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Last Updated: Sep 5, 2008 - 11:22:21 AM |
A HOST OF PROBLEMS RUSSIA MAKES FOR ITSELF
WITH ITS HASTY RECOGNITION OF SOUTH OSSETIA AND ABKHAZIA WILL QUESTION
ITS OWN FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
It was not independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia that Russia
recognized, it was their dependence on itself. South Ossetia whose
population stands at approximately 40,000 is entitled to being a
sovereign state - if we go by Moscow's logic. North Ossetia with the
population at least ten times that is not. Are there guarantees that
North Ossetia is not going to demand statehood one fine day? Or that it
will never ask the Russian Federation to absorb South Ossetia? And what
does Moscow intend to do about Georgian villages in South Ossetia? Will
it permit the Ossetians to seize them for good? It will be an eye for
an eye then - or genocide for genocide. There is the widespread opinion
that Russia told the Americans to stick it where the sun does not shine
and demonstrated that Russia does not recognize the international law
either. Great. It means, however, that the international law Russia
claims to have no use for does not apply to Russia's own territorial
integrity anymore. Should the enemies Russia made along the way (and
certainly did recently) decide to make problems for multi-ethnic Russia
with its lopsided federation, abundance of Caucasus republics, and a
bunch of semi-latent conflicts, what counter-arguments will Russia find
in its arsenals? Save for military ones, of course? Is Russia doomed
now to life in a permanent state of enforcing peace on neighbors or,
even worse, on parts of its own territory? Has it ever occurred to the
Russian authorities that their action in Georgia gives the Americans a
logical excuse for realization of the previously crazy idea to install
ABM defense system elements in the Czech Republic and Poland? That the
international community has no reason anymore to trust Moscow's
reassurances that meddling in exterritorial conflicts is the last thing
it wants? Particularly when the international community has the chance
to consider the principles the Kremlin's foreign policy will be based
on now, ones that include promotion of the interests of the country and
its citizens abroad. Will Russia join the hostilities on Iran's side in
the Persian Gulf region or side up with HAMAS against Israel in the
Middle East? Amorphous and stagnating as it was, NATO lacked a common
enemy to close its ranks against until recently. Russia has seen to it.
No wonder Iranian newspapers point out that it is Moscow that is the
world's bugaboo now and not Tehran. Is this what promotes interests of
the Russian Federation? Colonial wars are much more dangerous a pastime
now than they were half a century ago (too many nuclear powers in the
world, too deadly weapons invented). Is Russia happy now with its
seclusion, one of its own making? After all, Russia is a country
aspiring to a place among decision-makers i.e. to having powerful
allies. Left to its own devices, even the United States is plainly
unable to govern the world, even the United States is compelled to
cooperate with the European Union and NATO. And what does Russia have?
As things stand, it has to ask Belarus - a country it is supposed to be
having a union with - to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Does it
ever occur to the Kremlin that as long as Russian troops remain in
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, they will never be the sovereign countries
Russia recognized them as? Annexation of these territories on the other
hand will free Georgia of domestic conflicts and remove the formal
barrier that keeps NATO membership out of Tbilisi's reach at this
point. Once it happens, NATO will be Russia's neighbor in the volatile
Caucasus region - which is quite different from the relatively tranquil
Baltic states. The host of problems Russia makes for itself with its
hasty recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will question its own
future development.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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