The Debatable Land

Bush Saves Saakashvili...

Well, sort of. According to this report from Charles Bremner in the Times:

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia, Mr Levitte [Sarko's chief diplomatic advisor] said.

"I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls," Mr Putin replied.

Mr Sarkozy responded: "Hang him?"

"Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein," said Mr Putin.

Mr Sarkozy replied, using the familiar "tu": "Yes but do you want to end up like (President) Bush?"

Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: "Ah, you have scored a point there."

...President Mikhail Saakashvili, who was in Paris to meet Mr Sarkozy today, laughed nervously when a French radio station read him the exchange. "I knew about this scene, but not all the details. It's funny, all the same," said the Georgian President.

So there you have it: George W Bush the Inadvertent Peacemaker. 

Alternative scenario: Putin is Marlo Stanfield while Sarkozy plays the part of Proposition Joe.

[Via Foreign Policy]

Stanislav Petrov Day

The Yorkshire Ranter explains why this matters and why we should all be grateful to this Soviet Air Force colonel.

Headline you won't see: "Palin Agrees with Obama"

I guess this is going to get some attention:

EXCLUSIVE: GOV. SARAH PALIN WARNS WAR MAY BE NECESSARY IF RUSSIA INVADES ANOTHER COUNTRY

Well, yes and no. Here's what Sarah Palin told ABC News's Charlie Gibson:

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to -- especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

There's plenty to be concerned with here and, look, as one suspected, it's not obvious that you'd term Palin a foreign policy maven but it's also the case that this is an answer - gauche and blunt though it undoubtedly is - that is right in the mainstream of American (and British) foreign policy.

On the substance of the matter Palin is not so far removed from her opponents. Barack Obama also wants Georgia to be a member of NATO. Presumably he can also conceive of situations in which war with Russia might, perhaps, be "necessary". The alternative is a NATO alliance which is worthless. Otherwise, what's the point of membership? Either a mutual defence pact means something or it means, well, nothing. If it means nothing then what's the point of NATO and shouldn't we be having an entirely different kind of debate?

Anyway, add this one to the long list of questionable foreign policy ideas enthusiastically embraced by both parties...

UPDATE: She also seems to agree with Obama (and, to be fair, GW Bush) on sending troops into Pakistan.

The Lessons of the Past

Bill Keller's piece on "Springtime for Autocrats" in the New York Times has received plenty of attention (See Yglesias's sane response for instance) but for Russian and Caucasus commentary I'd recommend Neal Ascherson's article in the Observer. It's probably the best-balanced, most historically aware and, for that matter, humane piece I'd read on the whole grisly affair. As he puts it, we've been here before in the Caucasus and only the Russians have learnt anything from history. A foolish, counter-productive Georgian policy has failed (again) and the west should think long and hard about when and how it plans to bluff in the future...

Ascherson, a veteran Black Sea hand, doesn't offer many solutions, but he enjoys a vastly greater knowledge of the region than, it seems, anyone at the White House (let alone on John McCain's campaign team). It's not a matter of good and evil, it's much more important, and much more tragic, than that.

As I say, reading the whole thing is recommended.

Did you know Putin is really (another) Hitler?

How about this for an opening sentence?

The details of who did what to precipitate Russia's war against Georgia are not very important.

Who, you ask, is this clown? None other than Robert Kagan, writing today in the Washington Post. His second sentence is also a doozy:

Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia?

And how about this?

Historians will come to view Aug. 8, 2008, as a turning point no less significant than Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. Russia's attack on sovereign Georgian territory marked the official return of history, indeed to an almost 19th-century style of great-power competition, complete with virulent nationalisms, battles for resources, struggles over spheres of influence and territory, and even -- though it shocks our 21st-century sensibilities -- the use of military power to obtain geopolitical objectives.

Isn't this also, of course, a rather good description of the United States' invasion of Iraq? An invasion for which Mr Kagan prepared much of the intellectual justification...

Anyway, all these comparisons of the state of Russia today with that of Nazi Germany do rather make one wonder how many "modern-day Hitlers" the world can accommodate at any one time? What's the over/under on that?

[Via James Poulos whose article at Comment is Free I also recommend.]

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias, ensconced in his new digs, also responds to Kagan:

It seems to me that rather than specifically informing us of each and every time something happens in the world that reminds neocons of the Sudetenland crisis, maybe they should let us know on those rare occasions when a world event doesn’t spark a Munich analogy.

