Georgian War Shows Dangers of U.S. Threats Against Russia

by Gerry Foley / September 2008

On Aug. 26, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced that Russia was formally recognizing as independent states South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two territories of oppressed peoples who had been unwillingly incorporated into Georgia. The United States and major Western European powers immediately blasted Russia’s move, while threatening measures to "isolate" Russia in retaliation.

The Russian-Georgian war was touched off by Georgia’s missile, airplane, and ground attack on South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali, in early August.

Georgian President Mikeil Saakashvili apparently had calculated that the inevitable Russian response to his attack would compel the United States to come to Georgia’s aid militarily. On this he was mistaken, though the U.S. did what it thought it could get away with under the circumstances to render aid to its Georgian ally and to politically bolster Saakashvili’s regime.

In the aftermath of the fighting, an Aug. 15 White House press conference saw President George Bush praising Saakashvili and the "democracy" that Bush insisted was flourishing in Georgia, the European nation that ranks third in the world in backing the U.S. imperialist slaughter in Iraq. Georgia’s 3500 troops, according to Bush, were assuredly aiding the Iraqi people’s right to self-determination and supporting their "democratically elected" government.

Could it be that they were there instead as a petty partner to an American imperialist war that has taken the lives of 1.6 million Iraqis, a war designed to secure for the U.S. unimpeded access to the world’s largest oil reserves as well as a strategic position to control of the Middle East’s political and economic affairs?

Said Bush: "Georgia has sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to help others achieve the liberty that they struggled so hard to attain. To further strengthen their democracy, Georgia has sought to join the free institutions [NATO] of the West. The people of Georgia have cast their lot with the free world, and we will not cast them aside."

Bush continued: "Unfortunately, Russia has tended to view the expansion of freedom and democracy as a threat to its interests. The opposite is true: Free and prosperous societies on Russia's borders will advance Russia's interests by serving as sources of stability and economic opportunity."

Just to make sure that these "free and prosperous" societies on Russia’s borders would increase Russia’s "economic opportunity," U.S. transport planes instantly rushed Georgia’s 3500 troops in Iraq back home while airlifting "humanitarian" aid carried by "humanitarian troops" and "military reconstruction" materials to the Saakashvili regime. And the U.S. furthered bolstered Russia’s "stability" by hastily signing an agreement with Poland providing for a U.S. "missile shield" to be placed there.

At the same time, Washington resumed pressure on its hesitant European imperialist allies in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain to reconsider their opposition at NATO’s Bucharest summit in April to immediately bringing Georgia into the organization.

However, the emergency NATO meeting convened in Brussels on Aug. 19 for the same purpose failed to bend to U.S. moves to immediately include Georgia.

Bush concluded his press conference, perhaps with his trademark Cheshire Cat smile: "We hope Russia's leaders will recognize that a future of cooperation and peace will benefit all parties. The Cold War is over. The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us. A contentious relationship with Russia is not in America's interest. And a contentious relationship with America is not in Russia's interest." Bush neglected to mention that the U.S. continues to surround Russia with a nuclear arsenal.

Saakashvili’s attempt to seize Tskhinvali and neighboring villages during the first week of August started the war, and he is thus responsible for the toll on South Ossetian lives and property as well as the fleeing of tens of thousands of South Ossetians to their compatriots within the Russian Federation.

The effects of the war have been even more disastrous for Georgians, many of whom have been reported even in the Western press as blaming their plight on Saakashvili. Indications are that there are more than 100,000 Georgian refugees out of a total population of about 4.5 million.

However, the Russian claims of South Ossetian losses as a result of the Georgian attack were greatly exaggerated. Initially, they claimed that 1500-2000 Ossetians had been killed, but later—after Western reporters on the scene challenged these figures—admitted that the confirmed total was 133. At least 15 Russian "peacekeeping" soldiers were also killed during the Georgian attack.

It is necessary also to discount the claims of the Russian government that their troops attacked and occupied a large portion of Georgia merely to protect the valid right of self-determination of the Ossetian and Abkhazian peoples. Russia has consistently put its own great-power interests ahead of the rights of oppressed nationalities in the Caucasus region, as the brutal war in neighboring Chechnya has amply demonstrated.

