We’re Still Not Georgians
Jon Chait defends John McCain’s irresponsible “we are all Georgians” line:
The point is that we can’t physically defend Georgia from Russian agression, but we can make a symbolic stand of unity with a democratic, pro-Western state that has been attacked by an autocratic aggressor. Is Yglesias trying to argue that, since we don’t have the capacity to intervene militarily, we can’t make basic moral judgments?
Of course I’m not arguing that. I wrote on Monday that “whatever my serious disagreements with the Russia hawks’ take on the overall context in which we should understand the Russia-Georgia conflict, Russia has now escalated beyond the point where there’s justification for what they’re doing.” That’s an expression of a moral judgment. “We are all Georgians” is, however, a much stronger statement. Contra Chait, the United States clearly could threaten to use military force against Russia in order to try to force them to withdraw from Georgia. Presumably if Georgia had the kind of military assets at its disposal that the United States has, that’s exactly what Georgia would be doing. But we’re not, in fact, going to do any such thing — because neither I nor Chait nor McCain think that would be smart. Because we are not, in fact, Georgians — not today, not yesterday, and not tomorrow.
Beyond linguistic parsing, I think there’s a real policy issue here. The McCain campaign put something out yesterday about crowds cheering in Tblisi when President Shakashvili quoted McCain’s statement. I can’t read their minds, but it seems very plausible to me that they were cheering because they read this as a call for the United States to take practical steps to help Georgia not as a piece of hollow political sloganeering. And that kind of thing — Georgiaphilic statements by American elites that lead Georgians to dramatically overstate the level of practical support they could expect from the United States in a confrontation with Russia — was one of the contributing factors to the current crisis. Moral judgments are an excellent thing, but it’s cruel for leading politicians in a superpower to go around giving the citizens small countries implicit assurances of support that they have no intention of following up on.
51 Responses to “We’re Still Not Georgians”
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August 13th, 2008 at 9:45 am
maybe McCain’s a big celebrity … in Georgia.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Moral judgments are an excellent thing, but it’s cruel for leading politicians in a superpower to go around giving the citizens small countries implicit assurances of support that they have no intention of following up on.
And if you don’t believe MY, just ask a random Kurd or Hungarian.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am
We could solve this problem thusly:
“Today we are all Georgians! (offer not good in Georgia)“
August 13th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Ah, another one of those psychological - all in your head things. I get it.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:53 am
We could defuse this crisis by letting all the South Ossetians visit space while a settlement is reached. And it’d be cheaper than the Iraq War!
August 13th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Maybe we’re not Georgians, but they’re too much like us. People have speculated whether they brought this on because they had assurances of U.S. intervention from their neocon allies. But there’s another possibility as well: a leader trained in this country and part of the neocon circle thinks like a neocon. Suppose you want to extend your influence. How about a military thrust? It’d never bring on a military response, but instead will all be over in a day. It’s just asserting democracy over tyranny. Sounds familiar from Iraq?
August 13th, 2008 at 9:57 am
but we can make a symbolic stand of unity with a democratic, pro-Western state that has been attacked by an autocratic aggressor.
I’m about sick of that, Russia isn’t a tyranny and Georgia isn’t a great example of democracy.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:05 am
We know McCain has foreign policy experience. And military experience. But his political plays this week do not reflect either, including the “we are all Georgians” statement and having a paid agent of the Georgian government as his chief foreign policy adviser, plus all the other hefty political rhetoric and wikipedia plagarism. I think this is another sign of McCain’s arrogance — he’s overplaying his foreign policy card and its making him look, in effect, less experienced and prepared for the presidency.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I think the answer to this is quite clear: We tell the Georgians that McCain was referring to the state. “Oh, that’s our bad. We have a rotating celebration of statehood where we all “are” members of each state for one week per year, with one week for the territories and one for quite reflection on those states who have been lost in battle. It’s just a crazy wild coincidence that the Georgian week fell during your whole crazy war thing. So uh, how’s that going, by the way? Do you guys need anything like a fruit basket or something?”
August 13th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Well said, Matt. It’s extremely depressing how few of the people who write about foreign policy have the slightest damn understanding of, or concern for, the ways the US words and actions are perceived in other countries.
It’s an awfully strange morality that judges dishonest self-gratifying bullshit to be more virtuous than telling people the goddamned truth.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:27 am
It’s also not clear why we can’t be South Ossetians, except that they would rather be Russians than Georgians.
Maybe the problem is that if the enemy of my enemy is my friend, it follows that the friend of my enemy is my enemy, and therefore we have to oppose the interests of South Ossetians.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:30 am
1) Just tell the American people that Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili is a New York lawyer and see how damm fast support evaporates.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:39 am
This right here is the difference between liberal hawks and neoconservatives.
Liberal hawks believe in using force to defend democracy and human rights, and if that requires confrontation with another power, so be it.
Neoconservatives believe in confronting other powers, and use the language of democracy and human rights to make their great-power wars seem noble.
