I Wonder Who's Kissinger Now
The irony is that George Bush, in his zeal to extend the U.S. imperial reach, has actually crippled it for the foreseeable future. McCain's determination to double down on Bush's foolishness will lose him the support of elites committed to the rational pursuit of U.S. global supremacy. In this sense, Osama Bin Ladin has won -- he hasn't come close to bringing down the U.S., but he has broken the back of American Empire. The provocation of 9-11 has bogged down the U.S. in the big muddy of Iraq, which misadventure has failed to resolve the ongoing distraction of Al Qaeda's machinations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
From this standpoint, one can actually appreciate the realpolitik of types like Henry Kissinger, dedicated more to balance of power calculations made possible by incremental maneuvers. Here's a sober review of the situation from a realist, ex-supporter of Bushist foreign policy. And here's another from a right-wing national security think tank.
McCain demonstrates his incompetence and stupidity by blundering ahead, huffing and puffing threats against Russia, writing checks his butt can't cash. Perhaps the McCainiacs reason that a stand for a Christian democratic ally will win votes. Also possible is that empty exhortations prompt President Ishkabibble of Georgia to lament the emptiness, thereby discrediting his empty-handed patron. Basically, McCain has put a "Hit me" sign on his posterior, inviting Putin to return a swift kick. As campaign strategy, this is pretty risky. As foreign policy, it's imbecilic.
The Clinton Administration has contributed to this debacle as well. FIrst, they encouraged the pointless, provocative expansion of NATO. Second, they created a precedent for international intervention in the affairs of a sovereign nation with the Serbia/Kosovo venture. Third, they upheld the priority of regime change in Iraq. Fourth, they and their descendants, present-day Democrats -- even Rachel Maddow! -- recite hackneyed scripts condemning Russia as an aggressor, notwithstanding the role of Georgia.
As we speak, Clintonoids filter into the Obama Administration-in-waiting. They encourage the knee-jerk impulse to involve the U.S. in affairs and places where it lacks standing and wherewithal. Old habits die hard.
The U.S. has zero leverage on Russia. The European allies depend on Russia for energy. Russia owns U.S. government securities that it can play with, affecting interest rates here. As noted, military assets are tied down in Bush's adventure and in futile pursuit of Osama. There were no military options in the Georgia in any case. The constraints on Russia were political, and between Kosova, Georgian provocation, and Iraq, these were ceded by the U.S.
By such incompetence, Russia is restored as a world power. China is also ascendant. Osama weakened the U.S., but strengthened two geopolitical enemies and one religious one (Iran). Heckuva job, Osama. If the U.S. doesn't get him, his co-religionists will.
When George Bush said he would usher in the age of a new, humble foreign policy, he didn't know how true that would be. The age of hyperpower is over. We're back in a multipolar world with the nuisance of radical Islam biting our ass. Time for a new Congress of Vienna.
Great post. One objection -- when Clinton tried to expand NATO, I don't think he was trying to be provoke... I think he hoped to just kind of end rivalries with Russia. I think the hope was: "Hey, we're all friends now, why should you care?" I seem to remember hopeful talk of Russia joining NATO even.
August 13, 2008 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Des . . . TOR!!! Puhleeze.
And do you really want to see the resurrection of that zombie Richard Holbrooke, she asked in a squeaky little voice.
August 13, 2008 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, good point Ellen.
August 14, 2008 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
after the likes of Condi Rice, Josh Bolton, Paul Bremer, etc, Holbrook would be a breath of fresh air. :-)
August 14, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Come on, now! NATO existed as a counter to what the west perceived as the danger of Soviet expansionism. With the end of the Soviet Union, the raison d'etre for NATO was gone. How could Russia have perceived the expansion of NATO except as an attempt to surround and control Russia. Clinton's policy was stupid and provocative. Obama's statement on extending NATO membership to include Georgia similarly is provocative. Makes me wonder about the man. Same old same old, not a man of courageous change, it seems. This was a blunder by Clinton and is a blunder by Obama, I'm afraid. We expect this sort of stupid sword rattling from McCain. We might have hope for more from Obama. This is tragic.
