Left Flank

And, nominations for top prize for inconsiderateness: Moscow, after marring the opening of the Olympics, asks for Beijing's blessing in the Caucasus.

«Russia's main aim is to get support from the [Shanghai Cooperation O]rganization for its military action and approval in one form or another for recognizing South Ossetian independence,» an analyst in Moscow for the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, Yevgeny Volk, said. «It is clear that Russia is using it as a counterweight to the West in the conflict and its recognition of South Ossetia.»

While Russia wants diplomatic recognition from members of the group, Mr. Volk said such a decision for countries like China and India, which have separatist regions of their own, would amount to «chopping the branch they sit on.»

The Shanghai organization in recent months has condemned an attempt by Taiwan to seek greater international recognition and unrest in Tibet.

Powered by ScribeFire.

I'm not Neville Chamberlain's grandson, just to refute what any fans of Georgian aggression might want to claim.

Many commentators have neglected the legacy of economic reform in Russia in the 90s. Whether it augurs a recrudescence of realism, the debate is couched in military terms. However, I would refer to the debate between Joseph Stiglitz, in Globalization and Its Discontents, and Anders Aslund, in Russia's Capitalist Revolution. Stiglitz would argue that shock therapy in the 90s was a mistake and advocates gradualist reforms. Aslund argues that shock therapy succeeded, but democratization failed.

Aslund characterizes Putin's administration's weakness as an elite problem, not a popular one. Putin can retard political democratization, but only by «surprises». Like Grozny, this view would argue that this Georgia invasion is another desperate attempt to keep Putin in power, and nothing more.

There is also the Kosovo precedent.

Georgia is certainly no victim, and is arguably the aggressor (and, only the Georgians and CNN would disagree). Matthew Lee reports on the Georgian delegation's rationale for acting at the United Nations Security Council, backed by the US and UK, and it's a conspiratorial strategy, not the action of innocents.

Western geopolitical commentators stick to cold war simplicities about Russia bullying plucky little Georgia. However, anyone familiar with the Caucasus knows that the state bleating about its victim status at the hands of a bigger neighbour can be just as nasty to its smaller subjects. Small nationalisms are rarely sweet-natured.

Worse still, western backing for «equip and train» programmes in Russia's backyard don't contribute to peace and stability if bombastic local leaders such as Saakashvili see them as a guarantee of support even in a crisis provoked by his own actions. He seems to have thought that the valuable oil pipeline passing through his territory, together with the Nato advisers intermingled with his troops, would prevent Russia reacting militarily to an incursion into South Ossetia. That calculation has proved disastrously wrong.

Taking Russia as the villain, though, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke argues that «PM» Vladimir Putin realized that, with a new administration in the US due on January 20, he had a window of opportunity to deal with Georgia. As Michael Merritt puts it, «...all we’ve heard from the U.S. leadership regarding this conflict is essentially tough talk...», because the US «...just isn’t willing to possibly bring on Cold War II to try and bail out an ally that’s so close in location to one of its biggest rivals.» Does that mean there's a conspiracy, where Putin is shrewdly disposing of Georgia’s leadership, annexing Abkhazia and Ossetia, and possibly securing his rights for the Black Sea fleet from a humbled Ukraine, all to give himself another few years of popularity to rule. It’s Grozny redux. Maybe Putin isn’t all that clever after all, just a one-trick pony. Even as reported by CNN, how «President» Dmitry Medvedev's has «ordered» the cessation of hostilities looks like a scripted transfer of «Grozny» credits from the master to the apprenctice, assisted by the villain's, in this case Mikhail Saakashvili's, sneering rejoinder.

Furthermore, especially with any mention of President Bush's role (which looks pathetic in light of US actions at the UN), what this «Georgia as victim» meme demonstrates is not so much a Russian crisis as a crisis within the US about where to go in a post-Cold War world. The comfortable manichaeanism of the Cold War, with the lucrative returns of the military-industrial complex, is a safety blanket for addled defense intellectuals and hack politicians.