Georgia as Rorschach Test
Everyone, it seems, has something to say on Georgia; too many to even bother a roundup at this point. I couldn't possibly have anything new to add about the situation itself. But, in reading through the mountains of commentary, one strain has emerged: the potential for the same event to confirm pretty much every pre-existing idea about how the world works.
The Internet is awash in I-told-you-sos. Conservatives and liberals and Republicans and Democrats and neocons and realists and leftists and pacifists and internationalists and Russian nationalists and Georgian apologists and, probably somewhere, royalists and syndicalists and anarchists all seem to agree on one thing, and one thing only - even though it isn’t quite clear what happened yet, the events most certainly proved right everything they've been saying all along.
If you were concerned about a new Cold War last week, well, the fighting in Georgia shows that it has dawned, or at least another version of the great battle of ideas between democracy and authoritarianism. Of course, if the trial of civilizations is still over, then the fighting is nothing more than a classic imperialist land grab that means very little.
The international community, meanwhile, is obviously useless to act to rein in this sort of thing; we rely on it too much. Unless, of course, you think that the international community is the only thing that can act to rein in this sort of thing, which happened because we don't rely on it enough.
The US was either too aggressive or not aggressive enough; we need to recognize Russia's interests or make clear that Russia's gone too far in pushing them; Russia must be tied down in international institutions or unceremoniously booted out of them. On it goes.
Of course people will disagree about what happened and why, but the real interesting disagreements don't usually involve Georgia as such at all.
Where someone comes down on the fighting in the Caucasus will probably be entirely determined by their answers to a few questions: What kind of regime runs Russia? How much does democracy matter in international relations? Are national interests and power all that drives international relations, or do ideas matter? And is force best met by counterforce, or best bargained with and sidestepped?
That's about it. If you answer those four questions, then I'm pretty sure I can predict what you think about the past week's fighting, and what you think should be done.
If you think Russia is run by thugs, well then you'll see their attacks as thuggish. If you care a lot about democracy, then you've probably accepted most of Georgia's claims, and wonder why we haven't done more to help them. You're optimistic we could have prevented this from happening if you believe in the power of ideas; if you're a power-and-interests type, this was pretty much inevitable. If you think superior force wins, you want to exercise it here; if not, you're hoping cooler heads prevail.
That's not to say those aren't valid questions to stake and hold opinions on. Or that thoughtful, insightful commentary about the conflict isn't possible. Only that those four questions are where the real debate is. And that the debate that actually is happening over this crisis - and most crises - is really mostly a proxy for bigger disagreements about how the world works.