More Trouble in the Caucasus

Clumsy. Stupid. Counter-productive. Russian policy in Georgia has moved into a new phase. As I suggested yesterday, the Russians now seem determined to answer a Georgian miscalculation with one of their own. Yes, Russia is projecting "strength" by moving into indisputably Georgian territory, but at what cost? It may be that the Russians don't give a fig about what the West thinks, but in the longer run it seems that toppling Sakaashvili is an unnecessary over-reaction. Once the Georgians had offered their ceasefire (or been driven out of South Ossetia) a more prudent Russian response might have been to accept this. There's much to be said for quitting while you're ahead.

Anyway, I agree with everything the estimable Mr Poulos writes here. The Russians seem determined upon seeing Saakashvili's blunder with one of their own. But that does not mean that the immediate, even visceral anti-Moscow tilt favoured by some is or was the correct or sensible response. At the very least, one might hope there'd be some sense of priorities: what price Georgia when set beside, say, Russian help with Iran?

Equally, I agree with Mr Larison here. Russia's subsequent over-reaction does not excuse Georgia's initial provocation, nor indubitably cast it in a heroic, let's-admire-the-scrappy-wee-guy bronze.

Trouble in the Caucasus, Day 2

Edward Lucas concludes his op-ed in The Times on the Ossetian dilemma with this:

The fighting should be a deafening wake-up call to the West. Our fatal mistake was made at the Nato summit in Bucharest in April, when Georgia's attempt to get a clear path to membership of the alliance was rebuffed. Mr Saakashvili warned us then that Russia would take advantage of any display of Western weakness or indecision. And it has.

Indeed, as I suggested yesterday, Russia has taken advantage of "western weakness" by responding to a Georgian offensive. Given that Saakashvili has been bold enough to send his troops into South Ossetia even though his determination to join NATO was thwarted last year, one can only assume that he would have been even bolder had his country joined the alliance. And if a Georgia vs Russia conflict is dangerous now, it scarcely bears thinking how much worse it might be if Georgia were a NATO member.

Russia may have provoked this crisis, and one may be properly critical of, indeed deplore, many aspects of recent Russian policy in the Caucasus or the Ukraine, but the immediate responsibility for this crisis must be borne by Tbilisi. That Georgia  - despite recent crackdowns on the opposition - remains a more free country than Russia (according to Freedom House) doesn't require us to immediately endorse their view of the situation.

Meanwhile, Iain Dale cheerfully admits that he'd "never heard" of South Ossetia and then leaps in to suggest "something must be done" to back the Georgians and thwart Moscow. Seriously. I'm far from a Caucasus expert, but it's not obvious that there's one party wearing White Hats and another sporting Black Caps to help us determine who are the "good" guys and who're the "bad" ones.

Trouble in the Caucasus

Far from Beijing, Russia and Georgia kick-off in South Ossetia. I suspect that this is going to prompt people to raise the whole "should Georgia join NATO" thing all over again. Now, perhaps putting Georgia on the road to NATO membership might have cooled tensions in the region. But the opposite seems more likely given Russia's likely reaction to what it would see as a provocation. And, frankly, it's a great relief that Germany, among others, stopped the move to make Georgia a member of the alliance,  given the potential for trouble if Russia and a member of the alliance start fighting one another. It's hard to argue that South Ossetia is worth the life of a single Coldstream Guardsman.

Strangely, given their enthusiasm for Kosovan independence, both Presidential candidates and the White House are demanding that Georgia's "territorial integrity" must be "respected". McCain, of course, blames Russia, but then again, as a friend reminds me, McCain's foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann was a registered lobbyist for the Georgian government from 2003 until earlier this year.

But it's not immediately obvious why the South Ossetians must be forced to live in a state they don't feel part of while the Kosovans* had to be liberated from the intolerable burden of Serb rule. Sauce for the Kosovan goose is sauce for the Russian gander. In other words, South Ossetia may be the price of Kosovo. Only this time, of course, the west is supporting the other side... Which is especially strange since it seems as though it's Georgia that has been the initial aggressor this week (though, natch, the details of what exactly is going on remain murky).

End result: some people' self-determination is better than other peoples' ain't it?

UPDATE: James Joyner has a good collection of links.