August 14, 2008 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm surprised to read that the Clinton administration upheld the priority of regime change in Iraq. Unless this means Senator Clinton's misguided vote to invade Iraq, I don't see how an out of office administration was able to do that.
In the case of NATO, like most bureaucracies, they became so embedded, and so many corporations became dependent on NATO for their income, the best policy of disbanding NATO couldn't be considered in the 1990's. Keeping NATO in any form was always going to provoke Russia eventually - NATO was formed solely as a defense against the USSR.
The real issue with NATO is that adding new countries adds new responsibilities to go to war over piddling little events, like the Georgia situation. We would now be at war with Russia if Europe had not resisted Bush's desire to add Georgia to NATO. And, as soon as Russia decides to take back Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, as they will, we will be at war with Russia then.
NATO cannot be a deterrent to Russian expansion today, if it ever was. NATO is now largely several divisions of keyboarders, backed by still more keyboarders in the US. We all have seen how well our keyboard brigade has deterred the misadventures of our own government.
However, given the superiority of our newest Microsoft products, we perhaps have a bigger advantage over Russia than I give us credit for.
August 13, 2008 11:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
As to Clinton and regime change in Iraq, here's Wikipedia's entry*.
* I didn't actually read it and couldn't fault you for not bothering to read it, either. But there it is.
August 13, 2008 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the eve of impeachment, Dec. 16, 1998, Bill Clinton addressed the nation:
Code named Operation Desert Fox.
According to William Arkin, Jan. 17, 1999 in the Washington Post:
Thirty-five of the 100 targets were selected because of their role in Iraq's air defense system....
The heart of the Desert Fox list (49 of the 100 targets) is the Iraqi regime itself...The origins of the Desert Fox target list go back to October, when high-level discussions in Washington led to the conclusion that military action was not only inevitable, but that it might actually achieve something. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), headquartered in Tampa, began to articulate the military mission of "degrading" and "diminishing" Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Gen. Anthony Zinni, the CENTCOM commander, insisted that the United States only bomb Iraqi sites that had been identified with a high degree of certainty, according to officers involved in the process.
Given the UNSCOM data flowing in, there was no end of choices....
It was not the first time; sanctions were not the only stick:
CNN, Sept. 3, 1996:
I always thought this history was a major part of the reason so many Americans supported the invasion of Iraq post 9/11.
After 9/11, I think many finally bought the argument that it was time to "finish the job" that the first President Bush had decided against, i.e., to end the continual cat-and- mouse, low level war games had supposedly hurt our all-powerful "scary" reputation, especially in the Mideast, enough to make us look weak, vulnerable, not willing to really enforce. Bin Laden even baited this with the "they will not spill their blood, they are afraid to put boots on the ground, they are chicken, they cut and run" type of thing. Of course, the point many Americans did not get was that that was precisely the type of reaction Bin Laden wanted from them for 9/11.
August 14, 2008 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oops, this part in my omment above should also be in blockquotes, from Arkin's article:
August 14, 2008 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
David Corn:
....what does Bush want to get done before the W. years are over. Not much, it seems.
He has not pushed a major domestic issue since his Social Security flop. He has not addressed the climate change crisis. He has not taken any decisive steps regarding the sliding-into-a-quagmire war in Afghanistan. He has taken no significant moves regarding health care. It's as if he is not merely a lame duck but the clockwatcher-in-chief
....is it possible that the last major overseas action of the president...will be waving a mini-Stars and Stripes at the Chinese games? How harmonious, as the Chinese say. link
Oh, and Clinton hasn't been the president since 2000, and Clinton didn't invade Iraq, Clinton didn't blow it on 9/11, George W. and his Republican administration did both.
August 14, 2008 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
NATO is a military alliance, and expanding NATO to the borders of Russia itself is not an act of friendship to Russia. Suppose Russia formed a military alliance with Mexico, training their troops, selling them military hardware, circulating advisors. Moreover, the point was not that NATO was preserved, but that it was expanded.
My reference to Clinton was during his tenure in office, during which time we had bloviation about deposing Saddam and Mad Albright saying so what if hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children died because of U.S. sanctions.
