What Is To Be Done?

...It was the equivalent of a blockade...

...The Russian attacks on Georgia don’t mean American soldiers will soon be staring at Red Army soldiers in the middle of Germany or that U.S...

...Georgia’s president, Mikhail Saakashvili, signed it while parts of his country were occupied by Russian troops and Russian military aircraft circled overhead...

...The thousands of troops, tanks and artillery amassed on our border are evidence of how long Russia had been planning this aggression...

...Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, announced a price spike specifi c to Georgia...

...For his part, Saakashvili wrote in the Washington Post last week that “a massive assault was launched on Georgian settlements” in South Ossetia just hours after his government sent a peace envoy to the territory...

...Most were given trials lasting only a few minutes...

...Frederick W. Kagan, for the Editors Blaming the Victim Blaming the victim is nothing new...

...Putin has been pressuring Georgia for years...

...All of these actions are defensive...

...The Russian military has also asserted that it can insist upon the disarmament of foreign military forces stationed on their own soil that have not attacked or threatened to attack Russia if, in the sole opinion of the Russian military leadership, those forces pose a threat to Russian troops—and that it can attack and forcibly disarm those troops if they do not comply...

...We would not be trying to contain Russia in the expectation that it would ultimately collapse of its own contradictions...

...then on sparkling wine and brandy, fi nally Georgian mineral water—at the time one of the country’s most important exports...

...The Russian excuses for these actions insult the intelligence...

...Abkhazian forces, with Russian assistance, drove Georgian troops out of Abkhazia...

...Medvedev justifi ed the invasion by announcing Moscow’s obligation to protect “the dignity and lives of Russian citizens” whether on Russian soil or not (Moscow had given out thousands of Russian passports to South Ossetians making them “Russian citizens...

...But Vladimir Putin’s aggression, and the justifi cations offered for it by Russian leaders, could nevertheless mark a historic turning point...

...Also that month, thousands of Russian troops went to the Georgian frontier for so-called “training exercises...

...Through President Dmitri Medvedev, whose status as a fi gurehead was confi rmed in this crisis, Putin ordered an armored unit in nearby Vladikavkaz to secure Tskhinvali and sent in airborne reinforcements from as far away as St...

...We would simply be trying to assist independent, sovereign states to protect themselves, and thereby helping persuade Russia to engage the world like any other responsible member of the international community, something that the Russians— in contrast to the Soviets—constantly claim that they are endeavoring to do...

...If Moscow had restricted itself to protecting its peacekeepers, even perhaps to the extent of sending temporary reinforcements to ensure their safety, the confl ict and its consequences would still have remained limited...

...Hitherto, American military assistance has focused on helping our allies help us...

...Russia views that decision, of course, as its casus belli...

...If Sarkozy believes that he has brought peace in our time, he’s in for a disappointment...

...Russian media responded to Ukraine’s announcement with denunciations of Ukrainian military assistance to Georgia—tensions between Moscow and Kiev right now are very high...

...In the Caucasus, for example, Russia almost certainly had a hand in the fall of Georgian nationalist president Zviad Gamsakhurdia in 1992, as well as that of Azerbaijan’s president Abulfaz Elchibey in 1993...

...All of these actions stand in fl agrant violation of Russian agreements with Georgia, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the United Nations...

...or to charge Saakashvili with crimes against humanity...

...They are a deliberate assault on the structure of international norms and on Western credibility...

...They are not...

...It used its power to appoint Russians and proMoscow locals to positions in the territories’ independent governments...

...And it may well be that Russia sees many of the independent states on its borders, so long under its hegemony, moving in a liberal direction...

...Two Georgians died in custody awaiting expulsion...

...This program should aim to turn each of those states into a daunting porcupine capable of deterring the Russian bear...

...But even here, the story may be more complicated than Georgian provocation and Russian reaction...

...So Saakashvili sent in his troops, and the war began...

...And we should expand our military advisory presence so that we can help threatened states have the capability to respond to unforeseen Russian attack by denying Russian aircraft control of the skies and Russian tanks free entry into their territory...

...On September 27, 2006, Saakashvili ordered the arrest of four Russian GRU offi cers whom he accused of plotting a coup...

...But, in the days since Russian tanks fi rst rolled into democratic Georgia, we have been rather surprised at the alacrity with which some—on both the left and right—have blamed that tiny country for the onslaught, and the West for encouraging Georgia’s liberalization...

...And they made that decision partly because they understand the distinctions between dominance and submission, freedom and slavery, prosperity and penury, aggression and comity...

...In addition to the many good ideas for responding to Russia’s aggression that have been proposed elsewhere— expanding NATO, stalling WTO negotiations, kicking Russia out of the G-8—Washington should offer a revamped military assistance program to our NATO allies in Eastern Europe, as well as to Ukraine and Georgia...