*I should pehraps say that I dont have particularly strong feelings about Kosovo, either way. Mind you, absent the war and the ethnic cleansing, the Serb claim to Kosovo seems, on the face of it, rather stronger than Georgia's to South Ossetia. Of course, the Ossetians' problem is that there are only 70,000 of them. If they were more numerous they might be treated more sympathetically. Their other problem, of course, is that they want to be Russian and this runs against the historical grain. But that's their business, not ours.

The Importance of Being Stubborn

Charles Crawford, formerly Our Man in Warsaw, Sarajevo and Belgrade, thinks we should have told the Saudis to hop off and let the BAE corruption trial proceed. Not because anti-corruption investigations are good in themselves but because it would have been a demonstration of toughness. In the longer term, then, the national interest would have been better served by exposing the Saudis. But that's not our style...

The Russians too are outstanding negotiators, but in a different sense. They are taught negotiating technique in a way which is quite foreign to British and European methods.

Russian diplomats' First Rule of Negotiating is simple and profound: "Never move position, even when you agree with someone, without trying to extract something first."

This attitude gives them all sorts of advantages. Above all they usually convey the impression (a) that they are tough, and (b) that they move only on their terms. Plus they come over as (c) ready to take considerable pain in defending their principles, while (d) being ready, nay keen, to hit you harder (and if possible below the belt) than you hit them.

Which is why Russian diplomats are rarely kidnapped or humiliated. Even the dimmest terrorist out there knows that if he does something bad to the Russians, they will not hesitate to something Very Bad, and preferably very personal, to him - and his family.

Our British problem is that we (maybe especially in the FCO?) in a baffling post-modern way are increasingly uncomfortable if not embarrassed with any talk of 'power' (theirs or ours). We seem to be drifting into a hazy miasma of collective ineffectualness. Psychological and practical 'safety' is all. Confrontation necessarily is aggressive (and therefore bad). Winning is undesirable if it means someone loses.

It is hard to know where all this rubbish comes from explicitly. Part of it is the fact that at the national level we find ourselves sucked in to a 'European' style of negotiating, a restless but incoherent striving for 'middle ground'. The default instinct when confronted with a new demand is not to say loudly "get lost", but rather to sigh "oh dear, they want something again - what might we offer them this time?"

In short, we can come across not as Powerfully Purposeful, but Lamely Malleable. When in fact we aren't, or at least do not need to be.

Indeed. I'd also suggest that this is what happened in Northern Ireland too. London wanted a deal so badly that, in the end, the actual details of an agreement were less important than the existence of a piece of paper everyone could sign. Knowing this, Sinn Fein and the IRA had an enormous advantage in the negotiating process (boosted by the awareness that Washington would bat for the "Green" side of the argument every time). When the Republicans said "No" they were rewarded, when Unionists pointed out their concerns London was likely to see them as an obstacle to be overcome. In the end, the most unreasonable people in the room did best while the reasonable parties were eclipsed.

Sell-By Dates Can Kill Too

Intro of the Day:

NIKOLSKOE, Russia (Reuters) - Fourteen members of a Russian doomsday cult on Tuesday abandoned the remote underground bunker where they had been hiding for nearly half a year awaiting the end of the world.

So who are these people? Alas, the story doesn't give many details, offering just this tantalising glimspse of their beliefs:

The sect is an ultra-devout splinter group of the Russian Orthodox church. They reject processed food and say bar codes on products are the work of Satan.

[Hat-tip: Foreign Policy]

A Picture of Putin

Rod has an excellent and rather moving wee tale about how Time magazine ended up with a photograph of Vladimir Putin not an icon to illustrate its decision to hail Putin as its Person of the Year.

It's a reminder that non-believers can find much to admire in believers. Or, to put it another way, religious devotion that is sincere and modest and personal - and thus the exact opposite of how religion has come to be used in the American political arena - is a tough road to follow but one who's virtues ought to be apparent even to those of us who remain unpersuaded by organised religion. I like to think that if I were more religiously-inclined I would oppose the introduction of religion to public life, not because it would be an insult to the agnostic, but because it would tarnish religion itself. Better, I think, for it to remain something between man and his maker than just another kind of snake-oil.

It's a funny old world...

"News" you expected from Russia:

Russian President Vladimir Putin's party has won a landslide election victory, official results show.

With more than 80% of ballots counted, his United Russia had 63% of the vote. The opposition Communists and two other parties were also poised to win seats.

Opposition allegations of fraud were dismissed by the electoral commission.

News you may not have expected from Venezuela:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has narrowly lost a referendum on controversial constitutional changes.

