For values of "Africa" including "Russia"
On the principle of "what know they of England, who only England know?", this is not really relevant to Africa, except that it is, really, because it's yet another example of the main problem of that continent, the complete fucking inability of Great Powers to keep their Westphalian fucking noses out of the business of neighbouring states. And of the Strategic Victimhood Thesis of Alan Kuperman, which suggests that a major tactic of modern national independence movements is to try to provoke humanitarian atrocities or to do something similar in order to persuade a Great Power to intervene on their side. It's instructive to see one of these situations happening with the good guys and bad guys switched around a bit to keep your intuitions sharp about the general principle.
And thus, Abkhazia (and South Ossetia too). I think Yglesias and the LGM chaps have erred a little on the side of giving Putin[1] the benefit of the doubt. It's potentially true that the Abkhazians want to secede from Georgia, and have a legitimate ethnic and historical ground for doing so. They may be a ludicrous and clearly unstable bunch of Mafiosi, but it is not entirely illegitimate for them to point to the Kosovo precedent which shows that this should not be considered an insurmountable barrier to statehood (and of course, anyone who sees the justice in the Palestinian cause is also going to have to raise their standards for gangster tolerance). I think they've got a decent claim.
But, the means by which they're pursuing this claim are not legitimate; they're inviting Russia to start messing about in another state's sovereign territory. This is something which really really ought not to be encouraged, because it regularly and predictably leads to bad results - like aggressive war, it's one of those things that's not allowed because it's got a really bad track record. This isn't OK when the SLA/M does it in Darfur, isn't OK when the Kurds do it, wasn't OK when the Contras did it, wasn't OK when the Kosovans did it, wasn't OK when the Bosnian Serbs did it, etc etc etc. It's bad to involve foreign powers in your domestic politics[2].
And if you're lucky enough to be a great power, it's bad to take the political bait. Bad when France did it with Operation Turquoise, bad when the USA did it in Iraq, bad when Russia is doing it now. This is the sort of thing that ought to result in international sanctions; not war of course, that would be stupid, but definitely the sort of thing that makes it a lot more difficult to get what you want in other international negotiations. Of course, we have pretty few sanctions against the Russians at present, what with them having hydrocarbons and us needing them, but the principal's clear; at the very least, the tendency of Mother Russia to keep flaking bits off neighbouring countries has to be the sort of thing that is relevant to, say, discussions over Ukraine joining NATO. I'm quite a fan of Cold Wars if carried out sensibly; it's the shooting sort I don't like.
[1] By which of course I mean Medvedev … or do I?
[2] As opposed to involving foreign powers in your human rights struggle, which is much more OK precisely because these are universal rights, rather than particular and local disagreements over land.
but the principal's clear; at the very least, the tendency of Mother Russia to keep flaking bits off neighbouring countries has to be the sort of thing that is relevant to, say, discussions over Ukraine joining NATO
ReplyDelete1. principle
2. the principle is actually anything but clear since NATO has been making encouraging noises to Ukraine for several years and there's not any particular reason to link that with Abkhazia. The policy of encircling Russia is stupid and destabilising - and, incidentally, deeply divisive within Ukraine itself. For the latter reason alone, by the way, it's difficult to see how it falls outwith the rubric of "involving foreign powers in your domestic politics".
I don't agree with this; I think it's entirely legitimate for NATO to make encouraging noises to Ukraine, and that one of the chief reasons why this is the case is that Russia's an expansionary power. (The Henry "Scoop" society apparently want Georgia to be given full EU membership, so you can see I am one of the moderates here).
ReplyDeleteI think NATO may be expanding rather more swiftly than Russia is: the view from there may be that it's actually undergone rather the opposite process.
ReplyDeleteUkraine is really a very divided country, on grounds of ethnicity as much as anything, and precisely the sort of place that should not be taking sides or encouraged so to do.
It really ought to be visible that Russia is becoming ringed with governments that are hostile to it and which are joining or thinking of joining a military alliance. Do you really think that this is likely to have anything other than a destabilising effect, not just on NATO-Russia relations but on ethnic conflicts within a very large region? Isn't the whole point of joining NATO that governments are going to be calling in outside powers to back up their side in these ethnic conflicts in a way which your posting otherwise deplores?
DD, haven't you fallen into the Chris Bertram Catch-22? Your argument in conjunction with the footnote 2 exception, surely discourages nationalist movements from involving themselves in diplomacy - usually a good thing - and encourages them to ramp up human rights' crises. Effectively we deny non-state actors any legit international agency unless they're hapless victims blipping on the radar of Norm's Decent Norms.
