Ukraine tests whether one country can snatch another’s territory by force. Like in olden times — but the world seemed to have progressed beyond that. Until Putin came along.
He’d already succeeded, in 2014, in grabbing Crimea, and we muffed our chance to put a stop to it right there. Previously he’d also got away with it in Georgia. So Ukraine now presents our third and probably last chance to beat down this really dangerous threat to global stability. Stopping the carnage would be good, but shouldn’t distract us from the bigger issue — aggression mustn’t be rewarded.
Back to Georgia, it was part of the Soviet Union, gaining independence when that “dungeon of nations” sprang open in 1991. Not under the thumb of an old-guard mafia like some other ex-Soviet states, Georgia emerged as respectably democratic. Looking westward, aiming to join Europe, seen as a guarantor of democracy and progress.
But Russia soon meddled, splitting off two Georgian border locales, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, whose phony nationhood no one else recognizes. Then in 2008 Russia invaded the rest of Georgia. Nothing much came of that — except to show the West didn’t really care. Thus prefiguring the Ukraine incursions.
Still, Georgia remained free. Until the advent of Bidzina Ivanishvili, a secretive billionaire (he made his money in Russia) and his Georgian Dream party, campaigning as the “party of peace.” To be gained by appeasing Russia, with Ukraine cast as a cautionary tale, falsely blaming that horror on the West. Georgian Dream promised to spare the country another invasion — by handing it to Russia without one.
Georgian Dream gained power and enacted a ban on any organization receiving foreign financial help, copying Putin in Russia, a repressive gimmick to quash independent voices. Now they’ve extended their control, through elections widely considered thoroughly fraudulent, and have halted Georgia’s bid to join the European Union.
These developments sent citizens into the streets, protesting, in their thousands. The regime has responded with maximal, brutal violence. Yet the protests continue, with astonishing bravery.
Georgia since 2018 had a pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, who’s denounced the electoral fraud, and everything else. Her term expiring, parliament has installed a successor, whom she refuses to recognize as legitimate.
Putin’s dream is to restore the Soviet empire. His assault upon Ukraine is the most blatant manifestation; his efforts to bring Georgia into his orbit are another, showing there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
We in the West had been lulled into complacency, thinking the new world order secure. Forgetting what I’ve called the power imbalance between good and evil. Good people are constrained by scruples; bad ones unconstrained. And we’ve repeatedly seen the global bad guys’ skill in developing shameless methods to sustain and extend their power. Including sham elections with fake results.
Yet they’re not invulnerable. Lately, Bangladesh’s and Syria’s autocratic regimes collapsed quite suddenly. How will things go in Georgia? Perhaps courage among the good can redress the noted power imbalance. What might spur them on is promise of a clear fast track to EU membership. However, Eurocrats seem too timid for anything like that. Not matching the protesters’ gutsiness, and spotlighting a power imbalance between evil and quivering jello.