Voters rejected the sweeping reforms by a margin of 51% to 49%, the chief of the National Electoral Council said.

Mr Chavez described the defeat as a "photo finish", and urged followers not to turn it into a point of conflict.

No wider point here, except that a) there's only so much that is likely to be gained from castigating Mr Putin and b) whatever his shortcomings perhaps this result might persuade some hysterics that Mr Chavez is not, as the phrase has it, an especially grave "clear and present danger" to the United States of America.

Oneupmanship Tutorial: War and Peace Division

I've had occasion to write about Not Reading Books before. As a public service I've also mentioned the importance of Oneupmanship. Today's text, then, is the new and handsome translation of War and Peace. Clearly this is the kind of gift horse no self-respecting Lifeman looks in the mouth.

Needless to say it is not necessary to read the translation. Indeed, it is not strictly necessary to even possess a copy of the the book, though it must be admitted that casually leaving the book out on a sideboard or coffee table at home will intimidate any visitor, leaving you One Up and your guest One Down before you've so much as made reference to Tolstoy's Greatest Work. No, all that is required is that the impression be given that not only are you immersed in this translation but that you are capable of comparing it to previous renderings of War ad Peace.

When you do so, bear these points in mind:

1. Praise the translators' courage in leaving the French (and German) dialogue spoken by Russians in the original French (and German). You may lightly suggest how this reinforces the nuanced, complementary relationship between France and Russia and the distance between the Russian elites and the common people. No further details are likely to be required on this point and in any case the experienced Lifeman knows when not to press a point for fear of being asked to supply chapter and verse.

2. You may also mention how gratifying it is to finally have a translation that gives a sense of how Tolstoy wrote in Russian. Previous translations have made all the great Russians sound as though they wrote alike, with the same rhythm and the same tone. At long last Tolstoy has been freed to be Tolstoy!

3. Following that it is quite legitimate to murmur "Too much, alas, to hope that someone might do the same for poor Pushkin?"

4. If your interlocutor has recovered from this humbling and demands examples, you may feel like citing Tolstoy's deliberate use of repetition as something that previous translators have smoothed out and, irritatingly, de-Russified. Should you be encouraged to elaborate you may also pivot and say that the new translation has a "lyrical intensity" not found in previous versions. Consider, you may say, the shortest sentence in the entire novel: 'Kapli kapali' has previously been translated as 'The branches dripped' or 'The trees were dripping'. Worthy efforts, but scarcely as powerful or poetic or immediate as 'Drops dripped.' A trifling example,  you will say, but indicative of the superiority of this new, magnificent enterprise...

Armed with these few, easily remembered, observations you will be well on your way to establishing a small, niggling and crucial advantage over all-comers.

Kasparov in check

Garry Kasparov has been arrested at a Moscow demonstration. No great surprise, there. Vladimir Putin is not, I think, in the habit of tolerating anything so troublesome as a Dissenters' March, organised by the opposition group Other Russia.

How do you solve a problem like Russia? Well, the Russians themselves have been trying and failing to do so for three hundred years so let's not pretend that the United States or the EU can do much to improve matters in poor Russia, even if we had the will or means to do so. Gloomy, yes, but what else is there? Pass the vodka?

Lest it be forgotten, Boris Berezovsky, who has called for regime change in Moscow, is no innocent himself. Indeed, though it must still be more probable than not that Alexander Litvinenko was murdered on the orders of the Kremlin/FSB, it's not altogether impossible to suppose that Litvinenko oculd have been murdered by his friends?

Indeed, you could argue (hypothetically of course) that Litvinenko's friends in the anti-Putin movement had more to gain from his death than did Putin himself. True, Litvinenko's death could be a warning shot fired by the Kremlin, reminding other dissidents that what happened to Litvinenko (and Anna Politovskaya) could happen to them. But it's also true that the former KGB officer's death  - and the particularly gruesome manner of his murder - would be just the kind of plot you might hatch if you wanted to damage and embarass Putin's regime. 

Cynical? Perhaps. Ruthless? Certainly. Impossible? Hmmm. This, remember, is Russia... That Litvinenko had begun to make ever more extravagant claims about Putin's Russia is grist to this particular mill. It's not too far-fetched, I think, to suppose that he risked damaging the opposition movement and that he was more useful to the opposition dead than alive.

This is, of course, all warrantless, evidence-free, speculation.