8/8/08 Changed Everything
Michael Cecire • August 15, 2008 • Uncategorized
Preface: I’ll be contributing periodically to DP from now on on issues of foreign policy (int’l security), urban policy, and development economics. For more on my background, you can check out the bio page on my badly-neglected personal blog where you will also find some of the stuff I’ve written cross-posted.
Foremost on my mind right now is the situation in Georgia (republic). Normally I would insert an obligatory half-joke referencing Hotlanta! or the Peach State, bur the solemnity of the ongoing crisis compels me to get to the point: Georgia marks a very stark turning point in US foreign relations. As the former US Ambassador to the Czech Republic has put it – we are now entering the ‘post-post-Soviet’ era. No one should be declaring the Cold War revived, but nor should this be said to indicate that the world in which we now live is any less dangerous. Let’s review: a revanchist (albeit weaker) Russia, ruled by a oligo-fascist KGB aristocracy, has emerged as a direct challenger to the post-Cold War liberal democratic order.
Oh, and should I mention their enormous nuclear capabilities or their patronage to terror-supporting states like Iran?
Georgia, in this respect, represents far more than merely a front line in a regional battle for a Russian energy monopoly, though it should be a concern. In fact, the brutal and premeditated aggression in Georgia is highly symbolic in Russia’s reemergence as a great power and the West’s shameful response, which could be interpreted as indicative of decline.
The attacks of 9/11 gave us our first taste of the end of the ‘end of history’ as Islamist fanatics rebelled against the liberal (read: capitalist) democratic world order. Rightly or not, the United States has dedicated untold resources into combating the scourge of violent jihadism – seeing it as a direct threat to our way of life – and has, in many respects, succeeded. However, it turns out that radical Islam was just the beginning.
If 9/11 officiated the first concrete signs of violent backlash against the ‘end of history,’ then Russia’s bloodletting in Georgia represents something far more ominous: a powerful, nuclear-armed nation-state joining that rebellion against the primacy of capitalist democracy. How the West reacts now – as was true in 9/11 – will determine either the spread, or wilting, of democracy and civil rights across the world.
Maybe we’ve had it wrong all this time. Perhaps our conflict isn’t so much with radical Islam as it is with those who refuse to respect human rights, political freedoms, sovereign borders, and the like. What seems to be emerging is a very scary nexus of the Ahmadinejads, the Putins, and the Mugabes of the world; all of whom must be opposed.
Indeed, America’s response to Russia’s outrage will resonate not only with the Moscow regime, but will be followed very closely by those hiding in the caves of Waziristan, by the Mullahs in Tehran, the thuggish strongmen in Latin America, and certainly the CCP mandarins in Beijing. The administration has so far dawdled – John McCain has been a very lonely source of political leadership during this crisis – but it is not too late to send a strong, resolute message that the West will no longer contribute to its own decline.
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