Europe in denial

Ralph Peters:

A specter is haunting Europe-the specter of Putinism. Confronted by a masterful Russian leader without living peer in brilliance or ruthlessness, the continent sorely lacks leadership and a sense of common purpose. In their muddled reactions to the Kremlin's invasion of Georgia, European states revealed a gap in perceptions that threatens to deepen: Those who suffered under the Soviet yoke sense the return of an existential threat, while those who thrived under the Pax Americana are merely annoyed at being disturbed. As Russian troops and their mercenary auxiliaries savaged a free, democratic country yearning Westward, the world got another lesson in how ineffectual Europe is in a crisis without American leadership.

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The American president is furious now, but it's too late. High noon came and went, and the much-derided cowboy-president wasn't there when he was needed. Instead, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, well-intentioned and inadequate, took time off from the Feydeau farce of his personal life and rushed to Moscow to "demand" a cease-fire in Georgia.

The Putin regime was perfectly willing to let Monsieur le President return to Paris with a signed piece of paper. The Russians have drawn the lesson from Western efforts to negotiate with Iran and other rogue states that Europe can be narcotized with empty agreements and nebulous promises and that Europe has become a continent of bureaucrats who much prefer paperwork to reality. And there are no penalties when the agreements prove
worthless. The Russian government was reasonably polite, but did not take Sarkozy seriously. Even as he presumed to speak for the European Union, he had no practical leverage with the Kremlin.

One can only admire the unrivaled acuity with which Putin, the old KGB agent, sized up the other players he knew would come to the strategic gaming table. He took his cue to begin planning his punitive expedition into Georgia last winter, when a core group of European states, led by Germany, refused to inaugurate concrete measures (such as MAPs, or Military Action Plans) to set Ukraine and Georgia on course to become NATO members. Moscow read NATO's Sendung as an abandonment, especially of Georgia. Thereafter, Russia's leader surveyed the international characters who had chips on the table: President Bush had convinced himself that Putin was his friend and could be blindsided; Europe's leaders could be depended upon to quibble among themselves while seeking to avoid incurring any serious costs; and the mercurial President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia could be goaded into a conflict at the time of Russia's choosing.

Putin chose that hour well. Beginning in late July, artillery barrages, sniping incidents and raids staged from South Ossetia increased in intensity as Russia's local clients prodded Georgia to respond. Politically and practically, Saakashvili had to react: no national leader can permit deadly, daily attacks upon his electorate to go unanswered. As Russian troops finished massing on Georgia's northern border, Putin notched the violence up again. Saakashvili took the bait on schedule.

Western intelligence analysts had been expecting a violent confrontation for many months, yet none believed it would come just when it did, assuming that Putin wouldn't act during the Olympics....

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I think Saakashvili's mistake was in not attacking the premise of Russia's role as the "peacekeeper." It is clear that they were not peacekeepers, but the mobs protection muscle. Aren't peacekeepers supposed to stop attacks by both sides? Where is there any evidence that Russia attempted to stop the South Ossetian thugs? It is likely that they were putting them up to the attacks so the response could be used as a pretext.

What Georgia should have done is go to the UN and demand that Russia be removed as the peacekeepers. They could show the evidence of the attacks and the lack of Russian reaction to them. If they had done that, then their reaction to the provocation would have put the Russians on the defensive and exposed the fraudulance of the Russian charges which led to their aggression.

Even now Georgia should be challenging Russia's role as peacekeeper. They are anything but. The Russians are the bears guarding the refigerator.