...Russian authorities denied basic rights to many of the detained,” the authors from Human Rights Watch wrote, “including access to a lawyer or the possibility of appealing the expulsion decision taken against them...

...It was Saakashvili and democracy that offended Putin...

...But Putin did no such thing...

...And in July, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was about to visit Georgia, Russian jets fl ew over South Ossetia in a show of force...

...If these assertions are allowed to stand, the independence of the former Soviet republics is effectively at an end...

...Our government then learned,” Saakashvili went on, “that columns of Russian tanks and troops had crossed Georgia’s sovereign borders...

...suffi ce it to say that the tradition did not end with the Soviet empire...

...Some were Russian citizens...

...Moscow was not amused...

...That is why, for all the military assistance we’ve given Georgia over the years, the Georgian military crumbled in the face of a limited Russian attack...

...Petersburg...

...Georgians were held in sometimes appalling conditions of detention and in some cases were subjected to threats and other ill-treatment...

...They lived those distinctions...

...Another attack—one that failed—occurred in Georgia proper, near Tbilisi, in August 2007...

...Whatever the precise sequence of events, however, nothing Saakashvili did provided a reason for Putin to invade Georgia proper...

...It is why Azerbaijan, immediately after the Russian invasion, declared that Saakashvili’s initial actions had been legally justifi ed...

...No one forced Georgia or Ukraine or Poland or Latvia or Lithuania or Estonia to move toward Europe and the United States...

...The countries that responded most courageously are those most vulnerable to the imperialistic precedent Putin is attempting to establish—the Baltic States, Ukraine, Poland, and Azerbaijan...

...EDITORIALS What Is To Be Done...

...Nothing...

...Russian intransigence followed that incident, too...

...Both were replaced by pro-Moscow strongmen...

...Matthew Continetti, for the Editors...

...Putin recalled his ambassador from Tbilisi and, according to Lucas, “cut postal, phone, and banking links with Georgia...

...He also expanded the confl ict from South Ossetia to Abkhazia, where the Georgians had taken no action that could conceivably be construed as provocative...

...Tbilisi’s response to these provocations was generally aggressive in tone but more mild in action...

...or to attempt regime change in a democracy that abides by international norms and seeks integration in the liberal international order...

...It masks the true nature of the confl ict and assumes that all the actors in this drama are moral equals...

...Also around this time, Russian MiGs began destroying Georgian unmanned aerial vehicles...

...NATO should extend a guarantee to Georgia and Ukraine, but this program could help deter Russian aggression even without such a guarantee...

...And it has asserted that it can use military force preemptively on foreign soil if it sees a threat to its forces or to its “citizens...

...France’s president, Nicholas Sarkozy, went from Moscow to Tbilisi with a Russian ultimatum in his hand disguised as a compromise armistice...

...In the process, Georgian troops fought Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia...

...That July, Lucas continues, “Russia abruptly closed the only legal land border crossing” with Georgia...

...He paraded them in front of the cameras...

...This was an illegal act, and when the United Nations investigated the incident Moscow did not cooperate...

...Thus we see Putin’s playbook for the restoration of the Russian Empire...

...It is why the three Baltic presidents and the president of Poland condemned Russia’s actions...

...Since Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February—an event that the Russians, strong allies of Serbia, violently opposed—Putin has steadily escalated tensions between Georgia and its two breakaway enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia...

...We must reject the Russian fairy tale that aid to Russia’s neighbors is a threat to Russia...

...The choice before the West now is very clear: We either help those states—and Georgia—protect themselves, or we serve as midwife to a reborn Russian Empire and an international order that is red in tooth and claw...

...The aims of this effort are very different from our Cold War strategy...

...Is it too much to ask that we learn from our friends, and call a culprit a culprit and a victim a victim...

...It is true that these nations and alliances encourage democratic governance, free markets, and the promotion of human rights in all countries, including those in Russia’s near abroad...

...Saakashvili’s decision to send troops into South Ossetia was not an unprovoked act of aggression that somehow justifi es Moscow’s response...

...It is why Ukraine threatened to prevent the Black Sea fl eet from returning to its leased port facilities in Sevastopol if it participated in military operations against Georgia (which it did—and the fl otilla has since moved to the Russian port of Novorossiisk...

...That is why the Estonian parliament met in extraordinary session last weekend to ask that NATO offer expedited membership to Georgia...

...Putin sent more than 6,000 additional Russian troops into Abkhazia in violation of Russia’s international engagements in the area...

...And what say ought Russia to have over the decisions of other governments to choose freedom and prosperity...

...It has asserted that Russian Federation law applies not only to those citizens, but to the non-Russian leaders in whose countries they live...

...The Rose Revolution that ushered in a new era for Georgia was the fi rst of the “color revolutions” bringing youthful democrats to Russia’s near abroad...

