Lucubratrix

Buy Georgian Wine

...no, seriously, it's pretty good. This isn't really a post about the superiority of Georgian wine, though; it's about the willingness of Russia to play hardball with the near abroad, and the willingness of the West to let it go.

Because Georgia has a pro-Western president and is moving closer to the United States and Europe, Russia has closed the borders and is rounding up Georgians in Russia. It sounds to me like a prelude to ethnic cleansing, although I doubt it will really go that far.

The dispute with Georgia isn't new. Russia has been encouraging the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for years, maintaining peacekeepers in the regions and offering Russian passports to the Abkhaz and South Ossetians. The Rose Revolution in 2003 exacerbated the problem.

It's interesting to me that so many people seem to think that Russia's geopolitical objectives have changed just because the Soviet Union fell apart. Yes, Russia is now a (nominal) democracy with a fledgling market economy, but it was never really about spreading Communist ideology, was it?

That said, the U.S. hasn't been willing to confront Russia on any of this. Part of it stems from an entirely reasonable desire to avoid restarting the Cold War (it would get a lot nastier with groups like al Qaeda as major world players, wouldn't it?), but part of it is the result of shortsightedness on the part of the decisionmakers. The problem is that the West won the Cold War, and so has forgotten about it. The Civil War is still a big deal in the South, and pretty much ignored north of the Mason-Dixon line, and similarly, Russia has not forgotten the Cold War. Unlike the Confederacy, however, it can rise again. It still has nukes, and that potentially makes it a big player--only the U.S. is ignoring Russian nukes in favor of theoretical Iranian and North Korean nukes.

Russia has no choice but to play hardball if it wants to maintain its influence. It doesn't have the soft power (McDonald's, Coke, pop culture) that the U.S. does. It's a shame that the West is so far allowing it to happen.

Hey, the least we can do is create more demand for Georgian wine....

posted by Just Me @ 18:32