What’s the matter with Georgia?

Unless you’ve been hiding behind the giant NBC logo shaped rock that is the Olympics for the past few days you’ve probably noticed that we have a splendid little war (or to be more precise a “peacekeeping conflict”) on our hands in Georgia. In case you have been hiding under that rock, on the seventh of August Georgian forces invaded the seperatist region of South Ossetia, breaking an hours-old ceasefire. The next day Russia invaded Georgia to support its quasi-client quasi-state, and chaos ensued.

Then on the 10th of August the Georgians, having realized that they tried to bite off more than they could chew declared a ceasefire and ordered their troops to leave South Ossetia. However, Russia was in no mood for a ceasefire and continued to merrily tear its way through Georgian territory, today moving into Georgia from Abzhakia the other breakaway province under Russian protection. Georgia meanwhile is spiraling into chaos, having declared a state of emergency and recalled its 2000 man deployment in Iraq, the third largest in the country after the US and Britain.

To me with my love for historical allusions this entire situation seems like Korea redux, except this time with the places switched. Just like in Korea Georgia launched a surprise offensive in the hopes of reuniting a split nation. Just like in Korea after a few early successes the aggressor found itself pitted against an intervening superpower that decisively turned the tide of the war, and now just like in Korea the attacker finds itself on the ropes and in retreat.

So it falls on the United States to play its part in this little historical reenactment – that of China. Just as Mao warned United Nations forces not to cross the 38th Parallel, so we should warn the Russians to stop their incursions into Georgia, while allowing them to maintain control over Abzhakia and South Ossetia, and be ready to back up our warnings with force if need be.

Now I’ll be the first to point out that the Georgian government is not perfect; far from it in fact. As I said before, the Georgians were the aggressors in this situation, and should take the blame for that. Furthermore, having supported the principles of self-determination by recognizing Kosovo, the United States cannot now violate those principles by forcibly reuniting Georgia. However, Georgia is also an outpost of democracy in an increasingly authoritarian part of the world. True it is not exactly a “model democracy”, but first-time democracies rarely are, and even a halfway democracy is better than Putin’s (and it is still very much Putin’s) one-party state.

Then of course there is the threat that by intervening in Georgia we may very well cause World War 3, as the Russians will imediately turn their nuclear arsenal on us, blindly destroying the world. Luckily, all parties involved are much smarter than that. Putin and his cohorts, who mastered the art of self-preservation and enrichment in the post-Soviet years would not rush blindly into conflict with a far-superior US and NATO. We can help moderate things by starting small. We should declare an American/NATO guarantee of Georgian (but not Abzhakian or South Ossetian) airspace, and back it up by sending planes into that airspace, and shooting down Russian planes if need be. From there we can escalate to providing air support for Georgian attacks on Russian forces (once again, only within true Georgia), until the Russians finally realize that we are willing to defend Georgia.

We can do that, or we can sit back and watch as the rest of the world sees the West abandon yet another fledgling democracy to the forces of authoritarianism, as its leaders kowtow (in the historical sense of the world) to another one-party state. Hopefully the President, and his NATO “allies” will show that they have some semblance of a spine left, and do the right thing.