August 14, 2008 7:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
They were U.N. sanctions, not U.S. sanctions. Secondly, Albright's point was that the U.S. was not responsible for the misery of the Iraqi people, Saddam was and Saddam not only had the money to purchase food and medicine, the sanctions did not extend to humanitarian aid. Saddam chose not to purchase those goods.
August 14, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
The eastward expansion of NATO initiated by Clinton was a template for neoconservative
"transformation" of the Middle East.
Examining Clinton's relation to neoconservatism would make an interesting topic for discussion.
August 14, 2008 7:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rachel Maddow is not using the term "aggessor" for Russia on the radio, my venue for hearing her. Perhaps she fell into that pattern on TV.
She points out that Bill Clinton promised Russia we would not expand NATO to contact woth Russia's border.
August 14, 2008 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Henry Kissinger is a slippery figure to hold on to. He speaks of Russia cruising MySpace for a strategic partner but he was also instrumental in the development of pipelines that Russia sees as cutting into their turf.
While we are talking about the Clinton era, it is interesting to review Jofi Joseph's 1999 paper on the development of Caspian Sea pipelines and the role played for certain oil companies at that time. The essay details some of the ways the NATO expansion idea got into certain development brochures. Joseph also makes an observation that is interesting when framed in the rear view mirror of the intervening eight years:
In the midst of the present fog of war, it is hard to say how big a piece of Georgia the Russian Bear plans to gobble up. But one element of U.S. foreign policy has already taken a hit. If the U.S. insists on performing a victorious "fist pump" over the resolution in Georgia, it will give Russia a free pass to change certain relationships with Iran
August 14, 2008 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Love the title.
August 14, 2008 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. None of those HTML tags work.
The Josi Joseph is found: http://wws.princeton.edu/cases/papers/pipeline.pdf
The fog of war is here: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jVtipUYAI4s5su0l3iKTnR_VYi9AD92HTTK80
The reference to Iran is here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0815/p10s01-wome.html
August 14, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, everything is Clinton's fault. If it hadn't been for Clinton's interference the Serbs would have killed all the Kosovars and we wouldn't have this problem in Georgia. I suppose that to Clinton haters this makes perfect sense.
It couldn't have anything to do with Russia's dream of expansion of empire, or the longstanding feud between the Georgians and the Ossetians, who aided and abetted the Russian Soviet from 1918 to 1921 in bringing about an end to the real autonomy of the Georgian Soviet, making them a vassal state to the USSR, thus ending any dream of Georgian independence, which was promised to them by Lenin for their co-operation and aid in the Russian revolution. And of course, the fact that the Ossetians are again in league with Russia and acting as a conduit for the illegal smuggling of arms for the Russian oligarchy's wholesale market in illegal weapons distribution and deliberately sabotaging Georgia's economy by undermining it with those ill gotten proceeds and of course direct payments by the Russians along with the constant goading by Russia into a conflict.
Let's ignore the Russians' need for access to the Black Sea, a buffer between the Islamic radicals in Iran and the ethnic violence in the Caucusus which was spilling over into Russia and their support and goading of ethnic conflicts between the Georgians, Ossetians and Abkhazians to weaken Georgia while giving covert military aid to Abkhazian forces which threatened Georgia with a secessionist campaign, forcing Georgia to seek a protection treaty with Russia, the very nation that was seeking to destroy it, using the very same method Russia used in 1800 and 1921 to force Georgia into an alliance with Russia.
And then, the fact that after 9/11 the Bush administration flooded the former vassal states of Russia with weapons, soldiers, bases and money calling them the "frontline in the war on terror" and at the same time pushing for the recognition of independence for Kosovo and the admittance of Georgia into NATO knowing full well that Russia would not accept either because Russia had already forced Georgia into their own form of NATO, the CIS, by controlling the exportation of Georgian goods which effectively cut off any markets Georgia could develop.
Forget this centuries long history between Russia and Georgia and blame the "Clintonoids" like good little liberals who always toe the media narrative line - blame the Clintons.
August 14, 2008 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very helpful big picture ruminations, Bev, better than many think tankers I've read recently. Especially on the "Russian dreams of empire" thing; mho, anyone who doesn't approach diplomacy with Russia with it firmly in mind that many Russian citizens are still smarting on that theme is not worth listening to. I see a fixation on leaders instead of the actual people that live in the country, as many too often do in I.R. Here I don't see many dealing with the fact that lost pride problem will still be there deep in the population itself for at least a couple generations.
