This all seems so familiar.
Once again, history is playing on repeat. As Russian tanks rolled through Gori, and rumors of a column on the road to Tbilisi surface, the modus operandi of the Russian military – and indeed Vladimir Putin himself – has become quite clear. One image keeps playing through my mind as I watch these tanks and personnel continue their advance past South Ossetia into Georgia proper. The scene is so eerily similar in such a wide variety of ways to one of history’s most obvious lessons. Yet it appears we learned nothing from it. Are we doomed to repeat Czechoslovakia in 1938?
Let’s step back for a moment and take a look at just how similar this all is.
Georgia, a country very much willing to be dependent on the western powers for support and aid, has been in a process of reaching out to the west for the better part of two decades. With the election of a pro-western leader in Mr. Saakashvili, Georgia looked poised to enter into the league of western democracies and eventually the European Union and NATO. With the Russian Bear positioned to strike, Georgia understood the value of friends in high places, even while grossly misjudging their loyalty.
So imagine my surprise when I was reminded of the scene in 1938 when I read of Russian tanks crossing the border on their march to reclaim control over territory they very much feel is rightfully theirs. In Hitler’s march across Central Europe, western governments were silent to the cries of help coming from Silesia and out of Prague during the Western Betrayal, and it appears that not much will be done for the Georgians beyond a few nice words and a showing of solidarity. Is this a second Western Betrayal?
This crisis -- and it is one -- stretches much further than the small former Soviet state. Georgia, a nation roughly the size of South Carolina, has much more significance than its size would lead one to believe. The Russian incursion is a new kind of domino effect, one that has put many CIS countries in a state of unrest and distrust of their neighbors to the east and west.
This wariness stems from past failures and broken promises. Those central and eastern European countries that have faced the Bear before have little doubt that it could happen again and have longed for western Europeans to come to their rescue, but it always happens too late. As the armies of liberations swept across Europe and began their occupations, many felt this could be the beginning of a new era for the continent. But as one half came under the blanket of the Marshall Plan, the other fell beneath the weight of an Iron Curtain.
Today we face this crisis again. The same nations, which longed for a more proactive role from the west in the decades following WWII, find themselves in a similar position once again. The threat of the Bear looms in the distance and only a robust, united western response to the events of the past week will signal to Russia that this kind of Cold War action is no longer acceptable. We are facing a crisis of 21st century diplomacy squaring off against 20th century militarism.
Georgia is, as some have described it, a testing ground for how far the west will go to defend its friends in the former Soviet Union. If our response to the South Ossetia crisis is any indication, we have learned nothing from 1938, and we are doomed to see another Czechoslovakia.
The correct action when facing a bear may be to play dead, but not with a Russian bear.