The Free Thinker

On Georgia's Rose Revolution:

Mitchell feels that Georgians today resort too quickly to months-long street demonstrations and inflated rhetoric. (Actually, Georgian politics has always been lively, and protests were a part of the Tbilisi scene, to a limited degree, even during Soviet times.) Now, Mitchell argues, Georgians need to simmer down and work hard to consolidate civil structures and improve relations with their neighbors.

While Mitchell is genuinely sympathetic to Georgia, he has little patience for the ongoing David-versus-Goliath "narrative" with which Georgia woos US policymakers. Mitchell is skeptical about the political intentions of Mikheil Saakashvili (whose endorsement of the book, nevertheless, appears on its back cover)--and he questions the received wisdom that Georgia possesses unique strategic value, is a poster-boy for democracy, or even that it is, ipso facto, a Western nation.

Mitchell worries that America got suckered into an excessively "personal" relationship with Georgian officials, and that this led, ironically, to misperceptions about American intentions and capabilities in the event of a Georgian-Russian conflict. Now is the time, he asserts, for the United States to concentrate upon its fundamental interests in the region. Mitchell doubts that democratization is currently a top priority of the Georgian government, and says that it needs to keep its hands off the media, encourage free debate, and re-balance power between the legislature and the executive. (Steps, or at least promises of steps, in these areas have been taken.)

Georgia is not perfect, but Georgia does possess unique strategic value and America's "fundamental interests in the region" are identical with Georgia's.  Whatever the ethnic ambiguities of the region and its overlapping claims to national self-determination; whatever the doubts surrounding the events of August 2008; there can really be no question that Russia's actions constituted precisely aggression, and of a very sinister and globally destabilizing kind, since the intent and effect of the aggression was to create a credible threat of unpredictable future aggressions against whatever neighbors on Russia's borders do not tow its line.  This has been an age-old tactic of Russian realpolitik and has wrought untold woe for the peoples on Russia's borders and contributed to causing many European wars.  If we want-- and it ought to be the first priority of our foreign policy right now-- to restore in a new pro-democratic incarnation the international rule of law which was to some extent disrupted by the Iraq War (a price worth paying for the fall of Saddam's totalitarian regime and the delegitimization of dictators worldwide; but a high price nonetheless), Georgia is THE place to do it.  Hopefully in 2012 we'll get a president who understands that.

The Wages of Appeasement

"India's China Obsession":

On June 21, two Chinese military helicopters swooped low over Demchok, a tiny Indian hamlet high in the Hima-layas along the northwestern border with China. The helicopters dropped canned food over a barren expanse and then returned to bases in China. India's military scrambled helicopters to the scene but did not seem unduly alarmed. This sort of Cold War cat-and-mouse game has played out on the 4,057-kilometer India-China border for decades. But the incident fed a media frenzy about "the Chinese dragon." Beginning in August, stories about new Chinese incursions into India have dominated the 24-hour TV news networks and the newspaper headlines.

China claims some 90,000 square kilometers of Indian territory. And most of those claims are tangled up with Tibet. Large swaths of India's northern mountains were once part of Tibet. Other stretches belonged to semi-independent kingdoms that paid fealty to Lhasa. Because Beijing now claims Tibet as part of China, it has by extension sought to claim parts of India that it sees as historically Tibetan, a claim that has become increasingly flammable in recent months.

Ever since the anti-Chinese unrest in Tibet last year, progress toward settling the border dispute has stalled, and the situation has taken a dangerous turn. The emergence of videos showing Tibetans beating up Han Chinese shopkeepers in Lhasa and other Tibetan cities created immense domestic pressure on Beijing to crack down. The Communist Party leadership worries that agitation by Tibetans will only encourage unrest by the country's other ethnic minorities, such as Uighurs in Xinjiang or ethnic Mongolians in Inner Mongolia, threatening China's integrity as a nation. Susan Shirk, a former Clinton-administration official and expert on China, says that "in the past, Taiwan was the 'core issue of sovereignty,' as they call it, and Tibet was not very salient to the public." Now, says Shirk, Tibet is considered a "core issue of national sovereignty" on par with Taiwan.

