Standing up to Russia
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
From Friday's Globe and Mail
September 5, 2008 at 12:27 AM EDT
As you read this, another remote corner of Europe has been "ethnically cleansed." That means young men murdered, old women driven out of their homes, villages plundered and torched. As in Bosnia, so now in South Ossetia, the butcher's work has largely been done by irregular militias. "We did carry out cleansing operations, yes," "Captain Elrus" told The Guardian. These violent crimes have been committed under the noses of Russian troops, now unilaterally rebranded "peacekeepers" by the simple expedient of giving them blue helmets. This ethnic cleansing has extended to the buffer zone around South Ossetia that Russia has unilaterally established, exploiting an alleged loophole in the ceasefire agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on behalf of the European Union.
These facts, established on the ground by brave reporters, are the true human measure of Europe's failure to keep its cardinal promise of peace even in its own backyard. They are also the measure of Russia's deliberate challenge to the late 20th-century way of doing politics and international relations that the EU represents.
Two things must be said at once. First, great as were the provocations on the ground, Georgia's leaders behaved with reprehensible folly in escalating the conflict in South Ossetia, allowing their forces to kill civilians and failing to anticipate the Russian hammer-blow reaction. "We did not prepare for this kind of eventuality," confessed Georgia's deputy defence minister. What irresponsible idiots.
Second, the dying Bush administration behaved with characteristic incompetence in allowing Georgia to nurse even the shadow of a hope that the U.S. cavalry might ride to the aid of this would-be Israel of the Caucasus. Worldwide ridicule of Washington's indignant response also demonstrated just how much credibility the U.S. has lost over Iraq. (Don't invade a sovereign country. That's what we do.)
So, yes, there was also fault in Tbilisi and Washington. But finding fault with the U.S. (a sport at which Europeans excel) and Georgia (a country of which most Europeans know nothing) reduces not one jot or tittle the challenge that Russia now poses to the way Western Europe has tried to conduct human affairs since 1945 - and the creed most of Europe has lived by since 1989.
"Territorial integrity" is not the heart of the matter here. The essence of the new European way of doing things is something more like procedural integrity. The frontiers of existing states must be respected, but, in exceptional cases, territories within states may negotiate special autonomies or even vote to become independent, such as Kosovo or perhaps Scotland one day. But always providing this is done by peaceful means, with the sanction of national and international law. The how matters more than thewhat.
That's Europe's fundamental claim, which Vladimir Putin's Russia is challenging head-on. Its message is that the unilateral use of force to advance national interests is part of what great powers do; that the postmodern, law-based order of the EU is a 20th-century anachronism; that, in the words of Thucydides's Melian dialogue, "the strong do what they can, and the weak submit."
So what is Europe's answer? The outcome of Monday's EU emergency summit in Brussels was less bad than it might have been. A minimal unity was preserved. But the measures agreed were still weak. "Thank God common sense triumphed," said Mr. Putin. And the unity itself is weak. Deep differences in approach remain, reflecting differing levels of energy dependency on, and diverse historical experiences with, Russia. Moscow will do everything in its power to exploit these differences.
I found the tone of mild self-congratulation at the post-summit press conference with Mr. Sarkozy and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso inappropriate. You should not allow that tone to creep in when, even as you speak, women and children are being made destitute, if not worse, as a result partly of Europe's failure. A defeat is not a victory. And this summit can only be accounted a success if it begins a fundamental rethinking of Europe's whole policy toward Russia.
What we need is a twin-track approach, combining elements of muscular deterrence and skillful engagement - of Cold War and detente, if you will. It must remain clear the door is still open to the kind of strategic partnership the West dreamed of in the 1990s, with Russia as a new pillar of liberal international order. But our working assumption must be that it will remain Mr. Putin's Russia: a ruthless great power, determined to roll back the West's influence and establish its own 19th-century-style sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space. And one prepared to use violence, intimidation and extortion to realize its national interests, which it defines as extending to the "protection" of millions of Russians in other sovereign states around its borders.
Yalta, c'est fini, Mr. Sarkozy declared in Brussels, alluding to the alleged division of Europe into two spheres of influence at the 1945 Yalta conference. But a new kind of "Yalta" may be starting - at that very same town of Yalta in the Crimea, and many like it, where Mother Russia yearns to look after her own. Europe must do what it can for Georgia, including a visible presence on the ground. But even more important is to do what it can for Ukraine, a pivotal state that (unlike Georgia) still more or less controls all the territory within its borders.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was absolutely right to go there in response to the Georgian crisis. The EU should now give Ukraine a clear perspective of membership. It should put monitors, officials, lawyers, police advisers and development workers on the ground, especially in regions such as the Crimea.
Our response should be realistic, not just in how we assess Russia but also in judging our own strengths and weaknesses. Russia does tanks. Europe is not good at doing stuff with tanks. But Europeans do a thousand other things, each of them smaller, softer and slower than a tank — which together, given time and the perspective of eventual membership, can be a force more powerful. This model is now on trial.
Timothy Garton Ash is professor of European studies at St. Antony's College, Oxford.
