Announcement

Collapse

Forum Rules (Everyone Must Read!!!)

1] What you CAN NOT post.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this forum to post any material which is:
- abusive
- vulgar
- hateful
- harassing
- personal attacks
- obscene

You also may not:
- post images that are too large (max is 500*500px)
- post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or cited properly.
- post in UPPER CASE, which is considered yelling
- post messages which insult the Armenians, Armenian culture, traditions, etc
- post racist or other intentionally insensitive material that insults or attacks another culture (including Turks)

The Ankap thread is excluded from the strict rules because that place is more relaxed and you can vent and engage in light insults and humor. Notice it's not a blank ticket, but just a place to vent. If you go into the Ankap thread, you enter at your own risk of being clowned on.
What you PROBABLY SHOULD NOT post...
Do not post information that you will regret putting out in public. This site comes up on Google, is cached, and all of that, so be aware of that as you post. Do not ask the staff to go through and delete things that you regret making available on the web for all to see because we will not do it. Think before you post!


2] Use descriptive subject lines & research your post. This means use the SEARCH.

This reduces the chances of double-posting and it also makes it easier for people to see what they do/don't want to read. Using the search function will identify existing threads on the topic so we do not have multiple threads on the same topic.

3] Keep the focus.

Each forum has a focus on a certain topic. Questions outside the scope of a certain forum will either be moved to the appropriate forum, closed, or simply be deleted. Please post your topic in the most appropriate forum. Users that keep doing this will be warned, then banned.

4] Behave as you would in a public location.

This forum is no different than a public place. Behave yourself and act like a decent human being (i.e. be respectful). If you're unable to do so, you're not welcome here and will be made to leave.

5] Respect the authority of moderators/admins.

Public discussions of moderator/admin actions are not allowed on the forum. It is also prohibited to protest moderator actions in titles, avatars, and signatures. If you don't like something that a moderator did, PM or email the moderator and try your best to resolve the problem or difference in private.

6] Promotion of sites or products is not permitted.

Advertisements are not allowed in this venue. No blatant advertising or solicitations of or for business is prohibited.
This includes, but not limited to, personal resumes and links to products or
services with which the poster is affiliated, whether or not a fee is charged
for the product or service. Spamming, in which a user posts the same message repeatedly, is also prohibited.

7] We retain the right to remove any posts and/or Members for any reason, without prior notice.


- PLEASE READ -

Members are welcome to read posts and though we encourage your active participation in the forum, it is not required. If you do participate by posting, however, we expect that on the whole you contribute something to the forum. This means that the bulk of your posts should not be in "fun" threads (e.g. Ankap, Keep & Kill, This or That, etc.). Further, while occasionally it is appropriate to simply voice your agreement or approval, not all of your posts should be of this variety: "LOL Member213!" "I agree."
If it is evident that a member is simply posting for the sake of posting, they will be removed.


8] These Rules & Guidelines may be amended at any time. (last update September 17, 2009)

If you believe an individual is repeatedly breaking the rules, please report to admin/moderator.
See more
See less

Great Response to Holbrooke article

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Great Response to Holbrooke article

    GEORGIA ON HIS MIND
    by Nikolas K. Gvosdev

    The National Interest Online, DC
    Nov 27 2006

    Reading former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke's essay in today's
    Washington Post once again confirmed for me the faith-based nature
    of so much of U.S. foreign policy. The world is as we declare it to
    be; inconvenient facts and on the ground realities are ignored or
    airbrushed away.

    Holbrooke wants Washington to make the relationship between Tbilisi
    and Moscow a key organizing principle of the U.S.-Russia relationship
    ("The European Union and the United States must make the continued
    freedom and independence of Georgia a test case of the Western
    relationship with Russia" is the specific quote.)

    One problem, of course, is that nothing has ever been cut and dried
    or simple about the Russia-Georgia relationship, certainly not since
    the Middle Ages when Georgia's feuding kings and princes besought
    the Russian tsars to cross the mountains and become involved in
    Caucasian affairs.

    I am always struck by the Rashomon effect when reading advocacy
    pieces of this type. Russia, in the view put forth by Holbrooke, has
    no legitimate economic, security or political interests whatsoever
    in the region and should not only accept but subsidize the existence
    of hostile regimes by providing energy at below-market prices and
    facilitating guest workers whose subsidies sent from Russia make up
    at least 30 percent of Georgia's economy.

    Given his logic, I await his follow-up op-ed where he advocates
    the immediate creation of a free-trade agreement with Hugo Chavez's
    Venezuela and the sale of U.S. oil to Cuba at below-market rates. And
    his outrage over the suspension of rail and road links between Russia
    and Georgia-correct me if I am wrong, but I haven't read much from
    the ambassador recently holding Turkey to task for its blockade of
    democratic Armenia or Ankara's continued unwillingness to implement
    UN Security Council resolutions calling for its troops to be withdrawn
    from Cyprus. But I forgot-those are different cases.

    And if Russia is "black", then Mikheil Saakashvili's Georgia must be
    "white". He, of course, realizes that this characterization is a bit
    difficult to say with a straight face, so a partial inoculation
    with the truth-reference to less than perfect efforts on the
    part of the Georgian government in promoting democracy-is thrown
    in. Let's be candid. As I wrote at the time of the Rose Revolution,
    for Saakashvili's government to be effective, it would, of necessity,
    have to become more Putin-esque.

