SUDDENLY much of the international discourse of the past decade seems to pale into insignificance. The days when G8 summits could afford to focus on the very real challenges of climate change or aid to Africa already have the aureole of nostalgia. Nuclear powers are squaring up belligerently to each other, as in the 1960s, while national borders are violated.
The confrontation in the Caucasus is a major international crisis. Its most menacing aspect is its fluidity. One week ago, it was ethnic Georgians in South Ossetia who were beleaguered; now Polish citizens feel threatened by Russia's nuclear sabre-ra
ttling. It is imperative that the West addresses this problem firmly, unitedly and realistically. Crisis creep is the worst danger of all.
In the initial stages of the conflict Georgia could not have been said to command the moral high ground. Yet it was within its rights to assert its authority over rebel enclaves: Russia was in breach of the law in invading another sovereign state. From that initial premise, the pendulum has swung ever further against any credibility for Russia's conduct.
A ceasefire brokered in the presence of the American secretary of state has been impudently ignored while Russian troops advanced further into Georgian territory. By waiting a day before the Russian president signed the ceasefire document, his forces had leisure to destroy a vital railway bridge linking the capital with the Black Sea coast. And the deputy head of the Russian armed forces, General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, declared Poland a nuclear target, adding: "Such targets are destroyed as a first priority."
Poland is a member of the European Union, whose current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, indulged in some high-profile diplomacy that now looks more like bag-carrying for President Medvedev of Russia. The EU is being tested here. The United Nations is hobbled by the Russian veto within the Security Council. So the West needs to speak with a united voice. It needs to tell Russia that nuclear threats against EU member states, or anybody else, are unacceptable.
Russia's membership of the G8 should be suspended and negotiations for its entry into the World Trade Organisation halted until it withdraws from all Georgian territory. Conventional economic sanctions would probably be pointless, even counterproductive. The occupation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is an illegal infringement of Georgian sovereignty. Since there is an intractable ethnic problem, a new constitutional solution may be necessary. But Russian troops should be replaced by neutral peacekeepers while a resolution is negotiated.
The next looming crisis is in Ukraine. The West must get onto the front foot there by securing international guarantees of Ukrainian sovereignty. The country is disadvantaged by a security agreement allowing a Russian military presence there for almost a further decade. But if Russia can have a toehold there against the wishes of the government, so can America and Nato as welcome allies. Again, there may require to be adjustments to accommodate the Russian population in the east and south, but that must be done by the government, not by an invading Russian army.
This crisis is already testing the next aspiring generation of western leaders. Barack Obama has badly lost out to John McCain on this issue, tailor-made for the Republican veteran. David Cameron has also stolen a march on Gordon Brown with his visit to Tbilisi, though it could backfire by appearing presumptuous. The silence from our broken-backed Labour Government, obsessed with its own survival, has been deafening and uninspiring. One consequence of this rude awakening for domestic British politics is the future of Trident is now doubly secured.
The West has badly underestimated the will of Vladimir Putin. His dream is to restore Russia's imperial status. His dream is his neighbours' nightmare. The post-modernist geopolitical vision of a co-operative, non-ideological world focused on fighting climate change and poverty has been forcibly removed from centre stage. Realpolitik is back with a vengeance: with the wisdom of hindsight, it never went away. The challenge for Britain and its allies is to confront this new reality coolly, moderately, but firmly.
The full article contains 684 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