...We have frowned on efforts by Russia’s neighbors to build large reserve forces that could resist a Russian invasion, to buy advanced air defense systems that could protect threatened airspace, or to develop anti-tank capabilities needed to halt Russian armored columns...

...or to bomb Georgian targets in the days after the initial ceasefi re...

...Saakashvili cuts a colorful fi gure...

...We should drop our resistance to the creation of large trained reserves in those countries alongside the small professional militaries we are already helping to create...

...Georgia had done nothing to provoke these punitive measures...

...But Russian hegemony over Georgia was upset in November 2003, when the pro-Western democrat Saakashvili came to power...

...Nor is it true that the ultimate blame for this confl ict lies with the United States and its NATO and EU allies...

...And his rise set a powerful example...

...At fi rst the warfare was economic...

...The following month Putin’s government began to detain and expel ethnic Georgians living in Russia—more than 2,300 of them, according to a report by Human Rights Watch...

...This is not just a foolish argument, it is a pernicious one...

...That encouragement, it has been argued, led Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili to believe he could use military force to quell insurgents in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, thereby all but guaranteeing Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s retaliatory assault...

...The West must defend Saakashvili and Georgia and help these other courageous young democracies defend themselves against Russian retribution...

...And it built up its military presence in both places under the guise of peacekeeping operations...

...According to the New York Times, Russian cyberattacks on Georgian computer networks began “as early as July 20...

...Russia increased its troop deployment in Abkhazia...

...To that end, Russia began to distribute passports to the Abkhazians and South Ossetians as early as 2004...

...American rhetoric about Russia’s actions has been strong but has not deterred Putin from pushing even harder...

...Russian aircraft have downed Georgian unmanned aerial vehicles over Abkhazia...

...And we must reject the idea that helping Russia’s neighbors stand up to Moscow will create a new Cold War that appeasement would somehow avoid...

...The Russian equivalent of our attorney general, prompted by Medvedev, proclaimed that Russian law allows “foreign citizens and individuals without citizenship, not currently living in the Russian Federation, who have committed crimes outside the boundaries of the Russian Federation, to have criminal actions brought against them in the event that the crimes are directed against the interests of the Russian Federation...

...These forthright declarations and actions have exposed all of these countries—including four NATO allies—to Russia’s wrath, which Moscow has been quick to show...

...The West’s response to this assault has so far been anemic...

...There is no need to rehearse the long, complicated, and bloody history...

...In its own interest and in the interests of its allies, America must reject Vladimir Putin’s attempts to rewrite international law to suit Russia’s revanchist ambitions...

...We need not give Russia’s neighbors advanced tanks, strike aircraft, or long-range precision weapons...

...Trouble started brewing in 2006,” writes Edward Lucas in The New Cold War, “when from March to May Russia imposed an escalating series of import restrictions, fi rst on wine, vegetables, and fruits...

...Following on this, the Russian political and judicial leadership made clear that it is building a legal case against Saakashvili and other Georgian offi cials to be tried in Russian courts under Russian law—in addition to charges of “genocide” Russia intends to make against Saakashvili in international tribunals...

...He has used Georgia’s territorial confl icts with the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to weaken Saakashvili personally and undermine the Georgian people’s national aspirations...

...Every former Soviet Republic has a signifi cant population of Russians—in some states more than half the population is ethnically Russian...

...Then, in April, Putin issued an order that, according to Johns Hopkins professor Svante E. Cornell, treated Abkhazia and South Ossetia “as parts of the Russian Federation...

...South Ossetian forces have shelled and raided Georgian areas...

...That is probably why Putin, who on his borders seeks client autocracies, has done so much to undermine it...

...It is not entirely clear why Saakashvili decided on August 7 to respond more directly to the most recent provocations, but he acted exclusively on his own territory (South Ossetia is still legally part of Georgia) and in defense of his own citizens under attack...

...And Russian military aircraft began an extensive bombing campaign that targeted the bases of every single combat unit in the Georgian army, as well as command-and-control nodes, radar installations, and other Georgian infrastructure...

...In March 2007, Russian military forces attacked villages in Abkhazia that had recently fallen under Georgian control...

...Moscow has now asserted that it can use military force to defend not only the lives but the “dignity” of those “citizens...

...Such was the pattern of Russian belligerence prior to Saakashvili’s commitment of ground forces to South Ossetia in early August...

...defense spending must triple to match a global Russian military juggernaut...

...Indeed, Russian despots have long considered the southern Caucasus, along with Eastern Europe and the Baltic States, their personal stomping grounds...

...The elected leaders of those countries decided for themselves...

...Russia’s Black Sea fl eet moved to the Abkhazian coast and began searching vessels and fi ring on Georgian boats...

...Russia nearly doubled the number of “peacekeepers” in that territory for no very good reason...

...But why does Russia feel threatened by this...