When Russia got away with naked aggression in the Caucasus, it showed bad guys everywhere what's possible. If this catastrophe happens, the West will be to blame for, as McCain put it in the last great statement of American purpose we're likely to hear for years, his brilliant Republican National Convention speech, "turning a blind eye to aggression."  Meanwhile, Russia's delusional insolence is accelerating:

"Let Medvedev Share Nobel with Obama":

It is a pity that President Dmitry Medvedev will not share the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize with U.S. President Barack Obama. In my view, he deserves it no less than Obama, whose principal accomplishments are still in the future.

Together with Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Medvedev is responsible for changing the tone and direction of international politics to craft a better world.

Not unlike Obama, Medvedev inherited a foreign policy plate that was driving his country into isolationism and debilitating self-pity.

In fits and starts in less than two years, he has managed to transform Russia’s international role from that of an estranged spoiler to that of a constructive problem-solver with a stake in a functional world order. Medvedev has gradually steered Russia away from the unilateralist initiatives taken by his predecessor.

He shares Obama’s penchant for multilateral diplomacy and has worked to make international institutions — from the United Nations to the nascent Group of 20 — stronger and more efficient.  His more pragmatic position on Iran is likely to make global efforts to stop Tehran’s secretive nuclear program more effective.

Medvedev commanded a successful war that was forced upon him. Like Obama in Afghanistan, he did not go wobbly in Georgia and proved his resolve to defend Russia’s interests and citizens. Medvedev’s toughest foreign policy decision has been to unilaterally recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Despite broad international criticism, Medvedev’s perseverance on this issue casts him as a world leader with a strong set of values. He does not crave popularity, just respect for his country.

I think it's true that Russians crave respect. That's why rolling back Russia could be so cheap: merely to send a loud signal that the world despised the cowardly, lying, thieving thugs and bullies of the Putin-Medvedev regime-- merely to, for example, announce a boycott of the 2014 Olympics-- while stating a justifiable high regard for the country's historic cultural and scientific achievements which contemporary Russia's aggression is sadly eclipsing, just might do the trick. But that would require a degree of geostrategic insight not seen since... well, the Bush administration.

"Georgia / Russia: Tensions Mount as War Anniversary Nears" (EurasiaNet):

Four days before the anniversary of Georgia’s 2008 war with Russia, a flurry of phantom attacks along the border between Georgian-controlled territory and separatist South Ossetia is stoking concerns in Tbilisi about the possibility of renewed conflict.

As in early August and late July 2008, Georgia and Russia now swap nearly daily reports about alleged incidents on the South Ossetia border and blame each other for the reported violence.
In the latest such exchange, on August 4, Georgia’s Interior Ministry claimed that two hand grenades were thrown late on August 3 at a police post in the Georgian village of Plavismani. No one was injured, according to the ministry.

South Ossetia, meanwhile, asserts that it was the South Ossetian village of Ortev that came under a volley of mortar fire on August 3 from the direction of Plavismani.

Against such a backdrop and charges and counter-charges, some analysts believe the chances for another war are running high. Pavel Felgenhauer, a Russian defense analyst and columnist for Novaya Gazeta who predicted the 2008 war with Russia, told Georgia’s Interpressnews agency on August 3 that recent incidents indicate that there is an "80 percent" chance of fresh conflict.

A year later, what have we done to prepare for this? We should have armed Georgia with technology a generation ahead of Russia's. We should have satellites monitoring the Russia-Georgia border so that we can tell the world the exact origins of any incident. We should be developing the cyber-war capability to crash Russians' computers if a single Russian soldier sets foot beyond the line. We should create refugee visas for Russian young men who don't want to be drafted into the Kremlin's army of aggression. We should use our diplomatic muscle to prevent any Russian official from traveling abroad. We should freeze the bank accounts of the Russian elite, while making it easier for ordinary Russians to travel abroad and escape the evil stranglehold of Russia's propaganda press. We should state that our continued recognition of Russia's territorial integrity is conditional on their recognition of Georgia's territorial integrity. What's at stake is not just a brave and beautiful little nation that has sided boldly with the West despite great dangers-- important as that is-- but the very principle that democracies' borders are sacrosanct, that they won't be carved up like Czechoslovakia in 1938. This is 10 times more important than Iraq and Afghanistan, and 100 times more important than any nuclear deal with Russia.

