The iPINIONS Journal

Yesterday, as most people in America (and around the world) were fixated on the political drama surrounding Hillary Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention,  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was delivering a speech that portends far more dire consequences.

Because Medvedev launched the most devastating salvos to date in the new Cold War brewing between Russia and the United States (and Europe) by unilaterally declaring the disputed Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia independent. 

Perhaps you recall that French President Nicolas Sarkozy brokered an agreement with Medvedev a couple weeks ago, which purportedly guaranteed the territorial integrity of Georgia.  Clearly, this declaration makes a mockery of that agreement.

This decision…is inconsistent with the French-brokered six-point ceasefire agreement which President Medvedev signed on August 12, 2008. The territorial integrity and borders of Georgia must be respected…. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are within the internationally recognized borders of Georgia, and they must remain so.

[US President George W. Bush]

But nobody with an informed understanding of the conflict in Georgia could have been surprised by Medvedev’s declaration.  After all, here’s what I wrote about the geopolitical chess game being played between erstwhile superpowers (Russia and the US) where these disputed territories are concerned:

To be fair to Putin, however, he has just as much moral authority (and military power) to do what he’s doing in Georgia as President Bush had to do what he did in Kosovo; i.e., to use force to facilitate independence for a province of an independent state.

[Tensions simmering between Mother Russia and her former dependent territory, Georgia, The iPINIONS Journal, June 6, 2008]

Moreover, just as I admonished the Serbs to reconcile their national identity with the loss of Kosovo (because Russia was not going to lift a finger to prevent the US and EU from recognizing Kosovo as an independent state), I now admonish the Georgians to do the same where Abkhazia and South Ossetia are concerned (because the US and EU are not going to lift a finger to prevent Russia from declaring them independent territories).

As indicated above, however, this is just the latest skirmish in the new Cold War that has been escalating for some time now:

If the putinization of Russia were not sufficient to convince Bush that Putin’s hell-bent on reclaiming Russia’s superpower status, then Putin’s efforts to re-establish Cold-War ties with African leaders should be dispositive in this respect.

[Cold War II: from the African front, The iPINIONS Journal, July 17, 2007]

And if the West had any illusions about Putin’s intentions, here’s how Medvedev preempted any criticism of Russia’s reclamation of a sphere of influence over these Georgian territories:

We’re not afraid of anything (including) the prospect of a Cold War. Of course we don’t need that … Everything depends on the stance of our partners and the world community and our partners in the West.

Your move US (and EU); i.e., put up or shut up!

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I fear EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana going on a mission now to talk peace with Putin (and his puppet Russian President Demitry Medvedev) is rather like British PM Neville Chamberlain going on a mission in 1938 to talk peace with Adolf Hitler. Because, as I have documented in a series of articles over the past few years, Putin is every bit as determined to reassert Russia’s Cold-War sphere of influence over Eastern Europe as Hitler was to assert his Nazi influence over all of Europe.

[Tensions simmering between Mother Russia and her former dependent territory, Georgia, The iPINIONS Journal, June 6, 2008]

Frankly, Russian President Vladimir Putinhas now demonstrated that he’s not only determined to emulate Hitler’s daring adventures but also that he has the military acumen for strategic planning to ensure his success. 

After all, it was nothing short of genius for Putin to wait until he was embracing fellow world leaders at the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics to order his tanks to invade Georgia.  And I doubt he  cares one bit about this being tantamount to raining on China’s “coming-out” parade.

More to the point, he now has two weeks to consolidate his controlover the Georgian province of South Ossetia before world leaders even begin their perfunctory denunciations…in earnest. 

Indeed, Georgia calling on the US and EU to come to its aid is rather like the tiny Caribbean country of Grenada calling on the Soviet Union to come to its aid after the US invaded in 1983. 

But, just for good measure, Putin will undoubtedly justify his order to invade by claiming that he acted to defend Russian citizens (against ethnic cleansing) just as then US President Ronald Reagan justified his order to invade Grenada by claiming, clearly speciously, that he acted to protect American citizens (against attacks by Cuban-backed  mercenaries).

Of course, the real reason stems from Putin’s need to teach Georgia’s gregariously pro-Western president, Mikhail Saakashvili, a lesson (one, no doubt, which he hopes will serve as a dire warning to the leaders of all of the other former Soviet Republics on Russia’s border). And that lesson is that Putin will not tolerate any of them establishing military alliances with the West (i.e. NATO); and if that means bombing them to prevent such fraternization, so be it!

Hail Putin!

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Tensions simmering between Russia and Georgia

During a dinner conversation with professional colleagues last night, I asked what they thought about Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died on Sunday at the age of 89. 

But when one of them responded reflexively by asking “Who was he?“, I simply could not disguise my stupefaction. And it did not enlighten the conversation when another of them tried to excuse this colleague’s ignorance by accusing me of being an intellectual snob. 

Because this prompted me to assert that “any adult who doesn’t know who Alexander Solzhenitsyn was, is as ignorant as any teenager who doesn’t know who JK Rowling is.”

Thankfully, this proved to be a great segue into a more informed conversation about sports….

Of course, Solzhenitsyn is the Russian writer who exposed the horrors of Stalinism (in such books as The Gulag Archipelago and One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich).   Indeed, it is arguable that his novels not only undermined the idyllic presumptions of communism but also imbued capitalism with the moral authority that inspired the United States to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

Not surprisingly, the Soviets denounced him as a traitor.  And, but for his international celebrity, they would have banished him to a gulag in Siberia instead of allowing him to go into exile in America in 1974. 

But it was a testament to Solzhenitsyn’s uncompromising, if not self-righteous, political views that it wasn’t long before he began decrying capitalism as every bit as “morally corrupt” as communism. (And in far too many respects, it was…and is!)  In fact, he found the American-style democracy Russia adopted in 1992 (after the fall of the Soviet Union) so detestable that he refused repeated invitations to return.

Unfortunately, nothing could have been more ironic than the fact that, after finally doing so in 1994, Solzhenitsyn spent the final years of his life watching President Vladimir Putin turn Russia back into the Stalinist state he railed against in his novels.

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