IT'S NOT JUST THAT THEY'RE WEAK AND ISOLATED...:

Georgia War Shows 'Weak' Russia, U.S. Official Says (Glenn Kessler, 8/28/08, Washington Post)

Russia's conflict with Georgia is the sign of a "weak" Russian nation, not a newly assertive one, and Moscow now has put its place in the world order at risk, the top U.S. diplomat for relations with the country said in an interview yesterday.

"There is a Russia narrative that 'we were weak in the '90s, but now we are back and we are not going to take it anymore.' But being angry and seeking revanchist victory is not the sign of a strong nation. It is the sign of a weak one," said Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

"Russia is going to have to come to terms with the reality it can either integrate with the world or it can be a self-isolated bully. But it can't be both. And that's a choice Russia has to have," Fried said.

...but that they're making the case for an independent Chechnya, etc. They've accepted the Anglo-American redefinition of sovereignty as a function of self-determination by a people, rather than exercise of control by a central power.

MORE:
The politics of recognition: Attacks on Russia for recognising breakaway regions in Georgia are riddled with hypocrisy: Moscow is playing a game invented by the West. (Philip Hammond, 8/28/08, Spiked)

‘Unjustified and unacceptable.’

That is how British foreign secretary David Miliband described Russian recognition of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia, he insists, must ‘abide by international law as the basis for resolving this crisis’. Similarly, President George W Bush has denounced recognition as ‘irresponsible’, urging Russia to comply with UN Security Council resolutions and to respect Georgia’s ‘internationally recognised borders’.

Yet Russia is closely following rules made in the West.

Just a few months ago, there was a situation that was almost an exact mirror image of the present. In February, the US and Britain were among the first to recognise the formal independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo, having brought about its de facto independence from Belgrade by military force in 1999.

Acceptance of your standards by your enemy is a victory.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 28, 2008 7:49 AM