The dangers of appeasement

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“Georgia has lost South Ossetia and Abkhazia for good"—one can almost taste the relish in the Guardian’s editorial of 15th August, as it argued against even peaceful, diplomatic measures to punish Russia for attacking Georgia. For a significant strand of left-liberal opinion in the UK, the default position on the Russia-Georgia conflict is that it is payback for earlier western sins in Iraq and Kosovo; that US, not Russian, warmongering is the problem. Yet none of this is true. Russia’s intervention in Georgia and recognition of Abkhazia’s and South Ossetia’s "independence" are not equivalent to western action over Kosovo or Iraq, and we allow them to go unpunished at our peril.

Moscow's apologists frequently refer to the alleged “Kosovo precedent.” They argue that if Nato can carry out military intervention without UN authorisation against a sovereign state (Serbia), to protect a persecuted ethnic minority (the Kosovar Albanians), then unilaterally recognise the independence of an autonomous entity (Kosovo) which had until then been internationally recognised as belonging to Serbia, then Moscow is justified in acting likewise vis-a-vis Georgia and South Ossetia.

In reality, the "Kosovo precedent" is a myth. Kosovo is not equivalent to South Ossetia either de jure or de facto. Kosovo was a constituent member of the former Yugoslav federation. Its constitutional status was therefore much closer to that of the former Yugoslav (and former Soviet) republics, whose right to self-determination the international community—including Russia—has recognised, than to that of South Ossetia, which was not a member of the former Soviet federation but simply an autonomous part of Georgia. While Russia, until this year, recognised Georgia’s territorial integrity, Serbia’s possession of Kosovo was not internationally recognised: the UN security council resolution that ended the Kosovo war in 1999 mentioned only the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia”—a state that was completely dissolved by 2006, when Montenegro and Serbia divorced. With a population in 1990 of about 100,000—approximately one-twentieth the size of Kosovo’s—South Ossetia is more similar in scale to the Serb-held enclaves in Kosovo than to Kosovo itself. Whereas Kosovo has a population larger than that of several European states (including Estonia, Cyprus, Malta and Iceland), there are 65,000 ethnic Ossetians in South Ossetia—roughly the population of Guildford.

There are important historical differences too. Nato and the US were very slow and reluctant to intervene forcefully in the former Yugoslavia—as former US secretary of state James Baker said, "we don't have a dog in that fight." Full-scale war erupted in Slovenia in 1991; the first Nato bombs fell on Serbia eight years later. In the interval, Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia waged wars of territorial conquest against Croatia and Bosnia, killing over 100,000 people and involving genocide, mass rape and concentration camps. Only in this context did Nato intervene in Kosovo, to halt a third Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign. Nato was backed by a broad European consensus, and acted without any selfish strategic or economic interests.

Russia’s intervention in Georgia could not be more different. Russia was not a disinterested third party drawn reluctantly to intervene under the pressure of massive human rights abuses. Since freeing itself from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Georgia has not attacked or threatened its neighbours. There was no planned, systematic Georgian ethnic-cleansing campaign to rid South Ossetia of its Ossetian population. Moscow simply intervened militarily at the very start of the South Ossetian conflict in the early 1990s to ensure that its Georgian colony would pay a heavy territorial price for its bid for independence. Meanwhile, Moscow has not been prepared to countenance self-determination for Russia’s own autonomous entities, such as Chechnya or North Ossetia, where five times as many ethnic Ossetians live as in South Ossetia. (Abkhazia was also an autonomous republic, but with a population in 1990 that was nearly half ethnic-Georgian and only 17 per cent Abkhaz, its secession from Georgia can hardly be justified on the basis of national self-determination).

Moscow’s actions in Georgia have less in common with Nato's actions in Kosovo, and more in common with US interventions in Guatemala or Nicaragua during the cold war, France’s involvement in Rwanda in the 1990s, or Britain’s behaviour in Ireland in the 1920s or Cyprus in the 1950s. They are the actions of an imperial power brutally attempting to preserve or expand its sphere of control. While 100,000 ethnic Serbs live safely in Kosovo under Nato’s protection, Russia and its proxies have ethnically cleansed Abkhazia’s and South Ossetia’s entire ethnic Georgian populations, nearly 300,000 people—nearly twice as many as the total number of ethnic Ossetians and Abkhaz in South Ossetia and Abkhazia combined. Nobody suggests that all Kosovars should receive US passports, but the pro-Russian inhabitants of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have been given Russian passports, something used by Russia to justify protection of its “citizens.” Kosovo was a humanitarian intervention; Moscow has carried out an Anschluss in the Caucasus.

Some analysts have suggested that what we are witnessing is the inevitable consequence of the west’s repeated humiliations of a weak Russia over the past 15 years. But Vladimir Putin is not a nice, reasonable fellow who would be our friend if only we wouldn’t offend him by setting up missile shields in central Europe. He is pursuing a policy of anti-western revanchism; he openly refuses to accept the verdict of the cold war. He has attempted to bully pro-western Ukraine by withholding energy supplies and in 2007 launched a cyber-war against Estonia, a member of Nato, overloading internet servers, mobile phone systems and rescue service networks and causing them to crash. He demonstrated ruthless brutality in crushing his own citizens in Chechnya. (Estimates for the total dead in the first Chechen war alone are upwards of 110,000). He has set up a fascist-style youth movement and his thugs have physically harassed western embassy staff. By campaigning against Kosovo’s independence and inciting Serbia’s own anti-western grievances, he has undermined the painfully achieved peace in the Balkans. His supporters openly say that the war against Georgia is a war against the US.

In deciding how to respond to Russia’s attack on Georgia, the west should consider the consequences of inaction. If we allow Russia’s virtual annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to go unchallenged, we are inviting further Russian expansionism. First up may be Ukraine’s Crimea and its port of Sevastopol (which—ethnically, historically and constitutionally—arguably has a better claim than South Ossetia or Abkhazia to join Mother Russia); as well as eastern Ukraine, northern Kazakhstan and other areas inhabited by Russian minorities. We are inviting further acts of aggression against other aspiring Nato members, or even actual members. For a Europe unwilling to defend Georgia cannot be relied upon to defend Ukraine, or the Baltic states, or Poland—unsurprisingly, all these countries vocally supported Georgia. Confronting the Russians may be a daunting prospect, but it will not become easier after Moscow has successfully swallowed up more neighbouring territories, torn up the Nato alliance and re-established its imperial sphere of control in eastern Europe.

A democratic Europe cannot sacrifice its poorer, weaker, more geographically distant members to satisfy the appetites of an expansionist, predatory neighbour. A democratic Europe is one in which the freedom and independence of a Georgia or a Ukraine—as of a France or a Holland—is defended without compromise. In insisting there can be no compromise over Georgian territorial integrity; in boosting military support for Georgia; in accelerating Georgia’s membership of Nato and the EU; in punishing Russia with diplomatic and economic sanctions; and in making it clear to Moscow that we shall respond militarily to any further acts of aggression against Georgia or any other east or southeast European state—we would not be behaving foolhardily, but playing it safe. The dangers of appeasement are far greater.

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