Remember that brief Russo-Georgia War in 2008? Georgia President Giorgi Margvelashvili certainly doesn’t want us to forget those perilous weeks in August that year when Moscow occupied portions of his nation in the name of Russia-backed, self-proclaimed breakaway republics South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Moscow’s move was as much a sham back then as a shameful precursor to Russia’s more recent invasion and occupation of Ukraine.
Margvelashvili, a Ph.D. educator, told us at the Council on
Foreign Relations this afternoon that his nation has disappeared from U.S. and
European radar screens since 2008. He urged the U.S. to use its bilateral
relationship with Moscow to “make the Georgian case.” “Georgia should not be
forgotten,” he exclaimed. His problem is an understandable one, but there are just
too many mounting issues between Washington and Moscow these days that are, frankly,
more important than Georgia. Still, you can understand the President’s frustration.
“You’ll forget about Ukraine, too, when things die down there,” he said. He
added that when there’s “bloodshed,” everyone is talking about it. But when
there’s a ceasefire, everyone wants the problem to go away and that’s when “Russia
takes advantage of the status quo.” Fair point.
Margvelashvili sees Georgia as unequivocally part of Europe.
He said, “We contribute to the global and European picture” and “we bring
specific solutions to European stability.” Too bad for him that Georgia’s per
capita income is reportedly 50 percent of the EU’s poorest member, Bulgaria.
There’s a long way to go before Tbilisi can argue convincingly that it belongs
in Europe on a formal basis. Besides, and this is a point the President would
vigorously oppose, every call to include Georgia (Ukraine, too) in the EU and
NATO needlessly pokes Putin and Russia right in the eye. Not that I have a
problem with the U.S. and Europe confronting little Vlad politically; we need
to be as tough and strategically cagey as he has been in recent months and not be bullied
by this world-class jerk. However, making the Georgian case and arguing to
include Georgia in NATO are not the right issues for raising the stakes with Moscow.
The risk-return ratio is just too highly unfavorable. And remember, had Georgia
been a formal NATO ally in 2008, we would have been treaty-bound to enter that
Russo-Georgia war, at least in some manner. Most European nations (at least our
longstanding NATO partners) would have ducked that fight, so anybody out there really
want our servicemen and women fighting in places like Tskhinvali, Gori or Poti.
No thank you.
