The Georgia War and the Century of “Real Power”
Anthony H. Cordesman
August 18, 2008
It is easy to view the war in Georgia in Cold War or American ideological terms, just as it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing the world in terms of slogans like “soft power” or “smart power.” In practical terms, however, the fighting in Georgia is not a warning about some new drift into great power confrontation or a new Cold War. It is a reminder that the world is not shaped by democratic values, international law, good intentions, globalism, rational bargains, or the search for dialogue. All of these elements do play an important role, but classic power politics are just as real as ever. Nation states still have the guns and missiles. More powerful states will bend or break the rules when they feel it is in their interest to do so and when there is no opposing power bloc that can pose a convincing threat.
As we consider the foreign and defense policies that the next Administration should follow, it is important to note that pragmatism based on realpolitik is far more likely to serve our interests, those of our friends and allies, and the world, than sustaining a neoconservative American morality play—or replacing it with a neoliberal version. The conflict in Georgia should be as much a reminder of the dangers of overreaching American power and influence as a reminder that Russia, China and many other powers do not share our values and goals.
Russia and China may not be peer powers, but they are becoming increasingly strong regional powers and they will act on their perceptions of their interests. For the foreseeable future, they will do so on the basis of goals and values that differ from ours. They may or may not evolve towards US or “Western” goals and values, but this is more likely to be a matter of decades than years. In the interim, there is no reason for them to be enemies, and they may often be partners, but they will also be competitors and act with a degree of ruthlessness that we will sometimes be able to contain and other times have to accept.
This means we cannot afford to demonize any nation, particularly a major regional power. The sequence of events in Georgia is still unclear, and some reports indicate that the US did counsel restraint on Georgia and did make attempts to keep it from provoking Russia. There are, however, an equal number of indicators that we forgot that Russia has its own interests and they are not ours, and that an expanding US presence in its near abroad, along with the expansion of NATO and the EC, would be seen as a threat.
We pushed too far on the periphery of a re-emergent Russia, and we pushed at least a country, not just a bridge too far. In the process, we almost certainly played an inadvertent role in convincing a “rabbit” that it could provoke a “bear.” If anything, we are lucky that the “bear” did not eat the “rabbit.”
Accordingly, if there is any lesson that can be drawn from the fighting in Georgia, it is a lesson that should have been clear long ago. America’s so-called status as a superpower does not prevent us from living in a multipolar world in which America’s “real power” is sometimes challenged by Russia and China, and is at other times ignored because they see other strategic interests as more important....cont'd
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080817_cordesman_georgia.pdfAnthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
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