Resurgent Russia? Try a Distracted U.S. Instead

A Curiously Sudden Resurgence

Georgian sniper taking aim at Ossetian soldiers.
Source: Jonathan Alpeyrie

The media has recently been abuzz, in the aftermath of the Georgian invasion by Russia, about how Russia is now resurgent and (suddenly) one of the great challenges ahead for the next president.

As if, of course, Russia was not before this. While the next president does have to deal with Russia—a great-power, at the very least—this certainly isn’t a new occurrence. The only difference is the level of brashness that Russia is now willing to display in international relations. We, or rather, many pundits and the media, thought that Russia was weak and cowed just because it was hesitant to cross the America’s path. After all, not only was it reluctant to be defiant towards the U.S., it offered its wholehearted support on various diplomatic issues and in America’s “War on Terror.”

Despite all of the buzz now, though, the only significant factor that has changed between then and now is how much military and diplomatic power the United States has to deploy. What changed was that the United States invaded Iraq.

A Debate on Georgia

I recently had a debate with some friends about Russia. A few of them asserted, quite strongly, that they believed that Russia would have invaded Georgia, regardless.

One expressed his disbelief that the Georgian conflict would have played out any differently if the Iraq War had not happened.

Certainly, if he meant that if Russia had invaded anyway? Of course not.

However, I assert that that it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. While Russia wasn’t exactly happy about its former client states forming closer ties to the West before the Iraq conflict, that didn’t stop it from trying to form stronger ties to the U.S. itself.

We saw this entire spectacle in international theater with Putin visiting and sharing stories with Bush to become “friends,” and offering one of the strongest pillars of international support for the War on Terror once it began. The United States had enough power that Russia wanted to come to it, and benefit economically, since it was not only pointless to even saber rattle, it didn’t even have the symbolic significance that it used to when Russia was the Soviet Union.

A Changing Tide

Now, the situation is completely different. The U.S., diplomatically, is not on terribly strong footing anymore, even just based on relations with other traditional allies. Even beyond that, however, it has been expending its military strength—its military capacity—in Iraq, and trying its best to hold off Iran getting nuclear weapons, try to forge a solution between Israel and Palestine—along with attempt to maintain its interests

The U.S. can’t simply accomplish any military goal it wants to anymore without regard to international opinion—not without serious repercussions to its ability to even defend its essential interests. It has to rely on others, since its previous unilateral feats are no longer repeatable, given the diplomatic and military situation it now finds itself in—not to mention the state of public opinion at home.

Russia holds cards now. It is one of the key negotiators with Iran, has ties and sales to various Middle Eastern countries and groups, and has the ability to veto various resolutions that the U.S. would strongly prefer not to be veto’ed—given that the U.S. no longer has the political and physical capital to just ignore the entire U.N. facade anymore. Even now, Russia is trying to solidify their advantage in the region, as per their recent talks with Syria.

Making a Bad Trade

The United States drove itself into a hole. It was already trying to do too much—then it dropped another monumental task on its laps.

I’ll pass on making a judgment on whether or not Iraq was justified or not, and simply point out that the U.S. traded its soft power—the big stick that its potential military deployment gave it—for hard power in perhaps the wrong place. In doing so, there is no longer a strong enough disincentive for various nations to alter the status quo in international relations (set up for the U.S.’s benefit as the dominant power) for their own benefit.

No, I don’t think that the Georgian military would have been miraculously stronger if the United States hadn’t go into Iraq. I think the Russian military wouldn’t have been in Georgia.