From Kosovo to Abkhazia

Over the past few weeks, the Russians have used America's reccent actions in Kosovo again and again as a precedent for their own recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia this past Monday. (In February of this year, the U.S. recognized Kosovo as an independent state over the objections of Serbia, to which Kosovo had belonged until then.)

As insistent as the Russians have been in pushing the Kosovo analogy, however, I happen to think they are still selling their own case short. In Kosovo, afterall, the U.S. had no compelling national interest whatsoever. This little country is nowhere near our border, its citizens do not hold U.S. passports, and neighboring Serbia did not constitute anything even vaguely resembling a threat to our security. (On that last point, however, the reverse is definitely not true: we bombed Serbia in 1999, even though there was no clear-cut evidence of any Serb-on-Kosovar ethnic cleansing--as Washington claimed. How could there be? The Kosovar Serbs were outnumbered by the ethnic Albanians nearly ten to one!)

But consider now Russia's predicament in the Caucuses:

• The expansion of NATO right up to Russia's very borders would indeed constitute a direct threat to their national security. And even if you are of the opinion the we can be trusted not to abuse our "forward-leaning" position there at some point in the future (by, say, stationing ABM's in Georgia, as we just did in Poland after unilaterally abandoning the Nixon-era ABM treaty), why should Russia trust us? Years ago, would we ever have tolerated any attempt on Russia's part to expand the Warwaw Pact to include Mexico or Canada? I know it's a stretch to imagine such a thing, since neither Mexico nor Canada would ever have wanted to go along with this. But supposing the Soviets could have engineered some sort of coup or revolution in Mexico which brought a far left-wing regime to power there? Well, that's exactly what happened in Cuba, wasn't it? And you know how we responded there. Even before there was any talk of putting missles on the island, we tried to overthrow Castro during the failed Bay of Pigs landing. I'm with the sceptics on this one: expanding NATO eastward was and remains a dangerously provocative policy.
• And what about the rights and national aspirations of the South Ossetians and the Abkhazians? Are they any less deserving of independence and personal security than the Kosovar Albanians? Even if the Russians are being cynical is raising the point (and I'm sure they are), that doesn't prove them wrong. What, afterall, were our motives in Kosovo? I have just made the point that it surely couldn't have been about our national security, since neither Kosovo nor Serbia are anywhere near our border. Could our actions there, perhaps, have had something to do with our desire to make permanent our military presence in the Balkans to act as a way-station for all of our activities in the Middle East and the Caucuses? (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Bondsteel)

I think the Russians would help their case much more if they asked questions like these, rather than going on about U.S. election conspiracy theories, as Putin did earlier today (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/28/georgia.russia2).