Recently we have been assailed with images and a flurry of words about the conflict between Russia and Georgia over the “breakaway republic” of South Ossetia. Its difficult for me to make too much sense of this situation, since I don’t know very much about the situation and since any experts on the situation are usually heavily biased and its difficult to discern “truth” when writers or commentators are subtly or obviously promoting an agenda.

Nevertheless, there are a number of revealing points which emerge from examining the situation. In this situation, I appeal to others to try to look at it from the perspective, not that we are interested in promoting one side or the other as an interested party in the conflict, but from the perspective of what is best for humanity as a whole.

Of course, at a most basic level, what is best for humanity as a whole is to avoid warfare, bloodshed and military conflict. Its clear that in this conflict a great number of people died, which ideally, should never have happened. Further, thousands of people were displaced from their homes, and extensive damage was done to civilian property which will no doubt affect those people for quite a while to come.

It also reflects a fundamental underlying question which we are facing at this time in history, which is, how should separatist or secessionist regions and movements be dealt with? On the one hand, we could argue that people have the right to self- determination, and so they should be allowed to withdraw from a country if they so desire. On the other hand, many, especially those who have their own nation’s interests at heart (i.e. nationalists) assert the right of their nation to protect its territorial integrity whether some sections of the population wish to withdraw or not.

It is beyond me at this point to answer this question, whose answer seems that it would be highly subjective. It could be argued that encouraging separatist movements is an invitation to military conflict, either before or after secession (as two states are more likely to go to war than one), and that, in order to avoid warfare, it would be far better to attempt to establish an equitable arrangement (for perhaps some degree of autonomy within a unified state).

On the other hand, in many cases, separatist movements simply will never accept to be part of another nation to which they feel they are alien. It seems to me that in our era, there has been a proliferation of these kind of conflicts and separatist movements. Muslim groups in particular, seem to be unable to accept being part of another nation which is not predominantly Muslim, with Chechnya, southern Thailand, and the southern Philippines being examples of this. I wonder if, as time goes on, and state control of its regions increases with development and technology, separatist movements gain greater attraction to groups since they feel the power of the state more. In earlier times, the state may have been more remote, and control more limited, so that the need to secede was not so imminent. At the same time, increased communication and knowledge has made separatist groups more aware of the struggles of other groups, and therefore bolder to assert their own causes.

One thing seems to have emerged clearly, however: there is one set of rules for powerful states, such as Russia and China, which have a free hand to rein in separatist regions such as Chechnya and Tibet, and weaker states, such as Georgia or Serbia, which are prevented from asserting their sovereignty by various powers.

The case of Kosovo, of course, looms large in the case of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. I know little about Kosovo or the former Yugoslavia, but one thing I learned recently is that Kosovo may become a precedent for the secession of other regions of the world. To the lay observer, whose comments one might read on any discussion forum, there seems to be no difference between these cases. However, not knowing anything about it, I’m aware that there may be specific qualitative differences between the case of Kosovo and South Ossetia that would justify separation in one case and not in another.

Which raises another question: Are there any specific criteria that must be met to justify the secession and separation of a certain region to create a new state, or is it only to be determined by power politics? Of course, one can always appeal to international law, but that raises the issue that international law itself is not above being arbitrary and subjective, and begs the question- how should international law be established?

Again, although I’m not familiar with the subject, there must be some existing international law pertaining to this, as I believe it was the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which determined that Western Sahara should be granted independence from Morocco.

Assigning Blame

In the actual details of this conflict, it seems that neither Georgia nor Russia can escape blame entirely. According to BBC, Russia started flying planes over South Ossetia a few months ago, which would be a violation of Georgian airspace. The Georgians, on their part escalated the problem by pressing its troops into South Ossetia to regain control over the region. This can be judged as unethical or not, depending on how one answers the subjective question of whether states have the right to assert control over separatist regions. It seems clear however, that the humanitarian consequences of Georgia’s assault were considerable on the population of South Ossetia.

Russia, for its part, then justified its counter- assault on the allegation that it was protecting its citizens and “peacekeepers”. This seems to be a dubious claim, however, since Russia’s soldiers can hardly be seen as peacekeepers, given that Russia is not impartial and has strategic and territorial interests in the region. While Russia does not currently seem to want to annex South Ossetia, this seems like a real possibility in the future. Further, its “citizens” that it alleged to be protecting were former Georgian citizens to whom Russia granted citizenship. Citizenship in this case is a bit questionable, since they were in fact originally Georgian citizens, and Georgia presumably did not want to lose those citizens, but in fact had them taken away from them in a strategic move by Russia. So I can’t take Russia’s arguments very seriously in this case.

We can note, also, a trend in current international affairs, to justify military intervention on humanitarian grounds, as Russia argued that Georgia had committed “genocide” in South Ossetia, and their invasion was necessary from a humanitarian perspective. These arguments are dubious to the impartial, but play well to those who are already on the Russians side (such as Russian citizens). This trend in modern international affairs seems to be a dangerous one, since it masks aggression in the guise of a positive motive. While I would not say that military intervention on humanitarian grounds should never occur, I think the instances should be very limited, and should proceed according to a strict set of criteria, and should occur only in relative consensus that the situation justifies it.