"The Russia/America summit" (Economist)

THE body language said it all. When Barack Obama arrived in Moscow for his first summit with the Russian president on July 6th, he sat on the edge of his chair, his eyes fixed on his host, Dmitry Medvedev. Mr Medvedev sat back, revealing a mix of reserve and polite attention to what Mr Obama had to offer. 

This scene reflected Russia’s general response to Mr Obama. America made the first approach and offered to “reset” the relationship. Although suspicious of Mr Obama’s intentions, Moscow nevertheless did not want to miss a chance. As Moskovsky Komsomolets, a tabloid, put it: “Why should we make a step towards Obama? Not least, because it is in our interest. Having won a war against Georgia, we confirmed our status as a great power, but ended up in isolation. Of course, we could live like this. But why not stop this isolation without ceding past achievements?”...

Mr Obama’s speech at the New Economic School in Moscow was an attempt to engage Russian society without trying to lecture it. He addressed the more neuralgic elements in Russia’s self-perception. He praised the Russian people for ending the cold war. He insisted that America wanted “a strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia”. But he stressed that “pursuit of power is no longer a zero-sum game” and that Georgia and Ukraine were entitled to their sovereignty. He talked up the rule of law and freedom of speech “because they are moral, but also because they work”. And he added pointedly that “governments which serve their own people survive and thrive. Governments which serve only their own power do not.”

Mr Obama’s speech was broadcast live by only one cable TV channel with limited reach. The main channels highlighted his endorsement of a “great Russia” and managed to turn his comments about “dominating and demonising other countries”, a reference to Russia’s behaviour to its former republics, into a case of American self-criticism. Even students remained largely indifferent to Mr Obama’s speech. “I take what he said on board, but I am not going jump to a conclusion,” said one.

Such a reaction reflects the culture of cynicism and nationalism that has flourished in Russia in recent years. But it is also the result of Russian disillusionment with America. Vladimir Putin, Mr Medvedev’s prime minister, spent much of his two-hour breakfast with Mr Obama venting Russia’s grievances over America’s policy. He blamed George Bush for letting Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, twist American support into a green light for a war. But he allowed his talks with Mr Obama to be twisted by his own side. According to Yury Ushakov, Mr Putin’s chief foreign-policy adviser, “President Obama pledged to consider the regional significance of these countries for us.”

This line was amplified by Russia’s main TV channel, which presented it as America’s concession and Russia’s victory. It quoted Vyacheslav Nikonov, Russia’s main pro-Kremlin commentator, as saying: “All the sanctions that were imposed against Russia after the war in August 2008 are in the past. This shows that America realises the necessity to work together with the Russian Federation. America has understood what was going on last August. Today nobody in Washington would shake Saakashvili’s hand.”

In short, Obama's visit to Moscow achieved nothing substantive but was a propaganda victory for the Russians. And this was perfectly predictable. 

Obama's "reset" meme was the very opposite of what was needed. It implies that America is to blame for the deterioration of relations, whereas in fact the blame lies entirely on Russia's illegitimate ambitions and naked aggression against Georgia. "Reset" is another word for appeasement.

"The Smell of War at Breakfast" (Moscow Times)

Will Russia launch a war against Georgia? That is the most important question that should have been decided during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow — or, to be more precise, during Obama’s breakfast meeting on Tuesday with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Everything else was of secondary importance. Compared with the Russia-Georgia conflict, what difference does it make what kind of agreement they reach to reduce strategic nuclear arms? After all, Russia and the United States will never use these weapons against each other anyway.

The pleasantries shared between President Dmitry Medvedev and Obama during their news conference and photo ops were just as meaningless. In the end, Medvedev and Putin will always support regimes that are antagonistic to Washington for one simple reason: to increase international tensions, drive up oil prices and give the Kremlin another chance to bask in its inflated self-image as a global energy superpower.

