America’s Strategic Blunder in Georgia and the Death of the Rose Revolution

What began on August 7 as a reckless act of aggression by Georgia to bludgeon the separatist province of South Ossetia into submission, quickly escalated to Russian military intervention in Georgia, and the conflict’s transformation into a proxy war between the U.S. and Moscow. What’s at stake in this conflict is not Georgia’s sovereignty or that of its breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazi, but NATO’s eastward expansion to Russia’s borders. The short-hot war in Georgia was Russia’s red line in the sand signaling to the U.S., Western Europe and its former Soviet republics that the strategic military encirclement of Russia stops here.

The Bush Administration, aided by a complicit Democratic Party Congress made a monumental strategic error in pushing NATO membership for Georgia at the last alliance summit. Coming on the heals of American sponsorship of Kosovo’s independence, Bush’s action could only be seen as a provocation. That Bush blatantly antagonized Moscow with no intention of defending Georgia if attacked by Russia constituted the height of irresponsibility. The U.S. financed, armed and trained the Georgian army, led by the political neophyte President Saakashvili. Yet despite explicit warnings from Bush and Sec. of State Rice that Georgia not attack its separatist provinces, Saskshvili couldn’t restrain his propensity for committing atrocities against South Ossetia-thus provoking Russia to arms.

Had France and Germany not resisted Bush’s imprimatur for Georgian inclusion in NATO, the U.S. and Western Europe would at this moment be legally obliged to attack Russian forces in Georgia. Coming at a time when the 26 nation NATO Alliance can’t ante up enough troops to defeat the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, NATO would have undoubtedly split over an armed intervention to confront Russia on Georgian soil. Once again, this comedy of errors so typical of the Bush administration’s reckless foreign policy has undermined U.S.-European Union relations and pushed U.S. – Russian relations to a breaking point.

For all President Bush’s rhetoric about punishing the Russians, little if anything will be done in his last five months in office. The U.S. still needs Russia as a partner to check Iran’s nuclear program, police loose nukes and proliferation, not to mention assisting the West in the “war on terror.” For its part, Russia has long since left the West, and while it may cooperate in these areas based on its own national interest, Russia increasingly regards the U.S. as a hostile adversary and will act accordingly.

Going forward Moscow’s political and military posture will become much more aggressive in what it calls its “Near Abroad.” Russia’s harsh warnings to Poland for accepting U.S. missile interceptors and the Ukraine over naval access agreements to Black Sea ports are illustrative of growing tensions between Moscow and the West. Russia will also attempt to accelerate its growing anti-U.S. energy alliance with China in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea basin to push back U.S. moves to consolidate access to energy resources.

While the media speculates about the resumption of the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia, the larger issue at hand is the growing potential for a new geo-political divide whose footprint is slowly but surely being called into existence; A new East-West energy divide that begins in the Middle East with Syria, Iraq and Iran and sweeps eastward through Russia and China, with an ambivalent India wedged in the middle. In the 21st Century “Great Game” in Central Asia, three countries share the majority of the region’s energy resources, namely Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

The essence of U.S-Russian geo-political contention in Central Asia is twofold: first, control of production of the oil and gas, and second, control of the pipelines which will transfer the oil to the Western markets. It is not insignificant in the grand scheme of the conflict in Georgia that three oil pipelines run through Georgia to the West, all circumventing Russia.

Ultimately, the Georgian crisis will be resolved in the short-run with face saving measures that mollify all sides. Russians troops will remain in South Ossetia and Abkhazia at pre-crisis levels as outlined in the French brokered cease fire agreement. Both provinces will formally remain autonomous regions of Georgia, although Moscow will exert greater political, economic and military leverage. Georgia’s prospects of gaining entry into NATO are all but dead in the foreseeable future. The fragrant blooms of Georgia’s Rose Revolution have fallen, leaving only the painful thorns of a divided and war-torn country trapped between the imperial ambitions of Moscow and the West.