    Honest observers with no personal, professional, political or business
    stake in spinning Georgian realities are prepared to be much more
    blunt. In the current issue of The National Interest, Parag Khanna
    and Lawrence Groo warn:

    "The lesson is that Western powers must be careful whom they back
    in so-called revolutions, for they risk giving a carte blanche to
    self-serving executives who are far from democratic champions.

    "Nowhere is this more evident than in Georgia, site of another
    Western-endorsed regime change that took the form of the 2003 "Rose
    Revolution." Riding a wave of popularity after the ouster of Eduard
    Shevardnadze, young and Western-educated Mikhail Saakashvili has
    since taken every opportunity to profess democracy in theory while
    often ignoring it in practice. Opposition newspapers, TV stations and
    NGOs have been intimidated and shut down, while ironically Western
    funding for such groups has dried up due to the presumed success of
    the Rose Revolution. Under the pretext of Russian meddling in the
    disputed province of South Ossetia and its cut-off of gas supplies,
    Saakashvili maintains a powerful secret police, used more for shaking
    down his opponents than for internal security. While Saakashvili's
    administration has achieved some success in reforming antiquated
    business regulations, his appointment of loyal judges has undermined
    the judicial system's independence, and the constant musical chairs in
    the cabinet has made it difficult to know who is leading on important
    policy reform efforts at any given time."

    But since so many of the color revolutions of the past few years have
    run out of steam-Georgia is arguably the only success story left on the
    books, and so it has acquired exaggerated importance. And so, just as
    Washington did with Saakashvili's predecessor Eduard Shevardnadze, who
    in his day was also vigorously defended as pro-American, pro-democratic
    and pro-Western-until nearly his last day in office-when suddenly
    Shevardnadze was rewritten to being a pro-Moscow despot-so with
    Saakashvili-his vices must be hidden and his virtues exaggerated.

    If Georgia is so important to U.S. interests and values-a case this
    essay still does not make-I would have much greater respect for
    his call for stronger action if he would honestly call on Americans
    and Europeans to shoulder the real burdens that changing Georgia's
    geopolitical realities would entail. But Georgia is for Holbrooke and
    others an unwelcome symptom of how the world is changing. Reading
    through his essay one cannot help but be struck how strongly he
    desires the world to return to its mid-1990s state-where the United
    States could depend on a quiescent China, a debilitated Russia,
    a pre-occupied Europe to set the international agenda with only a
    minimal amount of cost and effort on America's part.

    And also, it was so much easier for the U.S. during those halcyon days
    to ignore problematic double standards and to say that the view from
    Washington is the sole reality. This is why he complains: "Today,
    by contrast, Russia has threatened to veto a U.N. Security Council
    resolution that would give Kosovo independence and has spuriously
    linked Kosovo's status to that of Abkhazia and South Ossetia."

    Spurious? That is very much in the eye of the beholder.

    As I wrote in a response in Foreign Affairs last year:

    "The United States insists that the Kosovo case is unique, but others
    are by no means obliged to see things Washington's way. Indeed, it is
    difficult to see how the Kosovo precedent can be limited. The case for
    independence rests on two foundations: first, that the revocation of
    the province's ethnoterritorial autonomy in 1989 created a legitimate
    case for armed rebellion and ultimate separation, and second, that
    Kosovo's de facto independence for the past six years should be
    recognized de jure to end the province's nebulous status."

    I can find no logical way to argue objectively that one formerly
    autonomous region comprised of an ethnic group different from the
    titular majority of the larger state which had its autonomy revoked
    by an ultranationalist president and which has enjoyed de facto
    independence with the support and active intervention of outside
    powers deserves independence while another one does not.

    Why can't, in this matter, Holbrooke and others just be honest with
    their readers? Drop the moralizing, drop the self-righteousness,
    and simply say, U.S. policy in the matter of the frozen conflicts is
    based on a mix of favoritism and perceived self-interest.

    But moralpolitik is such a comfortable perch. I particularly enjoyed
    one of his closing comments, that "We will not sacrifice the interests
    of a small country that has put its faith in Western values for the
    sake of energy supplies or U.N. votes."

    That's not why the voters returned the Democrats to power in the
    House and Senate. Perhaps the ambassador should consult a few U.S.

    opinion polls about what ordinary Americans feel their priorities
    are. Lower energy costs, keeping a workable international coalition
    against terror and stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction
    top the list.

    It's also hypocritical, to say the least. The Clinton Administration's
    policies toward Africa are proof positive of that-fledging democracies
    ignored in favor of backing regional strongmen and keeping the vital
    flows of energy and other commodities to world markets. (Perhaps that
    yet another one of the "exceptions.")

    I start to feel like a broken record. Let me close with what I wrote
    in the most recent issue of the Journal of International Security
    Affairs on the matter of the "Russia debate":

    "Given our commitments elsewhere, the goal of the United States ought
    to be to strengthen the states of the periphery to give them a greater
    degree of independence and leverage vis-a-vis Russia, rather than to
    hold out quite unrealistic expectations that the West is prepared
    to break them out of the Russian sphere altogether-or support them
    against Moscow in violent conflicts where the U.S. has little or
    northing at stake.

    "Those who argue that we do not have to choose between our values or
    interests (or at least to assign priorities)-and who suggest that
    increased pressure on Russia both promotes our values and enhances
    our security-have to present compelling evidence that this strategy
    has a reasonable chance of success (or that the consequences will be
    minimal). ...

    "But a more confrontational approach with Russia can only be justified
    if this clearly serves the vital interests-not the hopes and dreams-of
    the United States."

    I think the Holbrooke essay fails all of these tests.

    Nikolas K. Gvosdev is editor of The National Interest.

    General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”
Working...
X