August 14, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, artappraiser. This problem has been boiling since 1800 and reached a crisis point in 1921 when the Bolsheviks in the Russian Soviet gave Ossetia autonomy as a present for their aiding and abetting of the Bolshiviks by overt and covert operations during the Russian civil war. There is a long and complex history here and it amazes me that this is painted as a suddenly arisen conflict between Ossetians and Georgians. The Ossetians have been covertly and overtly sabotaging Georgian sovereignty for years and Russia has been funding and aiding them in this. Russia has been overflying Georgian territory since April, goading the Georgians into action.
What Clinton did or didn't do has very little to do with this present crisis - this is just one of many in a long history of conflict between Georgia and Russia. This is just another case of pundits rushing in to declare who is right and wrong without any clear picture of the history behind this event.
Georgians were stupid to walk into the trap, but Russia was criminal in provoking the Georgians and baiting the trap.
August 14, 2008 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
For an alternative view -- Mensheviks v. Bolsheviks.
August 14, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have one paragraph in the post zinging Clinton & Co., and you inflate that to "everything is Clinton's fault." I think you are the one mired in hyperbole.
I actually supported the Kosova operation at the time, though more recently I've been having second and third thoughts. It's not at all obvious that the Kosovars would have been massacred, though they were certainly abused (and returned it with abuse, not necessarily proportionate, of their own). What is clear is that the U.S. murdered Serbian civilians rather than risk the lives of ground troops, a crime that sullys whatever good can be ascribed to the U.S. intervention.
More generally, I won't try and contest your accounts of the machinations of rival soviets 90 years ago. I can try and summarize, however: great power competition gets messy and often lethal for innocents on the ground.
That's what this is, great power competition, with the older ethnic rivalries providing combustible materials for those pursuing geo-political and geo-commercial motives. In this setting, our two most recent presidents, plus McCain, have shown themselves to be utter boobs.
"U.N. sanctions, not U.S. sanctions." To paraphrase John McEnroe, you can't be serious!
But thanks for writing!
August 14, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
mired in hyperbole
???????
This from the Modern Master of Metaphor? The Verbal Virtuoso? The Well-Schooled Skillful Slinger of Simile?
Kidding! We kid! We kid because we love!
August 14, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're backpedaling and I don't blame you, but you certainly did blame Clinton and the "Clintonoids" and their "descendants" all waiting to "filter into the Obama administration" with their "knee jerk reactions...even Rachel Maddow" who just might see a bigger picture than perhaps you do. Let's not forget that the Russians have been overflying Georgian airspace since April, which a pretty damned provocative act, considering the long simmering feud between the two nations, not to mention the fact that Russia sent troops into Abkhazia in April.
The point is that this is a long simmering feud, which over the centuries has broken out periodically in war and doesn't have as much to do with the pissing match between the U.S. and Russia as it does between the history of Russia and Georgia and it is too complex to claim that Georgia's request to join NATO or the expansion of NATO has caused this.
As to Kosovo, I don't think that the death of U.S. troops would have ennobled the cause anymore than the lack of their death sullied it.
August 14, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't claim that the Mensheviks were better than the Bolsheviks. I claimed that the Georgians had an autonomous soviet before the Bolsheviks ever consolidated their power in Russia and the Russian soviets used the Ossetians, awarding them their own autonomous territory in Georgia because of the covert and overt help they gave to the Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war to overrun Georgia.
Perhaps this conflict is a tad more complicated than Clinton's expansion of NATO in Europe.
August 14, 2008 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
And let me point out that Lenin promised Georgia full autonomy in exchange for the Georgians' support during the Russian revolution. I might also add that to claim that Georgian mensheviks were Leninist Marxists is a bit simple - they were closer to social democrats and were foremost Georgian nationalists.
August 14, 2008 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
"From this standpoint, one can actually appreciate the realpolitik of types like Henry Kissinger, dedicated more to balance of power calculations made possible by incremental maneuvers."
