US could be alone in its attempt to isolate Russia over Georgia

The White House’s calls for the isolation reached a new crescendo in September, when U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, speaking on the U.S.-Russia relations at the German Marshall Fund, condemned Kremlin for what she called Moscow’s invasion of Georgia, and pledged measures to isolate Russia on the international arena. The speech represented a continuation of U.S. barrages of biased criticism of Moscow since Kremlin sent troops to repel Georgia’s attacks on South Ossetia in August. 

Notably, Washington has unapologetically continued to condemn Russia, even after preliminary investigations, including those conducted by the U.S. Senate and Secret Services, had shown that the aggression against South Ossetia was started by the erratic Georgian president. Washington and some of its traditional anti-Russia NATO allies have called Moscow’s use of force ‘disproportionate,’ though conspicuously failing to indicate the level of response that would have been ‘proportionate’ to the Georgians’ cold-blooded shelling of sleeping cities in South Ossetia. Summing up the White House’s current stance on Moscow, Rice noted that “Russia is becoming increasingly ‘authoritarian’ at home and ‘aggressive’ abroad, adding that “the U.S. goal now is to make it clear to the Russian leaders that Russia is on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance.” 

United States finding it too difficult to accept a new Russia

“Notably, Washington has unapologetically continued to condemn Russia over the Georgia conflict, even after preliminary investigations by the U.S. parliament and Secret Services had revealed that the erratic Georgian president started the aggression against South Ossetia.”

The real problem, however, is that the United States is finding increasingly difficult to accept a new, resurgent Russia, which unlike the Yeltsin’s era Russia, does not only articulate its national interests, but is ready to defend them by all means at its disposal on the international arena. With the EU ever compliant and ready to bid its becks and calls, Washington, having totally forgotten about the existence of a dissenting voice since the demise of the Soviet empire, therefore, sees any geopolitical agendas that does not augur with its national interests or that are being executed without its sanctioning as threats to its interests from enemies that must be totally destroyed. This is more evident in Rice’s rhetoric, which highlights the fact that the United States has not only become recklessly shortsighted, but is also increasingly taking wistfulness for reality. This arrogant behavior becomes particularly evident from the number of foreign government officials that have visited Russia since Rice and other top U.S. officials have called for the alienation of Russia in global organizations, where Washington and its crony allies pull strings. 

 The EU is convinced that it is necessary to find a common language with Moscow. We’re ready for a dialog with Russia, a great power and our neighbor. 

However, apart from most leaders of the former Soviet republics, traditionally loyal to the Kremlin, the list of foreign presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers that have signed long-term economic cooperation pacts with Russia included such key EU states as Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Italy. Others included South Korea, a traditional U.S. ally, and Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chavez, seen as Cuba’s Fidel Castro’s heir for his caustic anti-U.S. rhetoric in Latin America, has even visited Russia twice since the war with Georgia.  Similarly, huge foreign corporations from far and wide have been in town to ink long-term, multibillion dollar deals in different industries. The latest was the deal struck on Oct. 1 between E.On and Gazprom at the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Dialog, where the energy companies swapped shares for stakes in the Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field, expected to produce half of the Nord Stream Pipeline’s capacity through a subsea link to Germany and other European states. 

Naturally, the reasons behind these visits to Russia differed from nations to nations, but the fact that these countries, which include both core U.S. allies and archenemies, have visited Russia, despite Washington’s persistent calls for the isolation of Russia, underscored the rising importance of Russia and its resources for these countries. This is one of several major reasons why the U.S. persistent calls might be only be supported by the Great Britain and other crony states such as Georgia, Ukraine, Baltic States and Poland — traditionally seen as ‘Washington’s satellites’ in Europe, mainly for their ‘blind support of all U.S. initiatives and absolute lack of national agendas differing from those of the United States on the global arena. But the EU giants, notably France, Germany and Italy, and former Soviet satellites such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, etc, coined the “New Europe’ by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, have built capital-intensive bi- and multilateral partnerships with Russia in various projects — from oil and gas to other key resources — that they are unlikely to jeopardize such relationships on the altar of U.S. unipolar view of the world and its self-declared mission to punish Russia over Georgia, which is being used a pretext. 

Rising challenges to Washington’s hegemony  

Indeed, many countries, including core U.S. allies, frustrated by the growing Washington’s unilateral leadership failures on all fronts — from geopolitics, unsuccessful anti-terrorism wars to the recent financial crisis that has significantly reshaped the U.S. economy, giving it a ‘socialist flavor’ — are beginning to question Washington’s unequivocal hegemony in global affairs. Specifically, these countries, notably Russia, are now calling for a ‘broad diversification’ of the decision-making processes on issues of global importance as Washington loses much of its clout on the background of mounting global crises, most of which had resulted from the Bush administration’s irrational policies. 

