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Georgian Crisis Is a Trap for U.S. Leadership
By Fyodor Lukyanov
21/08/08 "Moscow
Times" -- - The fighting between Georgia and
Russia has resulted in a serious political crisis in
U.S.-Russian relations. It seems as if both sides have gone back
to the sharp Cold War rhetoric of the early 1980s.
But apart from the combative tone, the current conflict has
nothing in common with the Cold War standoffs because the
ideological element is absent in both Russian and U.S. foreign
policies today.
This may sound strange, since most people consider U.S.
President George W. Bush's foreign policy to be extremely
ideological. After all, the global advancement of democracy has
been his principal credo for nearly eight years. In practice,
however, exporting democracy is less an ideology than it is
realpolitik at its core -- an instrument for attaining
geopolitical dominance around the globe.
The United States had to immediately adjust to the burden of
global leadership after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when
it declared itself the victor in the Cold War -- a victory that
it was not entirely ready for.
In the course of a decade, from the Soviet collapse to the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. foreign policy ideology was
transformed into an overly ambitious plan to reshape global
affairs with Washington sitting in the driver's seat. The United
States was transformed into a truly international superpower,
sincerely convinced of its own global responsibility as a
guarantor of peace and democracy.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the fact that U.S. territory could be
threatened from remote regions of the world forced a
reassessment of Washington's security policy. As a result, the
entire planet became a sphere of vital U.S. interests.
Since the United States considers democracy to be the most
effective, progressive and nonaggressive form of governance, it
feels that it can guarantee its own security by advancing
democracy everywhere. As Bush has said repeatedly, "Democracies
don't fight other democracies." The main problem with this
simplistic formula is that building new democracies from scratch
is a long and difficult process. Creating a stable democracy is
only possible in countries that are already developed both
politically and economically.
The era when a holistic outlook on global leadership was formed
in the United States, a period when Washington could act without
taking the interests of others into account, is over. And the
attempt to implement this established policy led to a series of
failures and to a new level of global fragmentation. It also
demonstrated the limitations of the United States' ability to
influence global affairs unilaterally.
At that moment, Russia, after recovering from the geopolitical
and economic crises of the 1990s, tried to win back what had
been lost during the first post-Soviet decade. Moscow's quest to
regain its sphere of influence was understood in Washington.
Russia is irritated the most when the United States interferes
in those areas that Moscow believes Washington has no strategic
interests. And the United States exacerbates this irritation
when it opposes any issue that strengthens Russia's position in
any way. Moreover, Washington is not prepared to impose
limitations on itself, squeezing everyone else wherever it can.
The traditional rule of realpolitik -- taking into account the
interests of others to the extent that they do not contravene
one's own interests -- is being violated.
Russia is a global power with regional ambitions and interests.
Moscow possesses well-defined levers in different parts of the
world -- from Latin America to Africa, from the Middle East to
the Far East. With the help of these instruments, Russia will
pursue its strategic interests in Europe and Asia. Alliances in
Syria and Venezuela are needed in order to gain bargaining chips
in the game against rivals. This helps counterbalance U.S.
expansion in countries that used to be Soviet republics. Yet
Moscow does not rule out the exchange of minor ambitions for
major ones.
And here we come to the conceptual reason for the worsening of
U.S.-Russian relations. The United States is a global power with
global ambitions and interests. From the U.S. point of view, it
has no interests that it would be willing to sacrifice. Regions
that Moscow sees as secondary to U.S. interests have become
necessary components of the complex U.S. structure known as
American leadership.
With the Russia-Georgia military conflict, the United States
clearly fell into a dangerous trap. The Bush administration was
not in a position to back up the implied promises and guarantees
that it had given to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
The United States has supported pro-U.S. regimes all along
Russia's borders. It hoped that its expansion in Russia's
backyard would go smoothly and not be very costly from a
geopolitical point of view. But the United States did not
seriously consider the consequences of defending these new
allies -- both politically and militarily. And it turned out
that at the critical moment, the United States was not in a
position to give substantive support to its ally Georgia. It was
even unable to prevent Georgia from making fatal mistakes.
The position of global leader is dangerous in that it won't
allow for even the most minor defeats. Indeed, the result the
Georgia conflict may not simply be the decline of U.S. influence
in that country (which in and of itself is not a catastrophe),
but that other young, emerging democracies will be skeptical
about the dependability of U.S. promises of support.
To stop a domino effect in which nations en masse start losing
faith in U.S. leadership, it won't be enough if Washington
adopts an even tougher stance toward Moscow. It's possible that
it will try once again to give direct guarantees for the
security of countries like Georgia or Ukraine -- especially
since NATO's ability to act is now in doubt. Western Europe will
probably halt its expansion into the former Soviet republics.
And relatively new NATO members, such as Poland, are doubting
NATO's credibility. If these countries earlier thought that NATO
and the United States were virtually one and the same, this is
no longer the case. Indeed, Poland has approached the United
States directly, bypassing NATO, for security guarantees to
protect it against what it perceives to be a threat from Russia.
This has increased U.S.-Russian tensions even more. Moscow
considers direct U.S. military guarantees to Kiev and Tbilisi as
an even greater provocation than NATO membership in and of
itself. But, as the Georgian and South Ossetian conflict clearly
demonstrated, it is doubtful that Washington has the ability to
back up these guarantees.
Because of its weakened position, the United States will be
forced to rethink its fundamental role as a global leader. The
United States and Russia both need to fully understand whether
their strategic goals are realistically achievable or not.
Fyodor Lukyanov is editor of Russia in Global Affairs.
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