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| Author: | Charles A. Kupchan, Senior Fellow for Europe Studies |
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August 21, 2008
Washington Independent
Russia has unquestionably responded with disproportionate force to Georgia’s attack on the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Moscow not only expelled Georgian troops from the contested region, it sent overwhelming military force into Georgia proper—effectively subjugating the country in a matter of days.
Washington’s condemnation of the Russian invasion is certainly warranted, but the Bush administration’s response has gone from appropriately firm to rashly confrontational. Defense Sec. Robert Gates said, “there is a real concern that Russia has turned the corner here and is headed back toward its past.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has proclaimed “in tatters” the hope that Russia had become a “responsible state, ready to integrate into international institutions.” The administration, backed by a chorus of pundits comparing Moscow’s actions to Soviet aggression during the Cold War, has jumped to the conclusion that the Russian bear is back.
But with the West in need of Russia’s cooperation on many different fronts—energy, Iran’s nuclear program, the fight against Islamic extremism, to name a few—Washington had better think twice before pronouncing a fundamental break with Moscow.
It could come to that. Should Russia keep its troops in Georgia and seek to turn the country into a satellite, then Washington may indeed be headed toward another era of militarized rivalry between Russia and the West. But we are not there yet. In the meantime, rushing to judgment and pronouncing a return of the Cold War risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President, experts from the Council on Foreign Relations and the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution propose a new, nonpartisan Middle East strategy drawing on the lessons of past failures to address both the short-term and long-term challenges to U.S. interests.
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