US-backed Georgia pokes the Russian bear

In diplomacy, it is usually a mistake to try to force resolution of a territorial dispute. The cure is often worse than the disease.

Such is the case with the Georgian crisis. Reckless provocation by the Bush administration and its protégé “Rose Revolution” anti-Russian Saakashvili government has led to a major realignment in the balance of power between post-communist Russia and the West.

It is the most important event in East-West relations since the fall of Soviet Communism in 1990. In Georgia, Russia took on US-led attempted Western strategic encirclement, and won. There will be consequences all along Russia's western and southern borderlands.

Russia had given ample warning to Georgia that it would defend its interests in its “near abroad”. In Helsinki, the Finns understand that Russia expects bordering states - its security glacis - to be non-confrontational in their diplomacy and national security.

But, encouraged by the Bush administration, Saakashvili defied such prudence. Georgia imported US and Israeli weapons and US military advisers. It hosted a Western-financed oil pipeline designed to bypass Russia. It pursued NATO and EU membership, and ramped up pressure on South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the non-ethnic Georgian regions in Georgia that were under Russian nominal peacekeeping protection since 1991.

In response, Russia issued Russian passports to these non-ethnic Georgian citizens who wanted them as a security. The status of these territories was frozen - they were effectively fully autonomous regions.

Two weeks ago, under cover of the Olympic Games opening, Georgian forces mounted a surprise attack on South Ossetia, taking its main city Tskhinvali after major artillery bombardment that caused great destruction, civilian casualties and refugee outflows.

Russian forces moved in two days later, easily rolling back the Georgian army and advancing deep into Georgia proper, demonstrating their power to cut the country in two and take its capital if they wished. They bracketed the oil pipeline with targeted shells to either side of it.

European peace diplomacy kicked in, and a ceasefire was negotiated. A victorious Moscow said it expected the Georgian people to have the good sense to remove the reckless government that had led it to such disaster, and that South Ossetia and Abkhazia might never wish to become part of Georgia after this experience. Russians drew pointed parallels with Western acceptance of Kosovo's right to independence after Serb brutality.

A spin campaign to present Georgia as victim of Russian aggression ran up against the hard facts that Saakashvili had initiated the armed conflict. Washington wheeled out old cold war rhetoric. It played well at home but badly in Paris and Bonn.

The war was a tragedy for Christian, Orthodox Georgia that has close cultural ties to Russia, its historical ally and protector against Turkish expansionism in the Caucasus. Now there will be deep hatred between these formerly friendly peoples. It did not have to happen like this.

The consequences on Russia's western rim of post-communist states are unpredictable. In Ukraine, Poland and the three Baltic states, there was an initial emotional display of sympathy for Georgia. The war triggered a Polish decision to install a US-offered missile defence system that Moscow sees as anti-Russian. Fortunately, Poland has no Russian minority or border disputes with Russia.

The Baltic republics will know now that any violation of the human rights of the ethnic Russian communities in those countries will lead to forceful Russian intervention. Ukraine will be well advised to tread more softly with its bigger neighbour. The war has raised the bar of what Moscow expects of its “near abroad”. Provocative encirclement strategies encouraged by the Bush administration and Washington neo-cons have had their day.

These facts are not well understood in the US. The viscerally anti-Russian US media reporting of the war feeds public opinion already so inclined.

The war thus favours Republican-style international truculence and ignoring of realities. Bush's jibe that Russia has failed the test of international civilised behaviour will help John McCain, and force Barack Obama to follow in his wake. Obama will be portrayed as weak if he does so, and as not to be trusted with national security if he does not.

Georgia poses a test for Kevin Rudd, too. Will he go with West European prudence and moderation, or echo Washington's more aggressive rhetoric? If he is serious about Australia's contribution to international security, and our future relations with an important world power, he will do the former.