PEACE & SECURITY | Creating a more stable world
18 September 2008
Russia Must Change Course in Georgia, Says Rice
Kremlin’s policy choices putting nation on path to international isolation
Washington — The Georgia crisis is the latest example of a Russia that has become “increasingly authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad,” says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“Our strategic goal now is to make it clear to Russia’s leaders that their choices are putting Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance,” Rice said in a September 18 address in Washington to the German Marshall Fund.
The Georgia crisis puts into focus what Rice called a “dark turn” in Russia’s development in recent years, marked by the rollback of personal freedoms, pervasive corruption, and targeting of dissenting voices at home, while internationally wielding its energy wealth as a political weapon, threatening to target neighbors with nuclear weapons, and transferring advanced weapons systems to hostile regimes.
“Russia’s leaders are making some unfortunate choices. But they can make different ones,” Rice said. “Russia’s future is in Russia’s hands.”
Dozens of nations and international organizations have spoken out against Russian actions, including Moscow’s partners in the G8 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, while others have delivered millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to help rebuild Georgia. In marked contrast, few nations have supported Russia’s actions and only one, Nicaragua, and the international terrorist organization Hamas have joined Russia to recognize Georgia’s breakaway regions.
The conflict over Georgia’s separatist South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions has complex historical roots, but months of Moscow-engineered provocations lay behind the current crisis, Rice said. She cited Moscow’s distribution of Russian passports to citizens in Georgian territories and arming and training separatist militia forces, whose cross-border attacks finally prompted Georgian leaders to take action.
“Russia’s leaders used this as a pretext to launch what, by all appearances, was a premeditated invasion of its independent neighbor,” Rice said. Russia has further compounded the act with its refusal to honor cease-fire pledges to the European Union, its move to recognize both Moscow-backed regions as independent states, and recent actions to block civilian cease-fire monitors from helping to implement the peace agreement.
Rice rejected arguments that U.S. diplomacy has shaped Russia’s recent actions, noting that since 1991, three presidents have supported Russia’s path to reform. Nor can Russia’s choices be blamed on NATO expansion, Rice said. NATO successfully transformed itself from a Cold War security alliance to a body that has promoted democratic reforms and allowed nations — including Russia — to confront terrorism and other emerging security challenges.
“To claim that this alliance is directed against Russia is simply to ignore history,” Rice said. “Russia’s legitimate need for security is best served not by having weak, fractious and poor states on its borders, but rather peaceful, prosperous and democratic ones.”
The Kremlin’s backward-looking actions place it sharply at odds with the rest of the international community in an age of global interdependence, Rice said. Such interdependence has resulted in historically unprecedented prosperity and opportunity for the Russian people, the secretary said.
“This, then, is the deeper tragedy of the choices that Russia’s leaders are making. It is not just the pain they inflict on others, but the debilitating costs they impose on Russia itself,” Rice said. “And for what? Russia’s attack on Georgia merely proved what was already known — that Russia could use its overwhelming military advantage to punish a small neighbor.”
A Russia pursuing responsible international partnership, economic expansion and global integration was reflected in Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s 2008 election campaign, Rice said, a vision that since has receded into the distance. “If Russia ever wants to be more than just an energy supplier, its leaders have to recognize a hard truth: Russia depends on the world for its success, and it cannot change that.”
Rice praised the European Union and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe for their diplomatic initiatives, as well as parallel efforts by Finland and Sweden. She urged continued unity and resolve. “We cannot afford to validate the prejudices that some Russian leaders seem to have: that if you pressure free nations enough — if you bully, and threaten, and lash out — we will cave in, and forget, and eventually concede,” Rice said.
The United States and Europe must stand together to hold Russia to its cease-fire commitments, to help Georgia rebuild, and to reassure Ukraine and others in the region that the international community remains committed to helping resolve “frozen conflicts” and resisting any further attempts by Moscow to redraw international boundaries by military force.
“For our sake — and for the sake of Russia’s people, who deserve a better relationship with the rest of the world — the United States and Europe must not allow Russia’s aggression to achieve any benefit. Not in Georgia — not anywhere.”
The transcript of Rice’s prepared remarks is available from America.gov.
For more information, see Crisis in Georgia.
