Georgia makes a boo boo

Yeah, I’ve been busy with the Olympics to really follow the Georgia violence. But I had some time today so I decided to read up, and form my own educated view on the issue.

This article here at the NYT was pretty helpful too:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/world/europe/11ticktock.html?pagewanted=1&ref=europe

What is essentially happening right now is this: Georgian forces are getting their asses kicked by the Russians, refugees are fleeing both into Georgia, and into Russia (two different directions), and the Georgian army is wondering where NATO / the US is? Why are they not helping?

The context is the following:

Georgia was under Moscow’s control for the last 200 years, but broke away after the Soviet Union disintegrated. Four regions however remained in contention, with (it seems) like many of their citizens with alliances towards Russia rather than Georgia.

Russia started a program pre-2004, handing out passports to people in these disputed regions. More than 1/2 of these people now hold Russian passports.

Georgia was able to take over 2/4 of the regions with minimal violence. But most recently, they pushed their military into the remaining two regions. They met with local resistance, and started killing people. Russia tried to negotiate peacefully on the behalf of these regions for 3 days, but Georgia continued with its aggression.

So what happened? Russia pushed in, and is now kicking some serious ass. Georgia is left wondering why the West didn’t come to help – it had advertised itself as a new Democracy, and was banking on its fellow democracies to come to its support.

Big mistake. Russia is putting you in your place now, and sorry… Mommy and Daddy aren’t gonna come help. Realists 1, liberalists 0.

This is a pretty great example of how at the end of the day, nations are most concerned with their own interests, not fluffy ideals or philosophies. States are inherently selfish. The Georgian president should have thought hard about why the US / NATO would have any interest in intervening, especially against Russia. Your fuzzy ideas of democracy won’t help you, and this is a pretty strong rebuke in my opinion to the liberalism school of thought in IR.