Clinton's four-day swing through Central Europe and the Caucasus was built around a high-level international conference on democracy in Poland on Saturday. But the trip was also aimed at shoring up relations with countries that have feared being marginalized under the Obama administration. The stops included Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Georgia, especially, got some reassurance in the form of a rebuke to Moscow for their August 2008 invasion.
And the Russians predictably got their panties in a twist.
Stratfor has useful background on the Caucasus puzzle. Although I always find it bizarre when analysts say we are distracted by Iraq and Afghanistan from addressing this region (or others). Obviously, the wars we are in are a priority, but we have a huge foreign policy apparatus (including military assets). If the bureaucracy of a global power such as we are can't address a whole range of global issues, we've got real problems.
I count it progress that we are at least aware that Russian attempts to restore the borders of the old Soviet empire is a bad thing that should be opposed. Maybe soon we can get the Georgians anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, engineering and communications gear, and training so that the Georgians can mount a defense of their nation should the Russians decide to take Tbilisi in another round of fighting.
But the training and equipment should be geared to defensive conventional fighting. We don't want Georgia to try to regain their lost provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia--no matter how justified it would be for them to try based on the law and morality of the issue--because we don't want to spark a US-Russian war over those provinces. Let their residents come to regret their desire to be embraced and absorbed by Moscow. One day they will want back into Georgia, and if Georgia is so well off that the Georgians don't want their provinces back because of the cost? Well, living well is the best revenge, they say.
But arms are a way off, it seems. At least we are visibly supporting their indepencence. Baby steps, people. That's all I hope for these days.
