Caucasus Belli

National Review, Sept 1, 2008

THOUGH the order "Lights, camera, action!" was given by Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, the wartime drama now unfolding in the Caucasus was devised, scripted, directed, and produced in Moscow by Vladimir Putin and his fellow siloviki (former-KGB kleptocrats). The Russians say their invasion was meant to protect the rights of a persecuted minority; in fact, it was nothing of the kind. For almost two decades Russia has sought to divide and destabilize the new independent states in its former backyard by establishing, financing, and protecting "breakaway" ethnic statelets--such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia, within the sovereign territory of Georgia.

These statelets fulfill two important functions. First, they provide the siloviki with country estates. Almost none of the officials in the South Ossetian government are locals; most are high-ranking former KGB officials from other parts of Russia. South Ossetia provides them with a safe haven in which they can launder money, run smuggling operations, traffic in women, divert official funds into their pockets, and wage small but useful wars. Those wars are the second function: They punish pro-Western states such as Georgia, which is already weakened by division.

South Ossetian "forces" have been bombing Georgian villages at irregular intervals for years, but more intensely of late. Saakashvili sought to regain at least some of South Ossetia with a lightning raid, whereupon a massive Russian response, quite manifestly ready to go, was launched. Russian tanks rolled into South Ossetia; another pro-Russian force attacked Georgia in the part of Abkhazia that Georgia still controlled; and Georgia's modest army was forced to withdraw. Russian planes continued to bomb central Georgia, and when Saakashvili proposed a ceasefire, the Russians at first refused to talk to him, then started multiplying conditions for their acceptance.

The Russians remain bent on toppling the elected Georgian regime, which they accuse of war crimes. There are plausible reports that the Georgian forces shelled villages in their incursion into South Ossetia, but they were overwhelmed so quickly that they simply could not have done anything on the scale alleged by the Kremlin. Besides, Russia's long patronage of South Ossetian attacks, its invasion across internationally recognized borders, and its relentless bombing of a country that had retreated and offered a ceasefire deprives it of any right to make such accusations. Russian policy is a war crime in itself.

What America and its allies must now do is to demonstrate that Russia has lost more than it has gained from this conflict. One first step should be to offer NATO membership to both Georgia and Ukraine. Only Germany stands in the way of such a decision, and the Germans should be told firmly that their opposition encouraged the siloviki to mount this attack. Second, we should ask Poland and the Czech Republic to hold referenda on installing a missile-defense system at once. Third, once the fighting has definitively stopped, the U.S. should offer a generous rebuilding program in Georgia on top of the humanitarian assistance flowing there now--to be carried out, in part, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

What about economic sanctions, such as expelling Russia from the G8? Sanctions generally work better as a threat than as a policy, and Europeans are reluctant to lose the business they would cut off. So Russia should be quietly told that if it obstructs any of the policies outlined above, a list of economic sanctions will be progressively imposed. Russia looks stronger--economically and militarily--than it really is. The siloviki know that; so do we. We should make plain that if they continue along their current path of resuscitating the Soviet corpse, the whole world will know it.