Does Russia Care What The West Thinks?
August 30th, 2008 12:23
U.S. President George W. Bush slammed it as an “irresponsible decision.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called it “completely unacceptable,” while French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner raised the threat of sanctions.
Sweden’s Foreign Secretary, Carl Bildt, said the move even smacked of Nazi Germany.
Russia’s decision to recognize Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has drawn an avalanche of criticism from Western nations and brought relations between Moscow and the West to a post-Cold War low.
The question that’s now on everyone’s mind is — does Moscow even care?
Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor in chief of the Moscow-based magazine “Russia in Global Affairs,” says the events mark a clear foreign policy shift for Moscow.
“Russia is definitely concerned, but a lot less than in the past,” Lukyanov says. “I think Russia has come to the conclusion that trying to play by rules that were established by the West is futile, because Russia will lose. Russia feels that the West isn’t ready or interested in considering it as an equal partner. So Russia opted for another scenario, in which it acts as it sees fit.”
Great Dismay
This meant, besides recognizing the independence of the two separatist regions, sending tanks and warplanes into Georgia this month in response to Tbilisi’s offensive to retake South Ossetia.
The conflict has killed hundreds of people on both sides, displaced thousands of others. It also provoked great dismay among many in the West who saw the conflict as an unabashed attempt by Moscow to reclaim power over its former Soviet subjects, and to punish Georgia for its Western aspirations, including membership in NATO.
Under former President Vladimir Putin, Russia had been eager to raise its international profile. The country actively pursued accession into the World Trade Organization, presided over the G8 group of industrialized nations in 2006, and lobbied successfully for the right to host the 2014 Olympic Games in its Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Russia is also a member of several Western policy and rights bodies, such as the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and has a formal working relationship with NATO.
By pounding Georgia and recognizing its breakaway regions, however, Russia severely jeopardized its relations with the West and cast doubt on its future membership in these groupings.