Below The Beltway

The Russian Government is making clear that there will be no end to the Georgian crisis that does not involve an end to Georgian rule over two disputed provinces:

TBILISI, Georgia, Aug. 14 — Russian officials said Thursday that the Georgian government will not regain control over two breakaway provinces that are at the center of a week-long military conflict, as the Kremlin issued an uncompromising response to U.S. and Western threats over its military incursion deep into the territory of its tiny neighbor.

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Following the events of the past week, “one can forget about any talk about Georgia’s territorial integrity,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the Associated Press reported from Moscow. “It is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met Thursday with leaders of the separatist movements in the two provinces and pledged to support them in discussions about the future of the two disputed regions.

“We will support any decision made by the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” Medvedev said, following a meeting in which the separatist leaders signed the French cease-fire plan in Moscow.

The two leaders, Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia and Sergei Bagapsh of Abkhazia, reiterated their desire for independence. “Before Georgia’s aggression, talks with Georgia were possible . . . but now there will be no talks with Georgia,” Bagapsh said, according to Reuters news agency.

And, for all the attention being paid to it, the Russians seem entirely unconcerned with how the United States and Western Europe might react to the events of the past week:

“I don’t know how they are going to isolate us,” Lavrov said during an interview on radio station Echo Moskvy. “I have heard threats that we are not going to be admitted to the [World Trade Organization], but we see clearly that nobody is going to admit us there anyway,” he said. His remarks were translated by the Interfax news service. “Excuse my language, but they’re just stringing us along.”

So, is there anything that the West can do in this situation ? Charles Krauthammer seems to think so, and lists four courses of action:

What is to be done? Let’s be real. There’s nothing to be done militarily. What we can do is alter Putin’s cost-benefit calculations.

We are not without resources. There are a range of measures to be deployed if Russia does not live up to its cease-fire commitments:

1. Suspend the NATO-Russia Council established in 2002 to help bring Russia closer to the West. Make clear that dissolution will follow suspension. The council gives Russia a seat at the NATO table. Message: Invading neighboring democracies forfeits the seat.

2. Bar Russian entry to the World Trade Organization.

3. Dissolve the G-8. Putin’s dictatorial presence long made it a farce but no one wanted to upset the bear by expelling it. No need to. The seven democracies simply withdraw. Then immediately announce the reconstitution of the original G-7.

4. Announce a U.S.-European boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi. To do otherwise would be obscene. Sochi is 15 miles from Abkhazia, the other Georgian province just invaded by Russia. The Games will become a riveting contest between the Russian, Belarusian and Jamaican bobsled teams.

As Bruce McQuain notes, though, the idea that any of Krauthammer’s proposals would have a serious impact on Russian behavior is pretty laughable:

When Putin did this he knew full well the worst case scenario included all of the above and he gave the order to “go” anyway. Obviously he wasn’t that concerned with any of the above becoming a reality.

Suspend the NATO-Russian Council? For heaven sake, didn’t Russia unilaterally do that when they crossed into Georgia? Does anyone think they don’t know that?

Kick them out of the G8 and bar them from the WTO? And do what? Stop their economy from growing as it has? Oil and gas are the “in demand” commodity in today’s world and Russia is flush with them. Not being able to sit down with the G7 or become a part of an organization which it hasn’t been a part of until now simply isn’t a particularly tough punishment for what they did.

And, of course, announcing 6 years prior to an event that you’re not going to attend the event doesn’t quite have the same sting as announcing it the year of the event. Not that Russia would be particularly effected - they survived the Jimmy Carter boycott quite nicely and were able to showcase their athletes without having the troublesome Americans there to steal their thunder.

Frankly, the only way to make the point to Russia that their actions are unacceptable is militarily, and that isn’t going to happen.

At least not in Georgia, anywhere else in the Caucusus, or pretty much anywhere in Central Asia.

That doesn’t mean that what happened in Georgia this week isn’t important, because it is. If nothing else, it’s a sign that the old Russian nationalism is back, and that the United States isn’t going to be able to act with impunity on the periphery of Mother Russia anymore.

What we don’t know, as James Joyner notes, is what this means for the future:

The only questions that remain are 1) Does Russia have ambitions beyond Georgia?  2) Where are the West’s red lines?  3) Does the West have stomach even for significant economic and institutional responses, such as tossing Russia from the G8?  4) Does Russia care?

I don’t know about the answers to the first three questions but, at least for the moment, the answer to the last one is an emphatic no.