Divisions within NATO

The war in the Caucasus was the first military clash between Russia and the U.S. system of military alliances since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It thus represents, as all serious observers have noted, a major shift in the world political situation. It raises questions of fundamental shifts in alliances as well as major wars, even if it has not yet definitely answered them.

In the first place, the Russian operation has deepened the divide in NATO between Britain and the United States on the one hand and France, Germany, Italy, and Spain on the other. This division was already prefigured at the April 2008 Bucharest NATO alliance meeting, where the U.S. proposal to immediately include Georgia was blocked by France and Germany.

A widening split has been evident since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which the French and German imperialists rightly saw as contrary to their interests. Both countries had signed agreements with the Saddam Hussein regime for the extraction of Iraq oil, which were voided with the U.S. war and occupation. European dependence on Russia for 25 percent of its oil and 50 percent of its natural gas undoubtedly figures heavily in the reluctance to provoke Russia into limiting pipeline access to its oil and gas resources.

On the other hand, U.S.-backed oil industry efforts to bypass Russian oil pipelines, especially through Georgia, undoubtedly threaten Russian hegemony with regard to access to Caspian Sea oil. The world’s giant oil conglomerates, backed by the U.S. and some European governments, have for decades now used their new influence in Russia’s former central Asian republics to undermine Russia’s near monopoly in these regions.

The fact that the U.S. relied on French President Nicolas Sarkozy, head of the European Union, to negotiate a ceasefire with Georgia is undoubtedly an indication of an attempt to reduce divisions among European oil-dependent nations.

The original basis of the 1949 NATO alliance was the capitalist world’s fear of the extension of the influence of a post-capitalist power—that is, the East European nations that had abolished capitalist rule and established workers states, although of a deformed or Stalinist nature.

Today, the Russian government no longer claims to represent a socialist or working-class alternative, of the Stalinist variety or any other; it represents no political threat to the capitalist powers. The implication of this is that geopolitical realities should bring the continental European powers closer to Russia.

In fact, the evidence is that the continental powers are more interested in an understanding with Russia than the U.S., in particular since Russia has become a major supplier of oil and gas to these states, while Britain and the U.S. control the Middle Eastern oil and natural gas supplies.

However, there is a long way between the European continental powers’ moving closer to Russia and their preferring a Russian alliance to one with the United States. Although they apparently want to avoid a confrontation with Russia, they were also obviously frightened by the swiftness, determination, and belligerence of Russian actions in the Caucasus.

Deepening gap between competing blocs?

The British Economist, an authoritative voice of the British ruling class, wrote in its Aug. 15 issue: "The war in Georgia will make Russia more isolated. Worst of all, it will further corrode the already weak moral fabric of Russian society, making it more aggressive and nationalistic. The country has been heading in the direction of an authoritarian, nationalistic, corporatist state for some time. The war with Georgia could tip it over the edge."

The moralizing Economist neglected to account for its own ruling class’s nationalism and belligerence with regard to Britain’s 700 years of Irish oppression and occupation, not to mention its current role supporting the U.S. slaughter in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Sud Deutsche Zeitung, one of the most influential German papers, wrote in its Aug. 15 issue: "Russia has given up all the credibility that it has sought for the last 17 years. America alienated the world with its aggressive messianism. But Russia's foreign policy, unlike in the Soviet period, does not seek to spread an ideology. It has made power into an end in itself."

It is possible that the Russian belligerence has tipped powers that have sought an accommodation with it back to a confrontational stance, not for power’s own sake, however, but because of the conflicting economic interests that stand behind all competing powers that operate in the world capitalist realm.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported Aug. 17 that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told the Georgian president that she now favors membership for Georgia in NATO. She also said that she considers that the basis for settling the conflict in the area is recognition of the "territorial integrity" of Georgia, meaning Georgian rule over South Ossetia and Abkhazia—which the Russian government now says is out of the question.

Prior to the Georgian events there had been strong opposition in the East European countries concerned, including Poland, to participating in the U.S./NATO "missile shield" for fear of provoking the Russians. In fact, a poll published in the Aug. 15 issue of Gazeta Wyborcza, the main Polish daily, showed that more Poles opposed confrontation with Russia than favored it. The Russian actions in the Caucasus apparently tipped the scales toward a tighter military alliance with the U.S.