So if the Georgians precipitated a crisis because their autocratic leader used rocket fire and tanks to attack a city in an effort to resolve a territorial dispute by force, they’ll pretend the situation is just like Prague 1968, as long as the country he started a war with is a power that competes with the US.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Chait’s an idiot. Let’s remember the most famous variation on the “we are all x” phrase: Ich bin ein Berliner. And when JFK said that, he really meant it — he meant the US would stand with the West Berliners/West Germans against Soviet aggression, militarily if need be. That’s what the phrase evokes and what McCain means it to evoke, not just some namby-pamby “moral judgment” about whose side we’re on.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Yeah, ’cause that worked out so well last time.
McCain was already working the Russian boogeyman. This is just opportunism.
.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Thank you. Why is anybody still paying attention to anything he writes?
August 13th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I recall Chait being good on some domestic policy stuff, but yeah, this is silly.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Georgia is not Hungary.
Hungary wanted to make a better socialism in 1956 and not oppress other people. As a minimum everybody with a small logic can see Saakashwili is a lier. He was choosing the time when tried to overrun ossetia, but for the Americans he said: Putin was choosing the time of Olympiad …etc. He is posing for the morons in the USA. Anyway, seeing the Russian television, where are real pictures from Ossetia, the Georgians seem to me war criminals. Interestingle enough, the CNN does not reported anithing until the Russian reaction and does not asks Ossetioans or Abhaz people. On the otherside what I can see on the CNN home page from Georgia is simple propaganda.
A Hungarian from Budapest
August 13th, 2008 at 10:55 am
“We are all people who, for some unknown reason, think we can attack Russian troops and expect them not to fight back!”
Why is it that no one seems to point out that Georgians started this b.s.? As for “escalation,” Dimitri Simes had the best take on that issue:
So, all in all, the Georgia-Russia conflict is the perfect, encapsulated proof that Bush is full of crap. He said in his 2005 State of the Union address that “democracies respect their own people and their neighbors,” but here’s a scrappy little democracy that attacked its neighbor. He thinks countries should be allowed to bomb the crap out of their neighbors over the kidnapping of two soldiers, but direct attacks on troops should elicit restraint.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Maybe Matt (and perhaps also John Judis?) can save himselfsome time. He should put this sentence-
“whatever my serious disagreements with the Russia hawks’ take on the overall context in which we should understand the Russia-Georgia conflict, Russia has now escalated beyond the point where there’s justification for what they’re doing.”
-at the head of every post. Hopefully that will satisfy TNRs insatiable need for “moral judgments” every time someone uses the word Georgia in a sentence.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Chait’s inner Lieberman has flaired up. Autocratic power, eh? Hmm, what was the interference in the democratically elected government of Haiti all about? You’ll remember the exiling of the democratically elected Haitian president because … well, the U.S. didn’t want to have to deal with a lotta damn Haitian refugees.
This has actually been a win win war. The insane neo-cons have found a lotta op ed space; people like Jonathan Chait and - presumably - Peter Beinart are finding their Truman democrat mojo, meaning they want to kill kill kill, at least symbolically, all for the sake of the glorious freedoms of the Georgian Republic (for instance, the freedom to spend 70 percent of Georgian tax money on a military buildup); and of course the Democratic leader of Georgia, their own Chalabi, has stood tall, like a freedom fighter, before his beloved people, and should be elected by a good 98 percent in the next election, if his police and army are any good.
Of course, it also opens a window into what the D.C. establishment hasn’t learned in the last 8 years. Which is, apparently, everything. A rather depressing prospect for further U.S. decline - with the only bright spot being that surely Obama will, as President, give a flying flip about what the TNR thinks. But the war of the hawks against any peace seeking diplomacy is going to be hot. And they do control the media.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Were we all Georgians, however, McCain might be doing better in the polls. (Why can’t he close the deal?)
Seems to me that the Cold War mentality, in which countering military force with military force was at least arguably a necessary primary tool for stemming expansionism, is utterly inappropriate in a post-Soviet, economically integrated world. Rather, the spin-off republics (and Russia itself) are facing with the long struggle of reformation–the slow process of building institutions promoting good government and purging corruption and oligarchic oppression. The people of the former USSR are skeptical that liberal democratic values can succeed for them (quelle surprise!), and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Thus, what the West should do to assist the region is not to ratchet up animosity with militaristic bluster or economic sanction, but rather to help those willing to take the leap pave the way toward more stable, secure, and prosperous societies. More carrots, fewer sticks; forge stronger alliances, not more enmity. Ultimately, the way to make South Ossetians prefer Georgia to Russia is to show them why it’s in their interest, not march them to a restricted ballot box at gunpoint.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:31 am
We’re all intellectually masturbatory Georgians now.
Oh, and the autocratic Russians have a more recent actually-elected president than we do.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:35 am
We’re all Georgians (ex-Georgia) now.
