Russia still in Georgia despite agreement to leave
posted at 9:30 am on August 17, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
The Russians aren’t leaving Georgia despite having signed an agreement with Georgia to fall back to military positions established on August 6th before fighting erupted in South Ossetia. President Bush warned of long-term consequences from Russian failure to honor their commitment and declared American support for Georgian sovereignty, including South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Meanwhile, NBC reports that the Russians have looted Poti and have tank battalions creeping towards Tbilisi:
Bush told reporters at his Texas ranch that Russia took “a hopeful step” earlier in the day with an agreement to cease hostilities and pull back its forces. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the deal at the Black Sea resort of Sochi after meeting with Russia’s Security Council, according to a Russian news agency.
But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said later that “extra security measures” were necessary before any troops could be removed — a stance that U.S. and Georgian officials said was at odds with the French-negotiated agreement.
Russia tried offering a strange and weak rationale for their presence:
Nogovitsyn also said that Russian troops had left the Georgian cities of Gori and Poti but were operating nearby. “Our units are on the outskirts of Gori now, where large arsenals of Georgian weapons, including 15 tanks, have been discovered,” he said.
Yes, how strange it must be for Georgia to have tanks — in its own country! Gori is part of Georgia proper, not South Ossetia, although it is the largest city near the breakaway province. Gori also houses a major military base, which given the events of the last fortnight, seems a smart bit of logistics.
Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev have tried stringing this out as long as possible, seizing on every possible pretext to remain in place. Condoleezza Rice refuted their interpretation of the Sarkozy-negotiated cease-fire, claiming that notes taken during the meeting showed Russian agreement that it meant their withdrawal. Rice accused them of reneging on their promises and negiotiating in bad faith, escalating the diplomatic rift between Washington and Moscow.
Rice will meet with NATO this week in a pointed demonstration of Atlantic unity on the issue of Georgia. The West needs to follow Eastern Europe’s lead and present a strong, united front against Russian imperialism in the Caucasus. One strong step would be to offer NATO membership to Ukraine as an answer to Putin’s adventurism. The more likely action from the Brussels meeting will be a statement of enhanced interest in Ukraine’s membership, which would either signal the Russians to back off or to create another pretext for invasion there.
Blowback
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freevillage,
What is your response to emerging documentation of wide-spread rapes of Georgian women and girls by the Russians and their allies?
NaCly dog on August 17, 2008 at 2:48 PM
Yes, Yukos does not exist anymore…that is precisely the problem. The way it was dissolved and sold to Putin’s buddies. The reasons for its dissolution and bankruptcy were government levying of “taxes” at such a level that bankrupted the company.
Russia will only be in G8 if the US is–if the US withdraws, the little club stops being important. We could probably get most of the G8 to agree even if a European country or two balk at the idea. But at this point in time, Sarkozy has been pushing a more pro American foreign policy, and Germany today announced that Georgia should proceed to NATO membership. The two softest countries of the G8 are sufficiently worried about Russian behavior that they too would likely go along.
How long will Echo of Moscow last? Seems like any number of journalists accidentally get killed or throw themselves out of windows in Russia.
Just ask the Iranians how much they liked their banking activities being curtailed. Russia desperately needs investment–tightening the screws on financial institutions involved with the Yukos fiasco, and any number of other questionable government takeovers would grind their economy to a halt.
You are right, they are not in the WTO now, but Russia wants to be. Not going to happen now.
BryanS on August 17, 2008 at 2:48 PM
Yes. I agree with that absolutely. I never said anything to the contrary.
freevillage on August 17, 2008 at 2:48 PM
Also by the way, I’m only thinking of economic and diplomatic moves. I’m not interested in a direct confrontation with Russia and doubt many Americans want that. But we should stop pretending they are our friends.
BryanS on August 17, 2008 at 2:51 PM
Once again, the US never did anything to suggest Russia is their friend. You can’t argue your point by repeating it.
freevillage on August 17, 2008 at 2:54 PM
Oh, so G8 will be dissolved in response to what happens in Georgia. Wow. I’ll be watching carefully.
freevillage on August 17, 2008 at 2:56 PM
No, it doesn’t. You don’t know anything about Russian economy. The money is plentiful. What lacks is rule of law most of all. The second biggest problem is the shortage of labor.
None of these problems have anything to do with the US. The US shouldn’t and wouldn’t solve them in any case.
freevillage on August 17, 2008 at 2:59 PM
Compliments on all the universal literature reading.
Please quit repeating and acting as if we owed them anything. It was within their purvue to change, and we would have done way more to help. Putin could have been a biger hero in the world than Gorbachev. Alas, it wasn’t to be. But, please, don’t blame the Americans for it.