In fact, the Polish missile shield reversal provoked Russian generals to threaten that Poland could be a target of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in the event of a war with the United States in which the far superior American "shock and awe" military might (such as what was launched against Iraq and Yugoslavia) was employed.

The reaction of the East European countries raises the specter of a division of Europe between powers seeking an accommodation with Russia and a bloc of East European states closely allied with the United States and pursuing a confrontationist policy toward Russia. That prospect undoubtedly pressures the Western European continental powers.

Self-determination for oppressed nationalities

This pattern of action and reaction indicates a diabolic logic that has been building up since the collapse of the Soviet bloc and is leading to increasing dangers of military clashes, even wars.

The former oppressed peoples of the USSR and the Soviet bloc that are now independent seek protection from their old oppressing power by trying to get under the NATO and/or U.S. umbrella. In so doing, they bring NATO and U.S. military bases closer to the borders of Russia and thereby threaten to provoke Russia into attacking them, although this is precisely what they are trying to avoid.

On the other hand, the Russian response to movements for independence on the part of former Soviet republics has been to try to undermine their right to self-determination by whipping up rebellions of minorities within them, claiming that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander—that is, you claim the right of national self-determination against us and so we support the right of self-determination of others against you.

Thus, the Russians have supported pro-Russian minorities in the Baltic states, in Ukraine, in Moldova, and in Georgia. The post-Stalinist demagogue Slobodan Milosevic did the same in the former Yugoslavia, encouraging Serbian minorities to rise up against independent Croatia and Bosnia.

In the case of Georgia, the relatively small minority nationalities backed by Russia, the Ossetians and Abkhazians, have struggled for their autonomy in varied forms and over decades, including their national language rights and other aspects of independent rule. With few exceptions, they have been thwarted in these struggles by Stalinist, neo-Stalinist, and today’s capitalist-oriented regimes, all of whom subordinate or outright oppose the right to self-determination to the interest of great power chauvinism.

The South Ossetians number about 70,000. Before the present conflict about a third of the population of the area they claim was Georgian. They are separated from the majority of Ossetians, some 630,000, by the Caucasus Mountains. The only connection is through the Roki tunnel. The Ossetians are a remnant of a nomadic people, the Alans, and their language is distantly related to Persian.

In the revolutionary period of the Soviet Union there were attempts to develop the cultures of the minority peoples of the Russian Empire. But their cultural rights were reduced to empty forms after the rise of Stalinism. They were subjected in reality to Russification.

The Georgians, for a variety of reasons, have maintained a national consciousness and adherence to key aspects of their ancient culture. They have resisted Russification better than most of the peoples of the old Soviet Union. Almost all the Georgian papers on line are in the Georgian language, while the main Ossetian daily is in Russian.

In its Aug. 14 issue, the British Economist, in its zeal to condemn the Russian intervention, gave a somewhat over-simplified description of South Ossetia as follows: "South Ossetia is a tiny patchwork of villages—Georgian and South Ossetian—which was much easier to drag into a war. It is headed by a thuggish former Soviet official, Eduard Kokoity, and run by the Russian security services. It lives off smuggling and Russian money.

"As Yulia Latynina, a Russian journalist, puts it, 'South Ossetia is a joint venture between KGB generals and an Ossetian gangster, who jointly utilise the money disbursed by Moscow for fighting with Georgia.'"

While this characterization might reflect the make-up of the bureaucracy that runs South Ossetia with some accuracy, it says nothing about the views of the people of the territory—the large majority of whom opposed the Georgian incursion and supported the Russian response.

It is understandable that small nationalities historically threatened by the expansion of the Georgian nation would prefer to be assimilated into Russia, a world power 50 times larger than Georgia and speaking a major language widely understood internationally. But to the extent that they become assimilated into the Russian nation, they cease to be oppressed nations and become part of an oppressor nation.

With regard to North and South Ossetia, as well as Abkhazia, the outcome is far from determined and therefore the right to self-determination of oppressed nations cannot be ruled out. It is their choice alone to opt for a future either as small independent nations or as parts of a socialist federated republic of the long-oppressed peoples of the Caucasus region. The decision must not be subordinated to the wishes of their present overlords—either those in Georgia beholden to the U.S., or Russia.

