By Frank Ledwidge
Anyone who has been to Georgia and Albania will immediately see the similarities. A fiercely independent largely mountainous country, with a strong culture, often misunderstood by its neighbours. In one way though, Albania has shown itself to be far more in tune with contemporary reality than Georgia. There is little point now in going into the details of who did what immediately before the momentous invasion of Georgia by Russia on 8th August. At the very least it was ill-advised for the rather weak Georgian military to be inserted into its largely hostile province. It was always likely to provoke the more than ready Russian military. A distant analogy, although nonetheless an analogy, would be the Albanian army intervening in Kosovo in 1993. South Ossetia of course, unlike Kosovo, is a province of Georgia although for many years it has been well outside Georgian control. North Ossetia is a Province of Russia
Whoever was at fault the response of the West has been lamentable. As might be expected from a lame American regime, there was nothing but mealy mouthed words. Earlier this week the mighty US Navy turned one of its ships back from delivering ‘aid’ in one of Georgia’s ports for fear of an annoyed Russian response. As for the EU, the less said the better. Having failed to deliver any useful response to the Russian invasion, the UK and France are now trying to put together a
‘Coalition against Russian aggression’ composed of former Soviet states. I thought we already had such a coalition and that it was called NATO. There has been plenty of talk about a new 19th century style Russia. But it is worse than that. What Russia has done is show that things have not really changed these past few decades, and national power blocs still very much are to be reckoned with. The implication of this is that Western strategy has been totally misconcieved these past eight years.
For all the diplomatic rhetoric, the only response that might interest a Russia that now considers it ‘payback time’ was the deployment of the US Marines, and European allies to defend Tbilisi and send an unequivocal signal. Given that the US and the UK are now fighting peripheral brush wars in various desert states, that was not going to happen.
Meanwhile the Russians are smiling all the way. ‘How dare you criticise us’ they say ‘after what you did to Serbia? All we were doing was protecting our citizens in a humanitarian intervention. And besides, these states are now independent, just like Kosovo’. There is not too much the West can say beyond bleating that ‘Kosovo was different’.
While we in the West have been looking at irrelevant or nugatory threats, the Russians have been planning a comeback on the world stage.
They may very well be looking at correcting what they consider to be irregularities closer to home. Watch the Crimea over the next few years. Meanwhile this is bad news for Kosovo. There will be little appetite for recognition amongst key countries who have not yet accepted her independence.
