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Hernando Today

Georgia: Europe's Predicable Response

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By JOHN REINIERS, More Than Words

Hernando Today

Published: August 16, 2008

The Russians invade Georgia – a democracy – and the Brits call for "the fighting to cease and peace talks to start." This sounds like Neville Chamberlain redux – peace in our time. On the other hand, the president of the U.S. tells the world, "Russia has invaded a sovereign state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century!"
What's wrong with this picture? This is a European problem and, once again, Europe will not rise to the occasion. Their collective foreign policy is to let the U.S. incur the cost to provide for their security, while they spend their last dime on social programs. Bush's statement should have been made by France's Nicholas Sarkozy, now that France took over the presidency of the EU in July. The European Union has a total population of about 500 million, versus Russia's 142 million. Russia's population is dropping at the rate of 700,000 a year, with 25 million Muslims bucking this trend. The EU has armed forces totaling 1.6 million; Russia 1.2 million. It is estimated that by 2015 the majority of Russian army conscripts will be Muslim. And Russia has serious concerns about China's designs upon Siberia, which has most of its vast fossil fuel deposits. Many believe China is destined to control this region in another 50 years. Russia has significant multi-ethnic challenges that Europeans could exploit in negotiations.
George Bush's "Freedom Agenda" is based upon the premise that democracies do not invade other democracies. That speaks volumes about Russia, which is now bent on reclaiming its old empire. Ukraine will be the next to be intimidated, the Balkans next and the list goes on. At the moment their foreign policy viz a viz Europe is oil driven. Russia has it and seeks to intimidate Europe, which is energy poor. The BBC just reported that BP closed all three of its oil pipelines in Georgia, which is a European energy hub.
Sarkozy has ambitious plans for European security and defense – which I'm sure will make him as hated as George Bush. But the time is long overdue for the European Union to transform itself into a "military union." The heads of state of European democracies should be rattling their sabers and speaking out about this in no uncertain terms. They will not take action, and Vladimir Putin knows this.
Prior to World War I it was obvious in Europe that the Germans had an ambitious expansionist foreign policy. This reignited the Prussian militaristic tradition of using war as a "diplomatic" method of solving international problems. Europe did not unify to convince Germany; and the rest, as they say, was history with the United States playing the role of the cavalry coming to the rescue – the result being 116,500 Americans troops killed.
Europe is now in a situation eerily similar to Adolph Hitler's march in 1938 into the Sudetenland, which was ethnically German. Europe let it happen again, and after 416,000 American GIs were killed in action (all theaters), World War II was history. South Ossetia, Georgia's breakaway region, has ties to Russia with about 75,000 Russians, whereas the Sudetenland had about 3 million Germans. Abkhazia, declared independence from Georgia in 1994 and, believe it or not, is a Russian tourist destination for millions of Russian elites, given its sub-tropical climate. Both regions are not recognized internationally as independent states, but clearly have ties to the old Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Georgia signed the protocol agreeing to the break up of the old Soviet Union and forming a commonwealth of independent states. A contract is a contract.
Europe has a timeless history of every country belonging to one empire or the other over the millennia. It is a geographical moving target. Countries were cobbled together willy-nilly by either conquest, the spoils of war or treaties. Somebody – not the United States – should be an umpire over this ethnic mess. The United Nations is worthless. The European Union, for all its faults, is in the best position to determine and enforce the "equities" of any given situation.
If it doesn't, history will repeat itself, as the Russians, flush with pride over their new found natural resources, and rethinking the dissolution of their old empire, start on the same path as Germany did in 1938.

John Reiniers, a regular columnist for Hernando Today, lives in Spring Hill.

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