Summarizing for most world leaders after the Kremlin’s blitzkrieg geopolitical victory in the Caucasus, Turkish President Abdullah Gul, a NATO member and core U.S. ally in Europe and Muslim world, said he saw a new multipolar world emerging from the Georgian-South-Ossetian war, noting that results of the conflict unambiguously showed that the United States could no longer shape global politics on its own, and should start sharing power with other countries. “I don't think you can control the entire world from one center,” Gul told the Guardian. “There are [other] big nations. There is unbelievable economic development in [other] parts of the world. So, instead of unilateral actions, we should all act together, make common decisions and have consultations with the world. A new world order, if I can say it, should emerge.”

The calls for multipolarity of decision-making centers in global affairs are, indeed, gaining popularity among global political and business elite. Thus, a mini-G8 meeting comprising four EU biggest economies — France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy, all of which are also G8 members — called by Paris to find solutions to the global financial crisis, has agreed to organize a global conference that will not only include the G8 nations, but also India, China, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico to create “a new financial world.”  This call for a new world order means the current financial system under the tutelage of the United States is dead. This is made explicitly clear by World Bank President Robert Zoellick, when he said that “we cannot create a new world financial order by simply remaking the old one.” Those advocating for a global neo-geopolitical and economic order want a total overhaul of the global financial architecture based on the Bretton Woods, New Hampshire international agreement penned by UN members in 1944, which led to the  creation of the IMF and World Bank, which have helped shaped the global economy and politics since then. Thus, speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington ahead of meetings between the WB and its sister institution, the IMF, Zoellick said unlike the G7 and G8 or the rumored G14, the new system would be numberless and flexible enough to fit changing circumstances, including new emerging powers, while serving as a network for frequent interactions, a form of a ‘Facebook for multilateral economic diplomacy.’ 

Indeed, apart from the perennial scathing criticism from the traditional anti-U.S. hegemony advocates, such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had recently forecast the imminent demise of the United States as the sole global superpower at the UN, traditional core U.S. allies, also increasingly disillusioned with Washington’s leadership failures, are also not mincing words in voicing their criticism. For instance, speaking about United States and its diminishing global influence in September, German Finance Minister Peer Stainbruk told the Bundestag that the world, as we previously knew it, will never be the same again, because the United States will lose its ‘superpower status’ in the financial system, and blamed Wall Street for its ‘blind drive for double-digit profits and massive bonuses’ for CEOs that prompted the current equity turmoil, which has decapitated global capital markets. 

Stainbruk also accused the United States of other serious failures, including being too hesitant to introduce stricter rules to regulate its financial sector. “The United States is the source of the crisis. Its ‘laissez-fair stance on regulatory issues created the crisis that triggered an earthquake in the current international financial architecture,” Stainbruk said, and called for a more multipolar world. Political criticism was voiced by French President Nikolas Sarkozy at the UN, where, noting that that he represented the voice of the EU, called for reforming all international organizations from the UN to G8 to include powerful emerging nations such as China, India, Brazil, South Africa, etc, “because most of the current global issues cannot be resolved without close cooperation with these countries.” Again, this also implies the urgent need for the full diversification of the policy-making processes on the global arena. 

Martin Wolf, an associate editor at FT, was unequivocal in his indictment of the United States over the current crisis. “We are watching the disintegration of a financial system. Yet, judging by its foolish rejection of the U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700bln Bailout plan, the U.S. Congress believes it is time to risk another Great Depression like that of 1929-33.” And, rounding up the criticism on Washington after the Congress failed to pass bailout bill the first time, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso bluntly told the United States to show ‘responsibility’ by adopting the measures to curtail the raging global financial crisis. Never before have European leaders and media had this type of gut to criticize the United States, at least, not so publicly. 

Growing criticism highlights waning U.S. influence

Practically, all these attacks and criticism mean that the United States under Bush entered a new era, which will be characterized by increasing challenges to Washington’s hitherto indisputable hegemony in world affairs since the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s made the United States the world’s only superpower. Also, just like the defunct Soviet Union apparatchiks, the current top U.S. leadership officials are failing to read the glaring signs on the walls, and just like the Soviet Union bureaucrats, they might just wake up one day too late to realize that they have lost everything. Not only to their archrivals, like the resurgent Russia and robust China, but also to traditional allies. This why the U.S. political leadership will be making its greatest mistakes if it thinks it can continue to take decisions unilaterally and expect its so-called allies — those capable of running independent foreign policies, in contrast to crony states that are incapable of pursuing independent courses — to execute its orders. 

