Georgia: A Reality Check for the Left

From the Booman Tribune courtesy of Eschaton:

I can hear the Left now laughing at Asmus and Holbrooke's audacity in accusing Russia of neo-imperial policies. Isn't this conflict taking place in Russia's sphere of influence? Hasn't the West been relentlessly provocative? Didn't Russia warn us about the eastward expansion of NATO, anti-missile defenses in the Czech Republic, and the independence of Kosovo?

Yes, yes they did. And it doesn't matter an iota to our bi-partisan foreign policy Establishment. This is power geopolitics at its rawest and it has major consequences for our strategic position in Central Asia and the Middle East. Did Dick Cheney say something alarmingly bellicose? Sure. But Cheney differs from Holbrooke only in tone. Russia is threatening more than the Bush/Cheney policy vis-a-vis Georgia. They are threatening eight years of Clinton foreign policy.

In the many years I have been writing this blog I have been a consistent critic of Clinton's foreign policy, especially in the Caucuses and as relates to NATO expansion. I made these points many times during the primaries. But there are two things you need to keep in mind. Just because there are legitimate criticisms of U.S. foreign policy does not mean that Russia is on the right side of history. But, more importantly, the foreign policy Establishment is united behind these policies and has invested in them over the course now of almost 20 years. There isn't a whole lot of room for debate over what should have been. We're here now. Like an aircraft carrier, you cannot turn around bipartisan U.S. foreign policy on a dime. This is not some uniquely neoconservative policy. This is U.S. policy.

Working to change that policy demands that we understand the policy as it is and as it has been. We need to understand the military justification of that policy (access to energy supplies to fuel our Naval Fleets and Air Force) as well as the economic justifications. And we should not kid ourselves that we will find Democratic allies in Congress or the Obama campaign that are going to argue that our policy has been all wrong all along. That will never happen.

More here.

Right. Our rhetorical support for Georgia, at least rhetorical for the moment, has very little to do with Big Bad Russia beating up on its poor little former satellite. I mean, sure, Russia is beating up on one of its much smaller and weaker former satellite republics, but the US foreign policy establishment, both liberal and conservative, doesn't give a shit about that at all. Rather, we support Georgia, and any and all other former Soviet Republics, because they oppose Russia, simply by their existence, and because there continues to be a lot of money to be made in such nations, money to be funneled to the US wealthy elite.

As the above excerpt observes, US foreign policy in the region has essentially been asking for this for a long time. Also, as the excerpt observes, none of this will be part of public discussion on the issue. I expect to hear a lot of "naked aggression" and "illegal invasion" talk from US leaders, and the usual bullshit about freedom and all that jazz.

A few observations:

1. The US can't really do anything militarily to help Georgia. We're too maxed out with our own "naked aggression" against Iraq and Afghanistan. We're a paper tiger now as far as conventional warfare goes.

2. As far as unconventional warfare goes, the US must necessarily do nothing: the Russians continue to have a formidable nuclear arsenal, the ultimate deterrence.

3. Any and all American rhetoric criticizing the Russian invasion is pathetic. We do the same thing. Worse, the Russians are doing it in their own back yard; we're doing it half way around the globe, essentially wherever we feel like it.

4. When the Soviet Union fell, the US had an incredible opportunity to make good friends of the Russians by pumping in redirected post Cold War military funding to seed a proper market economy, and by sending in an armada of advisers to help create institutions and structures that would usher in social conditions that would allow democracy to flourish. Instead, we abandoned them to gangster capitalism and surrounded them through an ill-considered expansion of NATO. The Russians are right to tell us to go to hell.

This invasion is awful, which goes without saying. Unfortunately, we can do nothing. We lost our window of opportunity over a decade ago. It will be fun, however, in a dark humor way, to watch the TV pundits and idiot politicians gnash their teeth while castigating the Russians for doing exactly what they approve of when America does it.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$