ReplyDeleteRather than forbid a foreign policy to sub-state actors, and anathematise separatism, shouldn't we be thinking about how to reward good behaviour in the modalities of separation? I prefer this, I think, to forbidding separatism as such.
Marc Mulholland.
I assume footnote 2 is dark humour, as you cannot decouple human rights struggles from domestic politics. And incidently, according to Michael Mann in The Dark Side of Democracy one of the things that can turn a human rights struggle into genocide/ethnic cleansing is when the weaker side in the struggle expects outside intervention and therefore fights rather than submits.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with ejh: Russia is far less expansionist than NATO is. Back in 1990 NATO's eastern most border was the Elbe, today it's the Russian/Polish border.
Justin, Martin - I don't accept the symmetry between NATO and Russia; although there are a hell of a lot of imperfections in the Western system, I think we're a hell of a lot better as a patron/imperial power. NATO membership doesn't require anything like as much submission of local politics to the hegemon. I'm in favour of NATO expanding as much as possible at the expense of Russia.
ReplyDeleteMarc/Martin: I don't see this. Nonstate actors (presuming that we're talking about legitimate nonstate actors here, which I don't necessarily accept that the Abkhazians are) aren't discouraged from engaging in diplomacy; just from appealing to neighbouring countries to stick their oar in.
I'm in favour of NATO expanding as much as possible at the expense of Russia.
ReplyDeleteCan you really see no middle road between siding with one or the other? Is it really likely to discourage aggressive nationalism in Russian politics if NATO advances still further towards them and what would be your historical parallels for such a development? What signal will it send to Ukraine's ethnic-Russian population if Kiev signs up with NATO and what sort of reponse are that population going to look for in return from Moscow? Do you really see no danger in this sort of Great Game politics where one great power starts fucking about on the borders of another? Isn't "we start making aggressive noises in Ukraine because they're making them in Abkhazia" the sort of thing which we really wish to occur? Do you think that questions of which imperial power was the more benevolent had any bearing when the Great War occurred? Can you see how your posting might look a little too heavy on the contrarianism to the sympathetic observer?
Do you really see no danger in this sort of Great Game politics where one great power starts fucking about on the borders of another?
ReplyDeleteBut there's no other option is there? We're in the Great Game and pretending to take our ball home won't stop Russia from playing it.
Is it really likely to discourage aggressive nationalism in Russian politics if NATO advances still further towards them and what would be your historical parallels for such a development?
Yes, and the Cold War.
What signal will it send to Ukraine's ethnic-Russian population if Kiev signs up with NATO and what sort of reponse are that population going to look for in return from Moscow?
It sends the signal that they're a minority population in a state that is moving out of the Russian sphere of influence. Which is true and I would guess they already know it.
Do you think that questions of which imperial power was the more benevolent had any bearing when the Great War occurred?
I don't see why your template here is the first world war rather than the Cold War.
Can you see how your posting might look a little too heavy on the contrarianism to the sympathetic observer?
In this particular case no. I would have thought that the contrarian view was to say that we're totally unconcerned with what Russia's up to and that we shouldn't even use the limited diplomatic sanctions that we have.
NATO is a military extension of the U.S. Its expansion is a implicit threat. A plus for NATO is a minus for Russia. Nobody can like the implied tug of war. It would be another thing if the ex-Warsaw Pack states joined the EU. IMO the right default posture for the U.S. and NATO is to lean back, not forward. NATO is an anachronism in any event.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with NATO being much of an extension of the US. Turkey is a NATO member and didn't (doesn't?) even allow the US to overfly them on the way to Iraq. Being an EU member is a much better deal. I tend to agree with the US conservatives' line that NATO is basically a means for European states to hide behind the skirts of Uncle Sam[1] at very little cost or political commitment to themselves. And as I've said above, I do like the tradeoff "plus for NATO, minus for Russia" - I pretty seriously dislike Russia, I think they're a more or less entirely destructive power everywhere they have influence.
ReplyDelete[1] this metaphor is my entry for the Orwell Prize 2008
The problem with NATO specifically is that it's a defensive military alliance, so if Georgia joins we're potentially committed to fighting Russia on its behalf over the status of Abkhazia. Sounds unlikely, but given the fexible use of Article five over Afghanistan, it can't be ruled out.