It was very important that Obama’s visit coincided with Russia’s large-scale military exercises “Caucasus 2009,” which were most likely held in preparation for a new war in the region. And whether or not Russia’s troops will be given the green light does not depend on military considerations, but on whether Putin, after meeting with Obama, believes that he can start a war without incurring repercussions from the West.

The only good reason to talk to the Russians is to order them to get out of Georgia.  Having no principles and no strategic vision, Obama has no idea what matters in world affairs.  Meanwhile:

"The Bush Doctrine is Still Working" (American Spectator)

A central theme of President Bush's administration was to promote democracy in the Middle East. He argued that establishing a full fledged democracy in Iraq in the heart of the Middle East would have transforming effects throughout the Muslim World. Even though the promotion of human rights and democracy had been a central theme of liberal foreign policy for decades, the Left ridiculed Bush's policy as hopelessly naïve. Even some on the right echoed this criticism.

But recent trends throughout the Middle East show that this policy is now producing a growing, very powerful effect in countering Islamic extremism and terrorism, just as Bush originally envisioned. The most recent example of this is the elections in Lebanon, where the pro-Western coalition in power there was reelected last month with a slightly increased majority over the Islamic extremist Hezbollah coalition, despite Iranian funding estimated in the billions for Hezbollah.

When the pro-Western coalition was first elected in Lebanon in 2005, it soon chased the Syrian army out of the country, ending the occupation started over 20 years ago during the Lebanese civil war. That was a huge victory for America and the West for which Bush received no credit.

Another recent example comes from Kuwait, where the public mostly voted for secular parties, rejecting the Islamic extremists in even electing women to the legislature for the first time, contrary to extremist strictures. Elections in Pakistan have probably been the most important of all, with the public overwhelmingly choosing secular parties over Islamic extremists. In the 2002 election, the extremists were revealed as a fringe element with only about 11% of the vote. In the more recent election in 2008, they got only 2%, winning only 6 out of 270 seats. This was another big victory, revealing the lack of appeal by the Taliban and Al Qaeda in that critical country.

In Iraq itself, we have seen the same results. The public votes for secular parties, not Islamic extremists. Indeed, despite all the talk from the Left about how Bush only alienated the Islamic street, we don't see anti-American candidates in Iraq even running let alone winning.

Another big turning point came in Morocco in 2007. The Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) was projected to win the parliamentary elections. But when the votes were counted, PJD had won only 14% of the vote, and a conservative party aligned with the traditional King had won. In municipal elections this past April, the PJD sunk to 7% of the vote. In Jordan in 2007, the Islamic Action Front won just 6 of the 22 seats it contested, down from 17 seats in the previous parliament.

Absent democracy, the roughly 10% of the public in Middle Eastern, Islamic countries willing to shoot their way into power in the name of Allah seems dominant. Actual elections reveal them to be fringe, extremist groups, greatly diminishing their power in favor of reasonable, secular leaders. As a result, the Bush doctrine of advancing democracy and human rights is now increasingly successful in combating terrorism and Islamic extremism.

Now we are seeing these same results in Iran. Where did the people of Iran get the idea that they were entitled to an honest election? They haven't had an honest election there in over 50 years. Maybe it comes from watching their Shiite brothers voting in honest, free elections in neighboring Iraq. And maybe it comes as well from watching the same in neighboring Afghanistan, which had formerly been seen as hopelessly backward for centuries.

Iran's recent sham election fiasco is the biggest victory of all for America and the West, again courtesy of the Bush doctrine of promoting democracy and human rights in the Middle East. All of a sudden, the Islamic theocracy in Iran has been discredited and exposed as illegitimate. Now that the ruling mullahs have had to turn to shooting their own people in the streets to stay in power, it is only a matter of time until their theocracy falls, and the popular will regains power. That result will be enormously beneficial for America, because Iran's theocratic regime is the central power in the Middle East supporting and spreading Islamic radicalism, terrorism, and continued war against Israel and the West. Once Iran's theocracy falls, and is replaced by a secular government, peace between Israel and the Palestinians will be possible and increasingly likely over time.

