RUSSIA is furious that Poland and US have signed a defense treaty that would allow the Americans to base their planned missile defense system on Polish soil. The Americans say that the system is aimed at missiles from potential “rogue” nuclear states. Russia sees it, with some justification, as directed primarily at itself. Unfortunately for it, its protests fall on deaf ears. For that, it has only itself to blame. Its military action in Georgia and now its refusal to honor the peace deal agreed with France have lost it all international support on the missile issue. Furthermore, its efforts to stop the project being based in Poland and the neighboring Czech Republic is now in ruins. The objective was to turn the Europeans against the idea and frighten the Czechs and Poles into refusing the missiles. Prior to the developments in Georgia, there was every chance it might work. Germany’s Social Democrats, part of the governing coalition, were unsympathetic, saying that Russian sentiments could not be ignored; so was much of Europe’s center left. In both Poland and the Czech Republic, there were growing voices opposed to the project.
Russia’s threatening language — that it “will be forced to react, and not only through diplomacy” — has not helped. It makes Moscow appear all the more dangerous, certainly to the Poles and the Czechs as they mark the 40th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. For them, the threat is not from some “rogue” state; it is much closer to home. That view has been severely sharpened by events in Georgia. For them, the Russian bear has proved that it is as dangerous as it was in 1968.
Moscow has lost the battle over the American defense system— for the moment. The more it threatens and fumes, the more it is appears aggressive in the light of its actions in Georgia. There will be many who now think that, as a result of that action, it needs to be contained and that the American missile shield is not such a bad idea after all.
The Russians can still change that view. But it has to be done by diplomacy, not threats. They have the power to stay in Georgia as long as they want. But if they hope to improve their plummeting international image, they need to change tack. They have to withdraw to pre-conflict positions. But they have to do more.
They talk fine words about freedom for South Ossetia and Abkhazia. How about the same for Kosovo, whose independence they block? Its constitutional history is identical to theirs. Like them, it was an autonomous regional of a state that became independent when the federation of which it was a part collapsed. Moscow says it wants international agreement on the status of the two disputed territories. If it added Kosovo to the list, it would as radically improve Russia’s image as the military action in Georgia has damaged it. There certainly would be greater sympathy for its legitimate security concerns.
