Cheap Talk
Here’s something that must be confusing to officials in Tblisi. Georgia has been trying to get into NATO for some time now, thinking that a small country next to Russia could really use the kind of security guarantees that NATO membership provides. At the Bucharest Summit earlier this year, NATO decided not to offer Georgia a Membership Action Plan that would have fast-tracked Georgian NATO membership. But that was primarily because of French and German opposition, the United States favored fast-tracking Georgian NATO membership.
So if I’m in the Georgian government and I see that by far the largest and most powerful NATO country wants us to be a member — wants to extend an Article V security guarantee to us even though they are well aware that this will infuriate Russia and that we have ongoing disputes with Russia over Abkhazia and South Ossetia — then maybe I reason that if our ongoing disputes with Russia over Abkhazia or South Ossetia heat up, that the U.S. will be willing to intervene. After all, if the U.S. isn’t willing to intervene on our behalf in case of a heated up conflict with Russia, then why is the U.S. eager to support our bid for NATO membership?
Now of course it turns out that the U.S. — quite properly — has no particular desire to intervene on Georgia’s behalf in their quest to regain control over their breakaway provinces. But given that we don’t want to back Georgia in these situations, then why were we so eager to support Georgia’s bid for NATO membership? John McCain’s top campaign officials on national security issues, Randy Scheunemann, actually worked as a lobbyist for the Georgian government so that’s his excuse for not thinking this through more thoroughly. But how about everyone else?
24 Responses to “Cheap Talk”
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August 10th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Because we knew that Georgia had no chance of becoming a NATO member so we used them to poke a stick at Russia and to embarrass the French at the same time?
August 10th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/did-us-military.html
August 10th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Of course Georgia wasn’t going to get into NATO, as pointed out above, so it was a free ride for the Bushies to support their membership. Of course we set them up for a fall because you can never have too many enemies and having Russia in the back pocket, with a recent bloody shirt to wave, is always a good thing. So the policy has been a stunning success. Cheap too. Only a couple thousand lives.
Hundreds of millions, billions probably, are going to die as America fights against it’s relative economic decline by trying to bring on Armageddon, thus proving to the true believers that we are Gods chosen nation. It’s said terrorist, suicide terrorists, are motivated by feelings of hopelessness, that their way of life is gone forever.
A large plurality of Americans are deeply emotionally wedded to Nationalism of the American exceptionalist variety. Forget all that fluff about individualism and limited government. It’s all about being part of the greatest power the world has ever known. A collective power, the power of the nation, the State. Muscular conservatism and neoconservatism are drenched in statism and collectivism. Who’d a thunk it.
August 11th, 2008 at 12:16 am
I’m all for believing horrible things about US foreign policy, but it seems like a major stretch to believe that supporting Georgia’s NATO bid even remotely suggested that we would unilaterally go to war against Russia on Georgia’s behalf. Insofar as pushing for NATO membership had a point, it was to deter a Russian attack on Georgia or, failing that, to have allies in containing Russia.
August 11th, 2008 at 12:20 am
This ain’t a bug, it’s a feature.
Elements of the Bush administration *cough* Cheney *cough* have been encouraging Georgia to confront Russia because they believe that some sort of new Cold War would benefit Republicans.
August 11th, 2008 at 1:41 am
First rule of NATO is: Join NATO first, then you’re protected.
The line of thought expressed by the above commenters does seem to be the simplest and most cogent explanation.
Question: what did Bush know of Georgia’s plans to retake these regions? If he knew everything, which we should assume, since we are fairly certain Saak’ashvili was (erroneously, fatally) counting on US support, if not specifically NATO’s, then what did Bush advise? Did he voice his approval? Warn Georgia not to launch the offensive? Or simply not say much of anything, thereby giving his tacit approval?
Or did Condi forget to brief him?
August 11th, 2008 at 5:04 am
As Justin Raimondo points out in his latest column, you can bet that Georgia didn’t make this move without running it by the US first – and of course, Bush and Cheney gave them the green light.
Condi? She just uttered the stupid notion that the US can’t restrain Israel against attacking Iran because “Israel is a sovereign nation”. Sure, the US can’t dictate to Israel – just to Iran…and Russia…and China…and everybody else in the world.
August 11th, 2008 at 9:22 am
What really bends my noodle is this: what if Georgia had been fast tracked? From where I sit, it seems unlikely that the US or NATO could successfully project force in the breakaway Soviet republics.
August 11th, 2008 at 9:53 am
What’s more, dr, why would we really want to project force into the former SSRs–especially those like Georgia, which have few resources and aren’t particularly strategic–except for getting into Russia.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:26 am
But given that we don’t want to back Georgia in these situations, then why were we so eager to support Georgia’s bid for NATO membership?
It may be worth recalling that joining NATO requires successful completion of the Membership Action Plan process, which in turn requires satisfying the current member countries that the applicant country has achieved sufficient levels of attainment on five measures, one of which is the “[w]illingness to settle international, ethnic or external territorial disputes by peaceful means, commitment to the rule of law and human rights, and democratic control of armed forces.”
So, the idea wouldn’t be to just sign up to protect Georgia no matter what it did in places like South Ossetia. Rather, before actually joining NATO, Georgia would have to satisfy all the NATO countries it would be willing to deal with such situations by peaceful means.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:51 am
I remember the Chimperor’s dad uttering a bunch of loose talk that the Iraqi Kurds (among others) interpreted as encouragement, only to discover that he didn’t mean a word of it.
The question in my mind is, what lesson will the rest of the world take from this: never trust a Bushie, or never trust an American? (And: will the American populace ever learn?)
August 11th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Well I’m Russia-ignorant, but by backward induction, the US might have wanted to credibly commit to defending Georgia precisely so that it wouldn’t have to, the idea being that such a commitment would convince the Russians not to invade in the first place.
August 11th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
We wouldn’t be going to war for South Ossetia whether Georgia was in NATO or not. Fulfilling treaty obligations requires real interests to be at stake, and noone in Kensington, Kreuzberg, or Bethesda is going to die for South Ossetia. These Article V ‘guarantees’ are just a piece of paper, which the US and so may or may not fulfill. As someone once said, there is no guarantee for an international guarantee. EH Carr is always worth rereading on this question.
August 11th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Trite though it may be, I think Matthew Saroff’s comment (#4) gets to the heart of things: encouraging the Georgians (with whatever “encouragment”) to make a move on South Ossetia – Russian reactions be damned – could easily (well, easily if one is an amoral scumbag neocon) be seen, or spun as a win-win.
If the Georgians “re-take” S.O. and the Russians fold, so much the better. One for the Forces of Good. If the Georgians fail: well, no real loss for us anyway; and it lets the fading Bush Administration boost up good old-fashion Russki-bashing as a legacy for John McCain to run in. Win-win!
Except, of course, for all those Ossets and Georgians who got blown up or burned out, or whatever: but hey, as our former SecDef noted: “stuff happens”.
August 12th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Georgia is strategic in terms of pipelines from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea, which allows oil transfer to bypass Russia completely. That’s very important both to Europe and the US. Russia would very much like to control a country with coasts on both seas and easy access to Iran and its oil.
August 26th, 2008 at 9:22 am
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