But these achievements will be lost if we let the Russians usher in a new age of aggression.  So far, the lesson of August 2008 is "crime pays."  If we don't reverse that lesson, we can expect to see more crime.

Who Lost Russia?

"Slippery Slope to Autocracy" (Moscow Times):

Authoritarianism is like a rock. Once it is dropped, it can only go in one direction -- down. Russia's path toward democracy was paved during former President Boris Yeltsin's presidency, but it has been steadily destroyed since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000.

Over the past eight years, the state has been gradually taking away the constitutional rights of Russians. First, the state crushed freedom of speech on television. Then, it deprived citizens of their elected representatives in the Federation Council. Next, it installed seven federal presidential envoys around the country to control governors because at that time they were still elected by the people. But in September 2004, after the Beslan terrorist attack, Putin used the tragedy as a pretext to cancel the elections of governors. From that point on, the notion of Russian federalism became fiction.

In 2007, the Kremlin then turned its sights on the parliament. Using the "fight against terrorism" as its justification, the state deprived voters of the right to elect individual deputies to the State Duma in single-seat electoral districts, replacing them with proportional representation for all Duma seats.

In addition, the Kremlin created United Russia, its own pocket political party. United Russia has established a monopoly over the country's political and legislative machine, creating a modern-day version of the Soviet Communist Party in Moscow and in the regions.

The Constitution also became a target for attack...

[The Kremlin] also thrust its way into Russians' minds, forcing a pro-Kremlin and anti-Western ideology on them. This was necessary because the authoritarianism and the dismantling of the Constitution required a compelling ideological foundation. This was most vividly articulated during Putin's speech immediately after the Beslan siege ended, when he referred to "enemies" who have encircled Russia and who are craving to seize parts of its territory and rich resources.

One of the first attacks in this new ideological campaign was the revision of teaching manuals to correct passages in textbooks that had tarnished the country's "glorious past." Schoolchildren were told that Soviet leader Josef Stalin was an "effective manager" whose mass murders, forced hunger and state terror were "justified."

Medvedev's latest move, on May 19, was the creation of a presidential commission "for counteracting attempts to falsify history to the detriment of Russia's interests." This opens the door to deprive Russians the freedom to know the truth about their own history. Now, state bureaucrats will decide which interpretation of history should be considered "falsified" and which is "true."

Playing with history is frightfully familiar. Under Stalin, the regime's mistakes and crimes were whitewashed or completely expunged from the public record...

Now, it seems that the Kremlin is determined to distort global affairs and rewrite history to fit the Kremlin's paranoid worldview. It will be filled with enemies and Russophobes, plots and secret operations against Russia requiring that the new dictator mobilize all of his forces in the fight against internal and external enemies.

To turn Russia from the deadly wrong trajectory it has embarked on under Putin, it is essential that the cost of Russian aggression against Georgia be made far higher than it has been so far.  This is for Russia's own benefit as well as the world's, since their post-imperial complexes have nothing to do with the well-being of the Russian people.

"Taboo broken in first shot of Mideast offensive" (FT):

A period of high-level diplomacy on the Middle East opens in New York on Monday, promising further insights into an emerging strategy from Barack Obama’s administration that is already raising concerns among Israel’s supporters.

A US official this week broke a long-standing taboo by referring to Israel’s nuclear weapons in a speech at the United Nations, and Joe Biden, vice-president, delivered a message to the biggest US pro-Israel lobby group that he warned they were “not going to like”...

The Russians and the US have been working together on a Security Council statement that is almost certain to reaffirm support for a two-state solution to the conflict, something Benjamin Netanyahu, the new Israeli prime minister, has been reluctant to endorse...

On the same day, Rose Gottemoeller, US assistant secretary of state, told a non-proliferation meeting at the UN: “Universal adherence to the NPT [nuclear non-proliferation treaty] – including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea – remains a fundamental objective of the United States.”

The justification for India and Israel having nukes is the same as the justification for the US having them: that these are democracies which can be trusted to use them only in the event of an existential threat.  If that's not good enough for them, it's not good enough for us, and we ought to contemplate our own nuclear disarmament.  This is symptomatic of the absence of a capacity for either moral or strategic reasoning on the part of the Obama administration.  Neither US interests nor US values are served by this gesture; on the contrary, it just underlines US hypocrisy.

