
Georgia’s armed forces (evidently not very successfully), it did not share
radar and other military data with Georgia during the series of pinprick
attacks by Russia that preceded the full-scale war.
Turkey is pushing its own regional initiative, involving Russia and the
Caucasus countries but not America. That might help settle another lingering
conflict, between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But Georgia regards anything that
excludes the United States as unacceptable. For now, the hottest issue for
Turkey is whether to allow America to send more warships through the Bosporus
straits into the Black Sea, something that Russia vigorously opposes.
Having caught the West napping (or at least on holiday), Russia scored a
pleasant victory over a weak and unpopular adversary. But now it has to deal
with the consequences: war fever at home plus alienated allies and stronger
critics abroad. Will Russia’s leaders respond to this by raising the stakes, in
the hope of showing their opponents’ underlying weakness? The West’s leaders
worriedly hope not.
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