Don't Poke Badly Behaved Bears
Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times | November 20, 2008
Western oriented, business friendly, and governed by smart, young people, Georgia is a country on the rise. ++ NATO should not be her final resting place, though. ++ Georgia doesn’t meet NATO requirements for full control of its territory and a closer look reveals its media is like Russia’s: state run and laden with propaganda. ++ “Georgia’s future is economic growth,” not NATO – its war with Russia was avoidable. ++ Obama needs to engage Russia like China. ++ After all, “Poking badly behaved bears is no substitute for sober diplomacy.”
Thu, Nov 20th 2008, 19:10
Jesse David Tatum, GSPE, (3)
My two cents:
Mr Kristof, a small country often only has a few things to cling to vis-à-vis large irritable neighbours. Don't take progress and identity away from them simply to defend a creaking organisation.
Georgia's 'NATO' bid is about more than joining a western institution. It is about the citizen's (72% of the population voted for NATO membership) and government's desire to see their 'civilizational identity', as Fairbanks (‘Disillusionment’, JoD, 2001) calls it, acknowledged by the west.
Were the Baltic States, for example, more prepared to enter NATO and the EU than Georgia is today? Perhaps marginally, but they too had problems with judicial and public administration reform and the minorities question (i.e. the ethnic Russian population). However, they were able to accede during a period when Russia was more financially unstable, less potent, so to speak, than it is now. Certainly, their proximity must account for something as well, with no sea or larger countries dividing them from Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, etc...
Yes, President Saakashvili (the wolverine) has made some terrible mistakes. However, defending Georgians in Tskhinvali is not the worst of them (that has to be reserved for the unforgivable November 2007 crackdown and shutting down the Imedi and Kavkasia stations. Russia has been unbelievably antagonistic towards Georgia since the Rose Revolution, and has supported a ‘puppet’ government in South Ossetia made up of 'thuggish' pro-Moscow stooges (see Grant & Leonard, ‘Georgia & the EU, 2008; The Economist, ‘War Erupts in Georgia, 08.08.2008; and especially see Tsamalashvili, Eka & Whitmore, Brian, ‘Eyewitness Accounts Confirm Shelling Of Georgian Villages’, RFE/RL, 14 November 2008, http://www.rferl.org/content/Eyewitness_Accounts_Confirm_Shelling_O...).
For Kristof to hold Saakashvili to some sort of democratic standard that no western politician could measure up to either is wrong; and most importantly, it belittles the outstanding transitional progress Georgia has made under this administration. Remember, only 16 years ago, Georgia was a failed state due to inept post-Soviet leaders Gamsakhurdia (a rabid chauvinist) and political dinosaur Shevardnadze, in order.
It's not about 'democracy' anyway for NATO, it's about 'strategy'; as in what interests does it serve to allow Georgian membership. Turkey barely has control of all its territories (think Greek/Turkish isles (or rocks); or its far eastern border and the PKK). Yet, they are NATO's second most important member. Why? A thriving population from which to maintain a large military – plus, the government was practically run by the army since the 1980s – and Incirlik, strategically placed just so – so that American planes can bomb Baghdad!
Anyway, let’s keep the pressure on both sides (as Kristof does ultimately mean) and not worry so much about ‘leadership’ and ‘membership’ – let’s put the civilians in the middle of the mess first.
Peace,
Jesse