Then, when Russia had defeated Georgia and Georgia had withdrawn from South Ossetia, it seems that Russia went too far by continuing to attack Georgian territory by bombing Georgian cities and invading Georgian territory from Abkhazia. I can’t see anything to justify this, and certainly when Georgia asked for peace, the attacks should have stopped immediately.

Double Standards All Around

One thing is clear in this case: virtually all of the major powers involved have shown themselves to be inconsistent on the issue of secessionist regions and invasion of sovereignty. On the one hand, Russia was against the secession of Kosovo, but it supports the secessionist ambitions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (without directly recognizing these regions as separate states). Also, while it encourages these regions, even enforcing their separation through the presence of its troops, it refuses to allow Chechnya to be a separate state and has invested massive resources in holding onto Chechnya.

The Western countries, for their part, allowed Kosovo to become independent, but seem to support Georgia in its efforts to regain the two breakaway regions. Further, almost no one has failed to notice the irony of George Bush criticizing Russia for invading “the sovereign state” of Georgia (carefully referred to it as a state with a legitimately elected democratic government), when it was Bush’s administration that invaded the sovereign state of Iraq.

Russia, on the other hand, has roundly criticized the US invasion of Iraq, but then went ahead and invaded Georgia. To its credit, however, it did not occupy Georgia or conduct “regime change” as the US did in Iraq.

Realpolitik: Who Won and Who Lost?

Leaving aside moral and ethical considerations of who was right and who was wrong, another level of analysis is: who won in this confrontation and who lost? Some people avoid considerations of right and wrong all together and consider this to be the only factor which is important in politics.

The South Ossetians, it seems were the biggest losers. While they did not lose their separate status, their territory was annihilated and their people traumatized. Politically, they are at the same place that they were before, except that they have been decimated.

At first, it appears that Sakashvili, the Georgian President, lost, since his objectives failed, and Georgia’s military was badly damaged. One has to wonder, however, whether Sakashvili did not do this deliberately to make it appear that his country really needs NATO protection and membership, making Georgia’s appeal to NATO more urgent in the future. One also has to wonder how this will play to the Georgian public. If the Georgians feel that they were victimized and unite against Russia, then it may ultimately be a political victory for him. But if Georgians feel humiliated by the defeat and blame Sakashvili, then it will be a political loss for him.

The Russians appear to have won. They asserted their military strength and accomplished their objective of maintaining the status of South Ossetia. The Russian public is no doubt impressed and proud to have “kicked some butt”. However, the Georgians did succeed in shooting down some of their planes, at least somewhat weakening Russian militarily. More importantly, if this event is interpreted by the Western countries as an act of aggression which shows Russia as a potential danger, it could be harmful to Russia diplomatically in the long run.

The Role of the US and the West

A number of citizen commentators in online forums seem to blame this problem on the US, for supplying Georgia with arms and encouraging them by supporting their NATO aspirations. They note the oil pipeline running through Georgia from the Caspian Sea. Again, I feel that this is a pretty subjective consideration. On the one hand it could be argued that the US and Western countries are supporting a democratically elected government which reflects Western liberal democracy, and contains the ambitions of Russia, which has become increasingly authoritarian and “illiberal”. Some have even argued that Russia has become fascistic. It is obvious that Russia is far from being a functioning democracy, and in international affairs, repeatedly sides with other dubious regimes like China, which is one of the world’s most important political rights abusers.

On the other hand, one could argue that the US doesn’t actually care about liberal democracy, but is actually only seeking to secure resources like oil in its policy in Georgia. Others regularly refer to US policy as “imperialist” and see this as another example of imperialism, asserting that the US should stay out of the region, and that Georgia should be neutral. They argue that the US doesn’t really care about Georgia, but is just using it as a pawn.

I can’t really making a determination about this as it is a highly subjective debate, and I don’t claim to fully understand the motives of US foreign policy actions. In fact, I would guess that there is a mixture of motives at play.

The Weakness of the UN

The weakness of the UN was again revealed in this conflict. Since one of the veto wielding Security Council members was directly involved, no resolution could pass the Security Council, which was divided in its opinion on the events. To those who argue for reform of the UN, this would be a sign that the Security Council should be expanded, that veto power should be abolished to prevent paralysis, or perhaps that decision making should be devolved to the General Assembly level. Yet even this last proposal would have its flaws, because any decision making in the GA would reflect more the international balance of the ruling regimes in the world, rather than representing what the world’s citizens would want. Unless the representatives to the UN were actually elected, more power to the GA would also have its drawbacks. And even if the world’s citizens voted for UN reps, we cannot assume that they would know enough about this or other conflicts to make an informed decision.

So, while we can note that the UN was ineffective in this case, we can’t necessarily draw any conclusion about what lessons this experience shows us about how the UN should be structured.

Conclusions

It seems to me that the recent conflict creates many questions, rather than providing any real answers. The apparent ability of many citizen commentators to come up with hard and fast assessments seems to reflect more their pre-existing political prejudices than any real definitive new understanding which they have gained from the situation.

While I cannot answer many of my own questions, I’d like to return to my original point that, rather than taking our original biases as a starting point, we would be better to proceed from the criterion that any solution or evaluation be informed by what is in the best interests of the entire world’s people, rather than any specific population. Further, assessments should be made not only on the basis of realpolitik, and “might makes right”, and that the winner is justified merely by winning. Rather, we should proceed by trying to determine what is in the best interests of the world’s people, and by attempting to determine an ethical international policy.

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