The trouble with "realpolitik" by Kissinger is the same problem as George Bush has with "spreading democracy". The deeds never matched the words. The "realpolitik" of supporting the Shah of Iran has proven to be the biggest nightmare to American foreign policy in the last several decades. It turned out Kissinger's balance of power calculations overly favored dictatorships and monarchies and ended up being just plain WRONG in the longer run (but just like a CEO cutting corners to meet this quarters goals, Kissinger was happy to push the cost of his policies onto his successors).
August 14, 2008 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me that the difference between the two views expressed in this thread boil down pretty much to adjectives.
If one likes the Georgians, one speaks of Russian imperialism and aggression and the Ossettians sabotage and undermining operations.
If one likes the breakaway provinces, one describes them as autonomous democracies-in-progress and Saakasvilli as the new Stalin.
Whichever way you see it, it is rather apparent to me that Mr. (or is it Dr?) Rotweiller's central point is made: We have three (or four depending on how you count 'em) eastern-European entities all behaving in a manner that each finds justifiable and in its own self-interest, while all the United States can do -- McCain's posturing and strutting notwithstanding -- is blow into its inflatable neoCodpiece.
August 14, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point is that this is far more complicated and it is facile and gratuitous to blame the "Clintonoids" for any part of this. This feud has been going on since imperial Russia deposed the Georgian king and forced the alliance of the two countries in 1800 and it is an ongoing conflict. It is a story of continual betrayal, alliances, misalliances, subterfuge, overt and covert sabotage between the two which again and again has hit a crisis point.
The crisis of the Russian revolution is still a point of contention between the two republics with loyalties torn and retied over and over during that time with loyalties swinging back and forth with lightening speed. The Georgians supporting the the new Russian government after abdication by the emperor, to the Georgians forming a social democratic republic as a separate entity, to the Ossetians supporting the Georgians, to the Ossetians supporting the Russian Leninists, and back again to where they started only to turn around and start all over again with the British and Germans meddling continually within the spheres of both territories all laid atop a world war.
So Rotwang's point, that this is somehow the fault of Clinton is ridiculous and it buys into the conservative narrative that all the ills of the world can be laid at the feet of democrats. This is the last thing democrats need, this falling in line with the media story that democrats are always to blame.
August 14, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obviously Clinton had nothing to do with causing the long-standing ethnic problems in the Caucasus. I don't think anyone is actually accusing his administration of that.
However, there is no question that there was a bi-partisan foreign policy throughout the 1990's of deliberately weakening Russia, encouraging nationalistic and anti-Russian sentiment in former USSR republics, and expanding NATO eastward to enlarge the American sphere of influence.
In Georgia, the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline was probably the first priority of the Clinton administration. One only has to read Holbrooke's bellicose writings in the Washington Post this week to understand how Russophobic the Clinton-era neoliberals were. The only reason Clinton foreign policy seems rosy to us today is that the Bush team is so much worse.
August 14, 2008 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I agree with you that Mr. R. oversimplified, particularly with regard to the Balkan adventures, my point was that everyone in this dispute is taking the same set of facts and applying their own lenses and filters to print a picture that supports their prejudices.
There's nothing unusual about that practice in human political intercourse, but it needs to be highlighted from time to time.
August 14, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
heck of a job, georgie:
George Bush, in his zeal to extend the U.S. imperial reach, has actually crippled it for the foreseeable future
disaster accomplished
August 14, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
any comments on how the new missile deal with Poland plays into this ???
does anybody realize we're making promises and threatening Russia with a missile defense system that doesn't work ???
August 14, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
We have highter income,but less morals runescape gold
August 14, 2008 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a laugh! If there were rational elites of any significance in this country, we'd be taking global warming seriously, instead of playing with little plastic pieces on a Risk board.
It's absolutely true the Bush administration's dim-wittedness brought us to this point. And both McCain AND Obama are now taking a more belligerent stance than Bush. How scary is that?
August 15, 2008 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
What a laugh! If there were rational elites of any significance in this country, we'd be taking global warming seriously, instead of playing with little plastic pieces on a Risk board.
It's absolutely true the Bush administration's dim-wittedness brought us to this point. And both McCain AND Obama are now taking a more belligerent stance than Bush. How scary is that?
August 15, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink