http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...1-9-2008_pg4_8
Russia ‘stakes it all’ in face-off with US
By Christopher Boian
Russia would like to lower the temperature but is also unswervingly determined to attenuate a US power that it regards as abusive and anti-Russian
RUSSIA has turned a corner in its standoff with the West over Georgia and is now firmly determined that the crisis bring about a deep rethink of a global system dominated by the United States, analysts say.
Though it knew the stakes in repelling an attack by a key US ally on a pro-Russian separatist enclave were high, the Kremlin was genuinely shocked by the instant outpouring of Western support for the Tbilisi government. Moscow saw that response as one-sided and scripted by Washington, which in turn galvanized its decision immediately to grant recognition to two breakaway Georgian provinces, certain that trying to explain itself was a non-starter.
Now, say experts, Russia would like to lower the temperature but is also unswervingly determined to attenuate a US power that it regards as abusive and anti-Russian, whether it wins any outside support for its cause or not. “It appears that Moscow has decided to stake it all and assume the role of gravedigger for what is in many ways a perverse system of international relations,” according to Fyodor Lukyanov, an independent Russian analyst.
In an analysis published on the liberal news website Gazeta.ru, Lukyanov said Russia had begun an “extremely risky game” in granting formal recognition to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and outlined several explanations why it did so. Chief among them, he said, was the fact that the Russian leadership, like the majority of Russian society, was “openly shocked at the large-scale and united support” that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili got from the West.
“Moscow truly does not understand how Europe and the US could amicably stand side by side” with a leader Moscow says is guilty of war crimes, and who has “trampled on everything the ‘civilised world’ stands for,” Lukyanov wrote. “In the West’s stance, Russia sees not just double standards but undisguised cynicism beyond the bounds of normal political practice,” he added.
The West says its quick backing for Georgia was motivated by alarm at the deep penetration by Russian forces into uncontested Georgian territory and fears of ethnic cleansing in the conflict zone. Analysts say the US and European drive to make Kosovo independent from Serbia despite having approved UN resolution 1244 calling for preservation of Serbia’s “territorial integrity” has also deeply influenced Kremlin policy.
That was underlined again by Russia’s powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who made clear that Moscow regarded the Kosovo case as proof of US duplicity in world affairs and of Europe’s subservience to Washington. “The White House gave the order and everyone carried it out,” Putin said in an interview with German television over the weekend.
“If European countries continue to make their policy in this way, then we may as well talk to Washington about European affairs,” Putin said. So far, Russia’s efforts to win any hearts and minds beyond its own borders have fallen flat despite a more intensive public relations campaign than experts on the country recall ever having witnessed.
After failing to rally anyone in the West to its cause, Russia turned last week to the East, notably to China, and there too was unable to win anything other than a tepid, non-specific expression of support. “Russia is alone, angry and absolutely unbending,” was how Maria Lipman, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center think-tank, summed up Moscow’s present position in the crisis.
She and other experts caution however that the international crisis unfolding from the conflict in Georgia is still only in its infancy and say it is too soon to know how the world’s nation states will behave as it evolves. “There is clearly a need to sit down and very seriously rethink a number of the most important issues like: What is Russia? How should we develop relations with Russia? How is the world governed?
“I would say we are in for a very, very difficult, confrontational and dangerous time,” Lipman said. Analysts say the Russian argument for a reassessment of the global system is predicated on the notion that the United States, though stronger and richer than any other state, has no innate right to call the shots for the world.
And the basic ideological conflict that separated East from West during the Cold War no longer exists, Russia maintains, negating the automatic US claim to the moral high ground in defence of human rights and free markets. The United States rejects Russia’s thesis that it acts in the world only to attain its own goals, but in the current crisis both are operating not just with politics in mind but from a sense of moral righteousness, experts say. “Countries have already made their choice between Russia and America,” said Yevgeny Volk, a political analyst with the conservative US-based Heritage Foundation think tank. “But now there is a very narrow window of opportunity to change their orientation. This is very unlike during the Soviet era, when a lot of countries could proclaim themselves ‘socialist’. “This is about American leadership,” Volk said.
Lipman agreed, saying that in the absence of any effective higher authority it was the perception of being in the right - along with economic interest - that would determine the behaviour of other states as the crisis unfolds. “It’s obvious there is no arbiter. In these circumstances it is moral righteousness that counts,” she said. Analysts say that both Russia and the West are uncertain how to move ahead in a way that allows each to stick to their principles while averting any escalation of already-soaring international tensions. They warn however that despite its own nervousness about the future course of events, Russia has no intention of turning back from what both its leadership and its population now identify as a worthy strategic course.
Moscow’s decision formally to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent, over the vocal objections of the United States and Europe, shows it has consciously taken its game beyond a point of no return, they say. “This does not testify to self-confidence, but to being prepared to take a huge risk,” Lukyanov said. afp
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