The emerging picture is that most leaders are unlikely to act on U.S. orders that go contrary to their national interests, and this includes taking abrasively planned punitive actions against Moscow, a trend evident in the frequencies of visits from these countries to Russia and the volume of contracts signed and other commitments made during these visits. Indeed, the EU giant states, or so-called ‘Old Europe,’ also made this clear at Brussels and Avignon meetings, where they suppressed an anti-Russia resolution — reportedly put up by Poland, Britain and the Baltic states at the behest of the United States, that called for immediate EU sanctions against Moscow. “The EU is convinced that it is necessary to find a common language with Russia. We’re ready for a dialog with Russia, a great power and our neighbor,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said, and cautioned those overtly zealous for sanctions against Moscow. Most observers have attributed the EU’s more pragmatic stance on the Georgian to France’s independent vision on global issues. Besides, Paris currently holds the EU rotating presidency, and thus, oversaw the EU negotiations in the Georgian conflict. “Sanctions are not our word. This is not the time for sanctions,” Kouchner added. “Contrary to calls not to come Moscow for negotiations, I’m glad that I’m here today,” Sarkozy said, a reference to behind-the-door arm-twisting diplomacy by the anti-Russia Anglo-Saxon hawks. 

Russia remains unconcerned over Washington-isolation calls intrigue 

Recently, at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov said he had meetings in different formats with representatives of over 100 countries. Besides, the number of meetings held by other top Russian officials in Moscow and other capitals and the huge traffic of foreign leaders that have visited Moscow since the ill-fated Georgian attack on South Ossetia, contrasts heavily with a picture of a country soon to be sidelined and ostracized on the geopolitical arena or, according to Rice, on a one-way course to ‘self-isolation and international irrelevance.’ Maybe, Rice, just like most other myopic top Bush administration advisers, has also substituted pure geopolitical pragmatism that has governed U.S. polity for over 200 years for mere wistfulness. Only the full manifestation of all the positive expectations in key policy changes from President-elect Barack Obama could restore lost sanity and pragmatism back to the U.S. foreign policies on the geopolitical arena.         

As the United States will soon find out, especially after its recent calamitous leadership failures, countries will no longer be so keen to sacrifice their national interests for its unilateral actions. This is because the proposed isolation of Moscow — either through sanctioning or downgrading the level of economic activities with it and/or both — will be tantamount to committing ‘economic suicides’ by nations, which depend on Russia for energy and other vital natural resources or as a rapidly expanding market for their goods and services. Using Germany as a prototype, Strator summarized the type of dilemma faced by most countries in weighing their policies on Russia, noting that Berlin faces a truly agonizing choice: confrontation with Moscow that will make it suffer greatly, or a conciliation that will make its neighbors suffer even more.” 

From the alterations from major world capitals, it seems most countries are opting for the second option, as they are not ready to jeopardize their economies and far-reaching geopolitical interests for an ambiguous course that serves Washington’s exclusively unilateral and selfish interests at their own detriment. Seen in this perspective, the United States will be left two options — both stillbirth on conception. The first is to try to isolate alone, which judging by the current economic situations will not mean anything to Moscow, and the second alternative, equally ineffective as the first, is to form an amorphous alliance with its traditional crony states that have no clear national interests of their own. Either way, this isolation policy on Russia will fail woefully, because, apart from the absolute lack of economic necessity, the unshakeability of the U.S. superpower status, used frequently in the past to coercing other nations to execute Washington’s orders, has been completely compromised by the irrational actions of the Bush administration over the past eight years. 

And, in what could be a befitting epitaph on the tombstone of the U.S. economic hitherto unchallenged hegemony on the global arena, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the trust in the United States as the leader of the free world and global economy, and the Wall Street as the epicenter of that trust, has forever been undermined by the current financial meltdown and the White House’s inability to come up with solutions to tackle it effectively. “The world will never be the same again, as there will never be a return to the previous order. This is not only opinion, but also that of the EU leaders, specialists and chairmen of leading global central banks, who have either directly or indirectly voiced similar opinions.” A brave statement, not the one likely to be heard from a nation under siege of international ostracism. This is the reality of new unfolding world order. And, from Putin’s statement, Moscow is keen to be a fundamental part of that new order, whether Washington likes it or not. Most importantly is the fact that Russia does not permission from the United States or its allies in Europe.