SADLY, it is not too difficult to believe the following imaginary discussion occurring in the White House last week: “Mr President, Russian troops have invaded Georgia.” “Hell, I was playing golf in Atlanta only a few weeks ago. How’d they manage to sneak across the Atlantic without us noticing? Let’s nuke Moscow immediately.”
George W Bush is both reckless and naïve. It is his stupidity that has led Georgia to humiliating defeat and handed Russia a military and propaganda victory. He encouraged Georgia to join Nato, despite it being a tiny country we could not possibly defend militarily against its giant neighbour.
Regardless of this obvious harsh reality, Georgia’s pro-Western President was deluded enough by Dubya’s gung-ho ignorance to provoke Russia. Inevitably, he was swatted like a gnat.
Like Czechoslovakia in 1938, Georgia is involved in “a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing”. Its ethnic minorities also reject Georgian nationality and look to Russia, just as the Sudeten Germans looked to Hitler’s Reich.
Former Soviet satellites in Europe feared Russia and so sought mutual protection by joining Nato. In an ideal world, Georgia would do the same. Bush promoted the idea last year but, thankfully, the idea was vetoed by France and Germany, otherwise we would have been obliged to send troops to Georgia’s aid.
After this week’s debacle, it is incomprehensible that David Cameron has called for Georgia’s Nato membership application to be fast-tracked. What planet is he living on? Foreign policy must be determined by realities, not wishful thinking.
A realistic foreign policy also requires a sympathetic understanding of Russia’s psychology. Until 1990, it was a superpower that had ruled its non-Russian subjects with a rod of iron for centuries.
The collapse of the Soviet Union gave many of these peoples independence but, just like post-1918 Germany, Russia was humiliated by the loss of territory and superpower status.
Naturally, it wants to recover its self-respect. It also fears being encircled by Nato. This fear is fed by Bush wanting to station nuclear missiles in former Warsaw Pact countries on Russia’s borders, notwithstanding the end of the Cold War.
This foolishness was bound to exacerbate Russian paranoia. How would we have felt 30 years ago if Russian missiles had been installed in Ireland, pointing at Britain?
Of course, Georgia’s independence should be respected but British and US criticism of Russia’s behaviour is fatally undermined by our own illegal invasion of Iraq.
I do not condone Russia’s invasion of Georgia but we have to understand the pressures that made it happen and allowed it to succeed.
Similarly, Russia needs to understand that political machismo can be expensive. Despite the importance of its vast energy resources, it is still a poor country and it needs Western capital and expertise. However, Wild West attitudes make business activity there increasingly risky.
Apparently, with tacit State support, Russian oligarchs are trying to freeze BP out of a massive oil and gas project that accounts for 25 per cent of the multinational’s worldwide production.
Such bandit tactics will inevitably rebound and the country’s long-term national interest will be sacrificed for short-term personal gain.
If Putin is put out, nuisances can easily end up in prison. Real “traitors” can even be poisoned with radioactive polonium. That was Alexander Litvinenko’s “reward” for accusing the Russian secret service of planning to assassinate a London-based oligarch and political opponent of Putin.
Yet again, our Government picked a diplomatic fight it could not win. It persists in pressing Russia to extradite the prime suspect despite its constitution forbidding it. As a result, Anglo-Russian diplomatic relations have plunged into the deep freeze.
There are no real winners in any of these conflicts. Georgia has effectively been dismembered. The US and Nato have been exposed as impotent. Russia risks isolation and losing access to the investment and know-how so vital for its economic development. Britain and Europe’s strategic energy interests are increasingly under threat.
It is time to get real on Russia. Mercifully, the Texan imbecile’s catastrophic Presidency is about to expire. Britain and America need a fresh start. Foreign policy should be practical, hard-headed and based on national self-interest, not windy theories of human rights and other abstractions.
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