Pro-U.S. realignment on Russia’s borders

Today the principal threat of war comes from the United States. It has been moving military bases closer and closer to Russia, while it will not permit the Russians to do the same to the United States anywhere in the world.

U.S. military aid and promises of military support apparently encouraged the nationalist demagogue Saakashvili to think that he could bring the United States into a military confrontation with Russia by his launching an attack on South Ossetian forces and Russian "peacekeepers" in the territory.

Saakashvili's objective of provoking a U.S. intervention continued to be evident by his exaggerated claims of Russian occupation and his statement that the Russians took control of Georgian ports and airfields. He has been the victim of his own illusions. He has not been able to pull the beast into the fray by its tail. The United States is not going to fight a war with Russia for the sake of the "territorial integrity" of Georgia, and Saakashvili was left facing overwhelmingly Russian power essentially naked and alone.

In fact, Saakashvili's position that the disputed territories are an inalienable part of Georgia and that he will not give up one inch of the fatherland is suicidal. There is no way Georgia will regain these territories without a fundamental change in Russia, and they are not worth keeping the country in a state of latent or actual war to maintain Georgia's claims over them.

There are injustices in the frontiers among post-Soviet states that are unlikely to be corrected. The Russians, for example, could claim that the Crimea should be in Russia instead of Ukraine. It was arbitrarily ceded to Ukraine by Khrushchev and is inhabited mainly by Russians. But a Russian attempt to claim it would threaten a major war.

Russia is not a threat to the United States, or even Western Europe. The country has been decisively weakened by the collapse of its state planning, industry, and monopoly of foreign trade even though the economy has been buoyed temporarily by the huge increase in the world price of oil and natural gas, which represent the great majority of Russian exports.

Russia’s nuclear “threat’

In its analysis of the war in Georgia, the Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Aug. 15) pointed out that the Russian army remains essentially a World War II army incapable of "war at a distance." Thus, it would be no match for the high-tech American army.

The Russian army's rapid defeat of the U.S.-armed Georgian forces was not a real test, because the Georgian army was immediately overwhelmed by a vastly superior force. It numbers only 32,000 soldiers.

The public radio program "Democracy Now!" on Aug. 11 broadcast an interview with a retired U.S. colonel, Sam Gardiner, arguing that the Russians were threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons if confronted by U.S precision bombing: "On little notice to Americans, the Russians learned at the end of the first Gulf War that they couldn't—they didn't—think they could deal with the United States, given the value and the quality of American precision conventional weapons. The Russians put into their doctrine a statement, and have broadcast it very loudly, that if the United States were to use precision conventional weapons against Russian troops, the Russians would be forced to respond with tactical nuclear weapons.

"They continue to state this. They practice this in their exercise. They've even had exercises that very closely paralleled what went on in Ossetia, where there was an independence movement; they [Russians] intervene conventionally to put down the independence movement, the United States and NATO responds with conventional [massive ‘precision bombing’] air strikes; they then respond with tactical nuclear weapons."

This scenario, however, is more than likely a bluff by the outgunned and technically far inferior Russian military. Their nuclear capacity has been degraded since the breakdown of the Stalinist regime. Moreover, their nuclear effort was always essentially defensive—that is, designed to show the U.S. that there would be mutual destruction if it used nuclear weapons against Russia. There is much more evidence that the U.S. actually considered waging nuclear war and therefore made an effort to develop tactical nuclear weapons.

If the Russians used nuclear weapons they would face total destruction, and no victory in a limited war could be worth risking that.

According to an AP dispatch of Aug.17, the U.S. secretary of defense, Robert Gates, has dismissed the Russians threat of a nuclear response to the stationing of antiballistic missiles in Poland: "'It strikes me as pretty strident rhetoric and probably fairly empty rhetoric,' Gates said. 'The truth of the matter is, Russia is not going to launch nuclear missiles at anybody. The Poles know that. We know it.'"

While the imperialist military strategist Gates is probably right, one can only wonder why the U.S. placed their "missile shield" there in the first place!

Dispute over oil

As we have noted, the problem of oil supplies to the advanced capitalist counties is obviously a factor in the Georgian conflict. One of the outcomes of Georgia's alliance with the U.S. was that an oil pipeline was run across Georgia in competition with pipelines running through Russia. The Russians clearly had an interest in showing that they could cut off the Georgian pipeline any time they wanted. But they did not attempt to destroy it.