Similarly, the government reports affordability (ex-affordability), inflation (ex-inflation), and CPI (ex-prices that change). In other news, Fox is fair and balanced.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:44 am
“whatever my serious disagreements with the Russia hawks’ take on the overall context in which we should understand the Russia-Georgia conflict, Russia has now escalated beyond the point where there’s justification for what they’re doing.”
Why has this become the conventional wisdom?
From a purely military sense, the actions of the Russians have been quite understandable and sensible. I am not sure why pundits who have never seen the region or know anything about the placement of military assets are making these judgements. There is no way that Russia should have halted when first called on to do so. The Georgian army still held the hills surrounding the capitol of South Ossetia.
Everyone seems to want to forget that not only did the Georgian’s launch this attack, but they did it just hours after making a big pronouncement of a cease fire on national TV, and this cease fire had just been agreed upon by South Ossetia. Even if there had been some mortars and artillery fired from South Ossetia, it was negligiable. The sheer size of the Georgian operation proves its a lie that they were acting in response to South Ossetia. Because of this there is no way Russia could accept the initial cease fire.
Russia took out Georgia’s positions on the border of South Ossetia, and took out Georgian troop concentrations near Abkhazia. They then took out Georgia’s ability to attack either of the regions.
This was not unreasonable, it was smart for their interests, and we should stop buying the story line “poor Georgia, bad Russia.”
August 13th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
With regard to #25, isn’t one of Russia’s conditions for a cease-fire that Georgian military units withdraw to their bases? If they haven’t, it’s not so surprising that Russian forces are still operating in Georgia proper.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
The Russians want Georgia’s president to resign. McCain says he’s a Georgian, and claims that people in Georgia are cheering his speeches.
So let McCain run for president of Georgia … everybody wins! Think of it as outsourcing our right-wing nutjobs to the Caucasus. From what I can tell, that’s a good environment for them.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
A symbolic stand of unity? If that’s all it takes, let’s just issue a press release saying we denounce Al Qaida and be done with it. Wouldn’t a stern warning from the Security Council have been enough rebuke for Saddam Hussein? It’s just hilarious to see the Republicans tying themselves up in knots. America has castrated itself and has no more political capital or influence in the world.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
McCain is so hard up for War he can’t wait until he’s President, he’s acting now!!!
August 13th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Also, the French didn’t follow up the 9/11 “We’re all Americans now” statement with just bluster, but sent troops to Afghanistan. In fact, NATO wanted to send more troops than Bush wanted and he ended up rejecting a lot of NATO military help. France also was (and maybe still is, I’m not sure) the only other country helping us train the post-Taliban Afghan military. Is McCain willing to follow a similar path of JFK and Chirac? Of course not because then he would lose this election because Americans aren’t willing to see our boys die over South Ossetia, so all he offers is ego masturbation.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Ultimately, the way to make South Ossetians prefer Georgia to Russia is to show them why it’s in their interest, not march them to a restricted ballot box at gunpoint.
Ossetians will prefer Georgia to Russia when Georgia will prefer to be a part of Russia. That is never. And why should Ossetia prefer Georgia? Because the US want it?
Or Abhkhazia: They had a good life from the Soviet tourist and that could be with the Russian tourism in the future.
These people are different of the Georgian ethnically and they have a different language. The American domination of the world not enough cause to force them to live together.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
The president of the “independent” Georgia and its government gets their salary from the US directly. As a “fight” against corruption.
August 13th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Send over Code Pink. Even the Russian soldiers would be scared of those broads.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Apparently McCain isn’t from one of the more individualistic states, like Texas.
I’m a Texan, it is hard to even go with U.S. citizen if you are from Texas. Several times a week every Texan will hear “We can secede!”
I think that McCain is way out on a limb here. Most Americans don’t find “solidarity” with newly discovered comrades.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Chait’s all right, he just has an enormous blind spot for McCain. If any other neocon were laying down cant about ich bin ein Georgian, Chait would likely be smacking it down as hard as MY is.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Anytime a neocon like Chait utters the words “basic moral judgments” what he really means: “agree with me, Jonathan Chait, senior editor of The New Republic.” Because if you make a different basic moral judgment - like the one that recognizes that Russia for all its considerable faults is not, in fact, an autocracy - you would be lectured by Chait et al for being insufficiently attuned to the moral realities AS HE SEES THEM.
In any case, here’s a moral judgment: Georgia attacked an autonomous region, control of which is disputed by both the Russians and the Georgians. That was morally wrong.
August 15th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
John McCain has repeatedly accused Barack Obama of using Iraq for “political gain to win the election”. With his statements and saber-rattling over the last few days it is John McCain who has crossed the line by politicizing the Georgian-Russian crisis!
August 16th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Wear are all Georgians now!
How original, how fresh, how bold. McSame should get a better scriptwriter.
We are all Georgians now. That should be the size of the support we give them.
August 16th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I can’t get too excited about a country with a city named “Gory” that has a gigantic statue of Stalin in the middle of it just because he was born there.
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