UPDATE: More betrayals of our allies:

Similarly, the joint statement issued by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev after their April 1 meeting in London, while mentioning that US-Russia relations would be “guided by the rule of law, respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights, and tolerance for different views,” placed far greater emphasis on reducing nuclear arms, addressing Iran’s nuclear program, and stabilizing Afghanistan. US support for Russia’s admission to the World Trade Organization was unconditional.

The Russian leadership seems to get a kick out of calling black white.  Russia today is the antithesis of the rule of law both at home and abroad, and they know it perfectly well.  For Obama to sign a joint statement like this is groveling appeasement.  Oh for a McCain, or anyone with a moral compass.  As for "stabilizing Afghanistan," that is far less important than confronting Russia, first of all, second the Russians want us to do it in order to tie us down.  Obama is playing into Russia's hands.

The US should not support Russian admission to the WTO as long as they're occupying Georgia.  Why should anyone be our ally if we backstab our allies like this?  Answer: they shouldn't, and if we keep this up, they won't.

"At Munich Talks, Hopes for Thaw in U.S.-Russia Ties" (Moscow Times)

Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will join a prestigious weekend conference in Germany amid high expectations that it could presage a thaw in relations between Moscow and Washington.

The Munich Security Conference, which opens Friday, gathers a dozen world leaders and 50 senior diplomats and defense officials.

"I see signals that the U.S. as well as Russia are interested in a new beginning," Wolfgang Ischinger, the conference chairman and a former German ambassador to London and Washington, told Bonn's General-Anzeiger newspaper this week.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in an opinion piece printed in Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, said it was a "positive sign" that Moscow last month said it would only go ahead with deploying missiles near the Polish border if the United States pushed forward with plans to install a missile defense system in Central Europe.

This year's conference is likely to focus on Afghanistan, which is a hot-button issue after Kyrgyzstan moved this week to shut a U.S. air base that is an important staging post for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that Russia and its ex-Soviet allies wanted to cooperate with the United States on stabilizing Afghanistan, but he appeared to link any help to changes in Western policy, including the cancellation of the U.S. missile defense plans.

Meanwhile, a Western diplomatic source said Thursday that the United States and Uzbekistan were close to a deal allowing Washington to open a new supply route for its troops in Afghanistan.

The deal with Uzbekistan is good news: with Russia having shifted to aggressive mode, we can't afford to be as scrupulous in dealing with tyrants like Karimov.  Though I'm still pessimistic about Obama's plans for a surge in Afghanistan.  But to back away from missile defense is a big mistake.  Russia has no legitimate interest in keeping Poland and the Czech Republic without missile defense.  Poland took a risk to agree to the deal, for better or worse.  Moreover, any thaw in relations with Russia, and certainly any "new beginning," is equivalent to condoning the dismemberment of democratic ally Georgia.

It's grimly appropriate that the talks are occurring in Munich.

New World Order

Moscow Times:

Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia expects to sign a deal within a few months allowing Russia to establish a naval base and an air base on its soil, a separatist official said Thursday.

NATO expressed concern Wednesday at reports quoting unidentified Russian military sources as saying Moscow planned a naval base in Abkhazia, one of two breakaway regions Georgia seeks to reclaim. There has been no Kremlin confirmation.

"This is true -- the Russian Federation and Abkhazia are in talks on setting up two Russian bases on Abkhaz soil, proceeding from our treaty on friendship and mutual assistance," Kristian Bzhania, a spokesman for the Abkhaz separatist leadership, said by telephone from the region's capital, Sukhumi.

In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.  A few months later in 1991, George H.W. Bush and a global coalition expelled Hussein's forces from Kuwait.  The precedent thus set-- that sovereign borders must be respected, and that overwhelming force would punish any deviation from this rule-- paved the way for 17 years in which very few attempts to alter international borders by force occurred.  The exceptions, such as the Armenia/Azerbaijan conflict, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the independence of East Timor, were related to the breakup of states rather than expansionism.  Conquest was obsolete.

