ONLY one thing is clear about the fighting that has broken out in Georgia and that is that it is madness. The Georgian government claims its attack Thursday on the Tskhinvali, the regional capital of the breakaway province of South Ossetia was in response to a series of violent attacks by rebels. But the assault, which has allegedly killed Russian “peacekeepers,” has prompted Moscow to dispatch a strong armored column to relieve the besieged city.
This is a highly dangerous confrontation that could spiral out of control. The United States has equipped and trained the Georgian Army and President George W. Bush sought unsuccessfully at the April NATO summit in Bucharest to have Georgia admitted as a member. The Russians, already alarmed by the eastward NATO expansion and Washington’s Polish-based missile defense screen, are in no mood to see Georgia settle accounts with its rebel provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the Black Sea. The decision of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to act at this time was surely doomed from the outset. If he imagined Russia might have been caught off guard because of the Olympics, it is clear that this is far from being the case. Indeed, the swiftness of Moscow’s military response suggests it had been preparing for just this eventuality.
The solution to Georgia’s troubles has to lie in diplomacy. Moscow has officially recognized Georgian territorial integrity but at the same time has insisted that the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia be allowed to determine their own future. Two years ago the former voted in an unofficial referendum to secede from Georgia and join with the North Ossetians in Russia. The situation in Georgia’s officially autonomous Abkhazia from which Georgian troops were ousted in 1993, is if anything worse. Using intimidation and violence, the victorious rebels indulged in ethnic cleansing and drove at least quarter million ethnic Georgians from their homes.
The Caucasus, like the Balkans, is a region of long memories and bitter enmities. The existence of two rebellious provinces, supported overtly by the Russians, is an offense to Georgian national pride. But President Saakashvili actually has greater priorities to attend to than sorting out the rebels. Georgia, once a highly prosperous part of the Soviet Union, has, since independence in 1991, suffered from poverty compounded by corruption. The president and his National Movement-Democratic Party both had emphatic election wins this year but the promised economic reforms and to a lesser extent the anti-corruption drive have taken a back seat to the issue of the country’s territorial integrity on which he also campaigned.
There is, however, only one realistic way in which Georgia is going to be reunited. That is for the country to prosper to such a degree that the rebel regions will see greater advantage in being Georgian than Russian. Challenging Russia militarily is vainglorious and stupid. The Georgian government needs to get on with fixing the economy. Essential foreign investment will be scared off by conflict. Georgia needs widespread good will including that of Russia, not a pointless and unwinnable conflict.
