“What exactly is going on in Georgia, anyway?” I overheard a young woman ask her friend the other day, as they wheeled vintage cruisers along Bloor Street. “I dunno, like bombings or something,” she responded. They continued on their way.
I cringed a little, embarrassed for their public display of ignorance. “Bombings?” Please. But then, for no particular reason, I asked myself the same question: What exactly is going on in Georgia?
Ever since the August 8th invasion of the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia by Russian forces, the ensuing conflict has been met with a combination of bewilderment, fascination, and frustration from the West. Despite a flurry of media coverage, interpretations of the events remain vague. What does this conflict mean and why did it happen now?
The tumultuous relationship between Russia and Georgia is hardly a new development. Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili has been a vocal supporter of the West, petitioning for NATO inclusion and enthusiastically supporting the Iraq war. Western infringement aside, the ethno-political tensions between ethnic Georgians and separatist majorities in the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have threatened the region’s political stability for years.
From a purely pragmatic standpoint, this invasion could hardly have been better timed. With the simultaneous opening of the Olympic games in Beijing and a lame-duck U.S. president squeaking out the final days of his term, one could certainly point to a window of opportunity for the Russian forces. Yet the root cause of the conflict remains a matter of debate: is this a battle for oil? Territory? Ideals? Even the most diligent probing finds no definitive answers.
Thus far, the responses of the media and political figures alike have been muddled by a history of uncertainties. It’s hard to examine Russia’s actions without rekindling old fears and retreating to a familiar sense of apprehension towards an unpredictable and unapproachable Kremlin.
Despite the expansion of NATO to include former soviet states, Western response continues to address Russia with the same “us vs. them” rhetoric that typified the Cold War. Even Presidential candidate Barack Obama, lauded for his resistance of stodgy Washington thinking, took the opportunity in his nomination acceptance speech to list “nuclear proliferation” alongside “Russian aggression” as 21st century threats against which Western allies must stand guard.
Likewise, Russia has shown considerable discontent toward the encroachment of NATO upon its borders. There is no doubt that NATO, a Western alliance implicitly pitted against an old Russian “enemy,” poses an ideological and symbolic threat.
Certainly, this conflict can be interpreted as a battle of figureheads, a game of diplomatic one-upmanship and a call from Russia to stop being taken for granted. Perhaps the recent newspapers heralding a “new Cold War” are not merely spouting histrionics. The only certainties, right now, are the numbers: hundreds of casualties, and over a hundred thousand displaced persons.