Entelechy on August 17, 2008 at 3:01 PM
Indeed
Entelechy on August 17, 2008 at 3:02 PM
See, we finally agree that the Russian well-being is in no way in the US hands. I’ve been making this point all along.
freevillage on August 17, 2008 at 3:05 PM
Not sure exactly what your point is. The fact that we do not have a more harsh policy towards Russia for its abuses of freedoms certainly suggests that we are acting as if Russia is a friend. Russia is certainly no friend of ours, so we should stop acting like it. We should be treating Russia as an enemy–they treat us like it. Let me turn the question around, what has Russia ever done that has made them be anything other than an enemy to the US?
BryanS on August 17, 2008 at 3:07 PM
Bears don’t follow the rules. Don’t have to.
“Ceasefire? Make me.”
rishika on August 17, 2008 at 3:08 PM
In the words of that old Gospel song of my younger days…
“Will the circle be unbroken….?”
Enough on the Russian soul and such for now.
Back to that thingie going on in Georgia…
The Joint US/UK/France/Russia war games in the Sea of Japan and out of Vladivostok, an annual or at leasst frequent exercie going back to 1988, have been cancelled. Were to have started yesterday and gone on for the rest of the week.
coldwarrior on August 17, 2008 at 3:08 PM
If we want it too, yes.
BryanS on August 17, 2008 at 3:08 PM
My point is I asked you how much worse it could get, and you told me: uhm, we’ll boycott their Olympics.
:)
P.S. I’m out for tonight.
freevillage on August 17, 2008 at 3:10 PM
To the liberal, EVERYTHING is relative: America and Russia; saints and sinners; stars and grains of sand… It’s all the same.
And they’re absolutely right about that. Everything on this insignificant ball of mud does look exactly like everything else… To God. And also to every brain-dead moron who ever lived.
All the rest of us have to muddle through and do our best to try and evaluate everything. But the relativist offers no alternatives: either he has infinite Cosmic Awareness of the Oneness of All Things, or else he’s just an infinitely arrogant narcissist. And he always acts surprised when we “insult” him by making the obvious choice.
logis on August 17, 2008 at 3:11 PM
You mistake my assertion that economic sanctions are necessary for a desired improvement in economic conditions in Russia. Actually, I was hoping that applying sanctions would harm the Russian economy.
And despite being from there, you apparently don’t know anything about the Russian economy either. It is fast becoming a large version of Chavez’s Venezuela–nothing going for it except for oil. There is no Russian economy except for Vodka and natural resources. They are only riding high now on oil prices. They will become a basket case once again if oil prices fall.
BryanS on August 17, 2008 at 3:11 PM
My guess is that freevillage’s views are (broadly speaking) representative of most Russians in that country.
That is, after a period of destitution and upheaval where their empire was lost and the country in disarray, they’ve now recovered some of that power and prestige under Putin and are “feeling their oats”.
“We will now do what we want and chart our own foreign policy”. Their view (and freevillage harps on this repeatedly) is that none of the previous assistance by the West helped them. “We helped ourselves and built our own nation again. You in the West cannot hurt us; we don’t need your help anyway and since you didn’t help us, you can’t hurt us.”
Russian nationalism, in other words.
Powerful and dangerous ideology.
SteveMG on August 17, 2008 at 3:18 PM
Ya know, I agree with free village on this. Russia had a major demographic crisis, caused in part by lack of rule of law. Men in Bangladesh live longer on average than the usual Russian male.
But how do you bell the cat?
The US could play a positive role, but we have part of the electorate that wants to reinforce failure. Strong, clear thinking in the US is being replaced with emotional, tribal feelings. May be we should stand by and watch Russia struggle.
NaCly dog on August 17, 2008 at 3:21 PM
When the Soviet Union collapsed, and even your borders were left unguarded, and when the US didn’t kill or enslave you, and steal your resources, or nuke your cities (just for fun), or do much else, I wondered if the Russian people would re-evaluate what level of threat, if any, America poses to Russia.
You know, after we steal Azeri oil, and control Georgia’s pipelines, we’re coming after yours. Bwaahhahahahahahahaa.
(btw, we would have done it already, but we were, uhm, busy?)
JiangxiDad on August 17, 2008 at 3:24 PM
If they didn’t have thousands of nuclear weapons, yes.
Otherwise, we’ll have to be involved.
Unfortunately.
SteveMG on August 17, 2008 at 3:24 PM
Yep, we could have essentially walked in and taken over the country.
Or signed contracts with the Russian mafia to steal their oil and resources. Basically, just rape the country.
Instead, we gave them aid and technical assistance to build a new country.
But we weren’t “helping” them or being “friendly.” None of those actions suggest we were trying to be friendly.