ReplyDeleteBut there's no other option is there? We're in the Great Game
ReplyDeleteThere is indeed an option to not be in it - there's absolutely no good reason why an offshore island in Northwest Europe should still be pissing about near the Northwest Frontier. There's really not enough aspiration-to-neutrality about: it seems to be taken for granted that we need to be part of NATO and/or some sort of EU-devised military alliance. I don't see it, I don't see it at all.
It sends the signal that they're a minority population in a state that is moving out of the Russian sphere of influence.
Right - and that's exactly the problem. We're going to say to you - "we don't respect or recognise your problems, we're just going to view you as people who've lost a dominant position and we're going to make you look elsewhere for friends". Also see "Iraqi Sunnis".
I don't see why your template here is the first world war rather than the Cold War.
Why would it not be? The Cold War took place with everything frozen, especially frontiers. This is the last thing that's true of the situation now - which also takes place with NATO airbases far, far closer to home Russian territory than ever they were before. It's a destabilised situation, not a stabilised one. That's why it's so damned dangerous to play these games.
It's also why it's quite bizarre to use the Cold War as a template for when you think this sort of thing discouraged Russian nationalism. There was a completely different situation then - Soviet Cold War politics was conducted by a few people sitting in Moscow offices. Indeed the term "Russian nationalism" doesn't even mean anything when applied to that period. Now it does, it means exactly what it says, because now politicians have to appeal to a constituency of fearful and resentful people. Decisions used to be based on a basis purely of realpolitik which is why people could afford to lose face. That's not the case now. It's a really, really bad comparison.
Incidentally, "hurrah for the Cold War" (or "bring back the Cold War") is not likely to be a slogan which is likely to garner much support in the circles which opposed the Iraq War, and for very good reasons too. Not that you can bring it back anyway - what worked (on its own terms, I'm not going to pretend that I was in favour it) at the time worked because there was a balance of forces and because neither side was in any substantial sense close to other's core territory. That's simply not, remotely, what's happening now.
ReplyDeleteOn the general subject of Russia - I'm not remotely fond of what's been happening there but I think a Manichean view of NATO-Russia relations really is a candidate for "the last thing in the world of international relations we could do with right now". I really think that that view of world affairs, where we identify bad guys and then try to push them around, is one that should have died when the Iraq invasion failed, and one reason why is should have died is that the people of the frontline don't tend to thank us for it.
It's instructive to see one of these situations happening with the good guys and bad guys switched around a bit to keep your intuitions sharp about the general principle.
ReplyDeleteThe US had a rather different attitude when the Russians started placing "missile defences" in Cuba from their current ambitions to locate some in Poland.
It would be another thing if the ex-Warsaw Pack states joined the EU
ReplyDeleteEr, they have.
The US had a rather different attitude when the Russians started placing "missile defences" in Cuba from their current ambitions to locate some in Poland.
Quack, quack, oops. The Russians did not place "missile defence" systems in Cuba; they placed missile attack systems there, such as the 1,100-mile range, 2-megaton R-12 IRBMs, 2,200-mile range, 2-megaton R-14 IRBMs, FKR cruise missiles with 15kt tactical nuclear weapons, and Luna artillery rockets with 2kt tactical nuclear warheads.
In fact, they went considerably further than what was thought at the time, not just starting to build the missile sites but actually deploying the live, full rock'n'roll nuclear warheads and giving their local commanders delegated launch authority for the tactical weapons as well.
Sure, that's why I placed "missile defence" in apostrophes. I should have made that clearer.
ReplyDeleteBut one country's attack is another country's defence. If you stop a country's missiles, then yours have greater power. The US may deny it, but these systems aren't to stop Iranian missiles. They may not be effective against Russian missiles, but their proximity is potentially as destabilising as the Cuban missiles.
Yes, but there is a large difference between something which has an explicitly defensive function and something else that has an explicitly offensive one. Nobody worries about the French air menace even though they have a major fighter base in Landivisiau, but if they installed a gaggle of IRBMs in Brittany, that would be a little different.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the R-12 and R-14 had a shortest response time of 10-15 minutes at best (longer after they crashed-out from their usual garrison to disperse) and they weren't hardened, so they were very much "first strike only".
ReplyDeleteI'm not really trying to argue on the detail here. ejh was arguing about the destabilising effect of the attempts to encircle Russia. I was supporting this - maybe rather ineffectively - by pointing out US "defence" activity right in Russia's back yard. I still think that it bears comparison in psychological terms to the Cuban missiles in the US's back yard.
ReplyDelete