Fareed Zakaria: The Georgia attack will go down not as the dawn of a new era of Russian power but as a major strategic blunder
... The attack on Georgia will go down not as the dawn of a new era of Russian power but as a major strategic blunder. Look at what has happened. Russia has scared its neighboring states witless, driving them firmly into the arms of the West. For almost two years, Poland had been dragging its feet on the American proposal to deploy missile interceptors in that country as part of a continent wide shield (a few months ago public support for the shield varied between 15 and 25 percent). Within days of the Russian attack, Warsaw agreed to the deployment. Ukraine had long been divided on whether to have closer ties to the West. A few years ago, 60 percent of the country wanted some kind of federation with Russia instead. Now the Kiev government has unhesitatingly asked for a path to NATO membership.
Vladimir Putin has done more for transatlantic unity than a President Barack Obama ever could. The United States and Europe are now in greater strategic agreement than at any point in the last two decades. Even the autocracies in the Caucasus have reacted negatively to the attack, refusing to endorse Russia's actions and legitimize the new facts on the ground. China has refused its support. And what did Russia get for all this? Seventy thousand South Ossetians.
Several diplomats and commentators have compared the attack on Georgia to the Soviet Union's invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. I think a more telling historical parallel might prove to be the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Then, as now, a Kremlin elite drunk on high oil prices foolishly overreached and triggered a countervailing reaction in the region and across the world.
The truth is, we're not in the 19th century, where the Russian intervention would have been standard operating procedure for a great power. In fact, only 50 years ago Britain and France clung to their colonies—in Algeria, Vietnam, Kenya, Cyprus—with much greater determination and violence than has Moscow. By contrast, this is the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union that Russia has sent troops into a neighboring country (a country that it had ruled since 1801). Its actions are deplorable but the reaction to them —worldwide—is a sign of how much the rules have changed. President George W. Bush seemed to understand this when he spoke of Russia's behavior as being unacceptable "in the 21st century."...
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Vladimir Putin has done more for transatlantic unity than a President Barack Obama ever could. The United States and Europe are now in greater strategic agreement than at any point in the last two decades. Even the autocracies in the Caucasus have reacted negatively to the attack, refusing to endorse Russia's actions and legitimize the new facts on the ground. China has refused its support. And what did Russia get for all this? Seventy thousand South Ossetians.
Several diplomats and commentators have compared the attack on Georgia to the Soviet Union's invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. I think a more telling historical parallel might prove to be the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Then, as now, a Kremlin elite drunk on high oil prices foolishly overreached and triggered a countervailing reaction in the region and across the world.
The truth is, we're not in the 19th century, where the Russian intervention would have been standard operating procedure for a great power. In fact, only 50 years ago Britain and France clung to their colonies—in Algeria, Vietnam, Kenya, Cyprus—with much greater determination and violence than has Moscow. By contrast, this is the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union that Russia has sent troops into a neighboring country (a country that it had ruled since 1801). Its actions are deplorable but the reaction to them —worldwide—is a sign of how much the rules have changed. President George W. Bush seemed to understand this when he spoke of Russia's behavior as being unacceptable "in the 21st century."...