Lordy.
SteveMG on August 17, 2008 at 3:30 PM
Have got to admit, re-reading the posts, this time out, freevillage offered a rare insight, was engaged. Learned a few things, perspectives. But, still have to force myself to hold out hope for the millions of Ivan Ivanovich’s in Russia who simply have to take their future into their hands or remain serfs forever. And Putin and his power-elite/siloviki friends are at the heart of it all. Putin, and the system he has created on the backs of the Russian people simply has to go.
coldwarrior on August 17, 2008 at 3:53 PM
Gordon Chang (over at Contentions):
Nut graf:
[W]e have abetted the rise of hardline states in the hopes that, as they integrated themselves into the international system, they would become enmeshed in it and change for the better. That generous approach, of course, would be the right one to take if history in fact had ended, as the now-notorious Francis Fukuyama argued in his then-influential 1989 essay. Yet as we watch events unfold, it is becoming increasingly obvious that our indulgent approach has failed because the authoritarians are now using new-found strength to reorder the world by force and coercion.
Indeed. We tried to help (sorry freevillage) Russia integrate itself into the international system (yes, in our own self-interest as well) but now finds ourselves with states using their new strength to challenge that system to promote their own interests.
History has a tendency to surprise us, doesn’t it?
SteveMG on August 17, 2008 at 4:13 PM
According to the BBC, Russia, as stated by Medvedev, will begin withdrawals from Georgia at noon tommorow, Georgia time.
Opens the question…who will fill the void…more Russian “peacekeepers,” Ossetian irregulars? Nothing said at all about the Abkhazian northwest.
coldwarrior on August 17, 2008 at 4:15 PM
Last one from me: The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers.
The new threat: Authoritarian capitalist states.
Economic liberalism may indeed lead to political liberalism.
Over time, that is.
In the long run, Keynes said, we’re dead. Perhaps in the short run too.
Very depressing.
SteveMG on August 17, 2008 at 4:18 PM
History has a tendency to surprise us, doesn’t it?
SteveMG on August 17, 2008 at 4:13 PM
Surprised?
According to an old prof of mine way back when I was beginning my post-secondary education:
When Ben Franklin, a master wordsmith, was US Ambassador to the King of France, he had a predilection towards La belle jeune fille . One afternnon, his wife, Deborah, walked unannounced into Ben’s bed chambers, where old Ben in bed was, umm, entertaining a young miss. Ben’s wife shouted, “Benjamin Franklin, I am surprised!!!
Ben, pulling the covers over his naked frame, said calmly, “No, my dear. I’m am surprised. You, my dear Deborah, are astonished.”
Things Russia does, the good, but more often the bad, for me, at least, often astonishes.
coldwarrior on August 17, 2008 at 4:29 PM
Na zdrowie! Have a nice evening.
Entelechy on August 17, 2008 at 4:57 PM
You couldn’t be more wrong.
freevillage on August 17, 2008 at 10:32 PM
This “you-can’t-hurt-Russia-we-never-got-any-help” view is, from what I’ve read, the view of the “average” Russian. That is, the West is out to get us and have never helped us.
It’s absolute nonsense.
SteveMG on August 17, 2008 at 10:38 PM
The pro-Western government in Tbilisi has paid $830,000 to Scheunemann’s two-member lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, since 2004, according to records at the Justice Department’s foreign agents registration office.
Scheunemann, who also served as McCain’s foreign policy advisor in his unsuccessful 2000 White House campaign, personally lobbied McCain or his top aides more than 40 times on behalf of Georgia and other foreign governments, records show.
Orion’s lobbying forms also cite four Senate resolutions that McCain later sponsored or co-sponsored on behalf of Georgia, as well as bills benefiting Orion’s other foreign clients: Latvia, Macedonia, Romania and Taiwan.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-advisor17-2008aug17,0,6476734.story
Los Angeles Times – english
Principles.
freevillage on August 17, 2008 at 11:41 PM
I laugh when Whorehay Boooosh says Russia should respect the “territorial integrity” of Georgia. I mena….that’s funny!!! Those poor Russians are just seeking a better life for themselves and feeding their families…
DfDeportation on August 18, 2008 at 12:07 AM
Papers??? Communists don’t need no stinkin’ papers!!!
Only the very naive and the seriously ignorant or history-impaired could have actually expected that an “agreement” would matter.
landlines on August 18, 2008 at 12:32 AM
The Russians are just doing the invading that Americans will not do.
Johan Klaus on August 18, 2008 at 1:14 AM
I like that. Two men who can see and hit targets of opportunity.
Two cigars.
MB4 on August 18, 2008 at 3:36 AM
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