Why Georgia Does Not Belong in NATO

[Joanne98]

Why Georgia Does Not Belong in NATO

William Pfaff
Paris, August 12, 2008 – British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was the man who said the first three rules of warfare are "Do not invade Russia," repeated three times.

A footnote to that rule would note that while the disputed Georgian districts of South Ossitetia and Abkhazia are not parts of Russia today, they were yesterday, and probably will again be tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. Most of their present populations carry Russian passports, and there are Russian troops in both provinces.

The fourth rule of war might be, "Do not let anyone trick you into invading Russia." Apologists for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili have claimed that the Russians prepared their riposte to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia before it happened last Friday, but misled Saakashvili into thinking an attempt to seize the disputed territory would go unopposed. However The New York Times quotes "a senior American official" as saying, "It doesn't look as if this was premeditated. Until the night before the fighting, Russia seemed to be playing a constructive role."

The Russian version of the betrayal theme is that Saakashvili "was forced to start this war by Dick Cheney to support the campaign of John McCain. The only possibility for John McCain to win is to have some kind of war." That is the view of Sergei Markov, Director of the Institute of Political Studies in Moscow, and undoubtedly it is an opinion widely held in Russia.

It is at least logical. If true it would mean that Cheney should be charged with malfeasance in public office. (But that has been proposed before.) Cheney's actual statement after the Russian counterattack was perfectly presidential. He said the Russian attack "must not go unanswered," and if continued would have serious consequences for Russian-American relations. This said everything and nothing at the same time.

The fifth rule ought also to be precautionary, "Don't let your friends in Washington democracy-promoting institutes or Neo-Conservative think-tanks, or who are important American newspaper columnists or television talking heads, convince you that if you attack Russia the United States and NATO will rescue you."

Thus a sixth rule of conduct is one of political realism, and explains rule five. It was expressed by Henry Kissinger in the words, "Great powers do not commit suicide for allies." (Least of all small and unimportant allies.)

Nowhere in what I have read of the comment on this small but important war has it been explained why neither Georgia nor Ukraine should belong to NATO. They carry with them ready-made wars that NATO neither can nor should be expected to deal with. They are both ethnically and culturally divided nations whose histories are of struggle between or among their component parts.

In Georgia it is between the linguistically distinct enclaves that in the past were Russian and wish again to be Russian, and the majority of Georgians who want to be part of the West, but are also determined to dominate their rebellious territories.

If they would peacefully renounce those territories, an ethnically and culturally united Georgia would have every right to demand NATO membership. But as things are now (or were, until the last few days), Mikheil Saakashvili wants his country inside NATO to protect him from the consequences of forcing those dissident territories to remain under Georgian domination. NATO has no business doing such a thing, and as Russia supports the rebel enclaves, NATO membership for Georgia has war with Russia built into it. As we have just seen.

In Ukraine, the problem is between a culturally and historically Orthodox and Russian-speaking Ukraine, and a westernized and Uniate Catholic Ukraine, whose ties are to Poland and Lithuania. Westernized Ukraine is trying to use NATO to help it dominate Russian Ukraine. This again has war built into it, and NATO must stay away from a conflict that is an unresolved and possibly irresolvable internal Ukrainian problem.

Continued>>>
http://drugaddict.livejournal.com/3398211.html

[provis99]

1. thank goodness for the French and Germans

"Old Europe", as Rumsfeld would calls it, has saved us from flat out stupidity by preventing Georgia from getting NATO into a pointless war.

[Jim__]

2. The 3 rules of war, "Don't invade Russia".

Sounds like Monty was a good general. I hope bush doesn't stumble into this final, classic mistake.