Moreover, even before the present conflict, U.S. interests were withdrawing from the pipeline project because of their fears that it would be an outlet for Iranian natural gas.

Russia's oil production is the major weapon of its state power. In fact, it is plausible that a factor in their decision to relinquish control of East Europe in the first place was to cease delivering heavily subsidized oil and natural gas and instead sell it at world prices.

When a government uncongenial to Russia came to power in Ukraine, the Russians raised the price and threatened the country's economy with ruin. The fact that Russian oil and natural gas are significantly controlled by state corporations and individuals subordinate to the Kremlin makes it possible for Russia to use its oil as a political weapon.

However, a mutual dependence has developed with the capitalist powers of Western Europe. Russia has to sell its oil. Its economy now depends on that. And we are entering an era of extreme fluidity in energy prices and policies.

The Russian attack on Georgia has probably made the West European powers think twice about becoming more dependent on Russian oil and natural gas. The consequences of that can be far reaching for the Russian economy.

If oil were really the basic issue in the Russian attack on Georgia, the possibilities for a major war would be much greater. The capitalist powers are not going to fight a war to save poor little Georgia, but they might very well fight a war for oil. In fact, if oil hunger continues to grow, as most all experts postulate, then the prospect is for an escalating series of inter-imperialist wars.

But when they are sufficiently threatened, the capitalists, who are normally only concerned about individual profit, can rise at least in part to the level of social limited thinking, that is, to considering general interests of maintaining their class rule. Thus, they may pursue the world’s present oil resources with continuing wars AND develop alternatives to oil as the basis of the modern economy.

While the imperialist countries at present are dependent on energy supplies from underdeveloped countries, they hold all the advantages in petroleum-substitute technologies.

Against U.S. imperialism

The fundamental duty of socialists is to oppose their own imperialism, and for socialists in the Western capitalist countries that means opposing the aggressive policies of their governments toward Russia.

But that is not sufficient. It also means warning the peoples on the periphery of Russia that an alliance with the U.S. will not protect them, that it is a poisoned chalice. Many of them in fact, gained their independence because of the stormy upsurge of mobilizations against the attempted neo-Stalinist coup in the early 1990s that sought to restore the Soviet Union as a prison house of peoples.

The development of a movement for democracy, which has to lead to a movement for socialism, is their only prospect for gaining and maintaining their rights of self-determination for all oppressed peoples and nations, East and West, North and South.

Socialists also have to offer an alternative of international cooperation and solidarity among the working people of the world. That means also appealing to and supporting Russians who oppose the great-power policies of their own government. Despite the fact that the democratic movement has been isolated by the demoralization that followed the collapse of the Stalinist regime and the illusions created by the relative improvement of the economic situation under Putin, there are still radical voices opposing any Russian state effort to maintain troops in Georgia. Socialists outside Russia need to listen to them and support them.

If, in the name of opposing our own imperialism, we supported the propaganda of the Russian state, we would disqualify ourselves as an alternative to war and oppression.

That is particularly dangerous because the forces supporting Putin are far from progressive. Some of them in fact are pretty close to fascist. That includes the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and its newspaper, Pravda, which no longer speaks in the name of "socialism" but of a virulent Russian nationalism.

A recent issue of the on-line U.S. liberal journal Counterpunch published an article denouncing U.S. support for the Georgian government that included a long quote from Pravda, cited with evident approval. Among some liberals, a pattern has continued of denying or minimizing the violence of post-Stalinist regimes in the name of opposing U.S. imperialism.

This was notable in the case of Milosevic's essentially U.S.-abetted wars against Bosnia and Croatia in the former Yugoslavia. And we saw it again when significant forces in the U.S. antiwar movement, while correctly challenging and mobilizing against the U.S. terror bombing of Yugoslavia, supported Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing of the Kosovar people.

The world is on the threshold of a new era in which new economic and political relations are coming into sharper focus. It is essential for socialists to develop a consistent and principled approach to the new problems that we will face.

In the long run, the only hope for a world without war and oppression is rebuilding a credible revolutionary socialist movement. Unqualified opposition to the endless wars of U.S. imperialism is the starting point.