In 2008, the Iraq-Kuwait precedent was reversed when Russia attacked Georgia.  Some controversy remains about how the war began-- whether Russia sent tanks through the Roki Tunnel first, as Saakashvili claims, or whether Saakashvili started with an attack on Tskhinvali-- but as there is no question that any action taken by Georgia was provoked at least by heavy and accelerating provocations by separatist mercenaries if not by an actual incursion of Russian tanks, and as the whole war was fought on Georgian territory (there is no such thing as aggression on one's own territory), the episode is an unambiguous case of Russian aggression.  While Russia seems to have been surprised by the democratic solidarity the West initially displayed, this resolve rapidly melted away, and the West has yet to engage in even the simple decency of declaring a boycott of the 2014 Olympics, let alone undertaking substantive measures to make an example of Russia and show the world that aggression doesn't pay.  I think we can say at this point that the salutary precedent of the 1991 Gulf War is no longer operative.  Would-be conquerors can start looking wistfully at their maps again.

Ostracism is the Least We Can Do to Stop Aggression

From Foreign Policy:

[W]ith Russia, too, Obama will inherit a strategy that he’s likely to continue, simply because it’s better than the alternatives. It seeks neither to isolate Russia (which is impossible) nor to give Russia the blank check it wants in its old imperial stomping grounds (which is irresponsible). Rather, this policy seeks to balance cooperation with Russia on many shared interests with competition when interests diverge. Maybe this balance could have been struck better on issues such as Kosovo or missile defense, but that doesn’t signal the need for a new policy, just a recalibration of the current one. And if anything, the Georgia war showed that, if the United States wants Russia to be a responsible stakeholder, encouragement won’t be enough.

Why is it "impossible" to isolate Russia?  Because appeasement-minded Europeans, especially the Germans, won't go along with it?  Because we-- somehow-- need ties with Russia?  (But why? Economically? Their oil will get onto world markets somehow, however bad our relations with them.)  Because ordinary Russians would suffer?

If "isolate Russia" means "cut all ties," then sure, it's impossible.  But Russia has already painted itself into a corner of considerable diplomatic isolation.  The US should work to increase that isolation; and no foreign policy objective is more important than this.  Russia is probably the only sovereign state in the world at the present time which has engaged in unambiguous, naked aggression in the recent past.  What happened on August 7th is still disputed, but ultimately it doesn't matter much, for there is no question that Russian-backed separatists were attacking Georgian forces before August 7th, or that the territories in question are sovereign territory of Georgia.  Even if everything Russia claims about the crisis is true, Russia's actions are still unambiguous aggression which the world cannot accept and must punish and reverse if the integrity of international law is to be restored.  If Russia is allowed to be a normal country enjoying normal relations with the rest of the world without withdrawing from South Ossetia and Abkhazia and entrusting them to appropriate international bodies, the precedent set will give a license to aggression throughout the world.

We can try to isolate the Putin regime without isolating the Russian people, who, though not innocent in the affair-- high levels of public support for Putin and the war are indicative of a national mentality which is profoundly ominous and morally culpable-- are partly excused from guilt because they are routinely lied to by the state media.  This will require creativity.  It might be worth trying to develop a cyber-war capability to crash Russian computers if they engage in any new aggression.  Russia should certainly be excluded from the WTO.  At the same time, we should open new opportunities for Russians to emigrate, both as a means of depopulating the country until such time as Russia has a government that does not menace humanity, and in order to help Russians economically and give them exposure to the West in hopes of undermining the xenophobic and paranoid attitudes (misnamed "patriotic") that the Russian regime is cultivating at home.  (Of course, it is unjust, in general, to exclude people from the West on the basis of their place of birth, so this is just an application of a broader principle.)  

Russian young men of draftable age should be specially targeted: I would recommend scholarships funded by Western taxpayers to young men who want to escape the draft, as a human-rights measure that would directly undermine the military power of the Kremlin.

Unfortunately, I don't think any such "smart soft power" measures will be pursued.  I expect the Obama administration to be feckless on Russia, with lasting and damaging consequences for world peace and security.