{"id":2831,"date":"2008-08-21T08:33:16","date_gmt":"2008-08-21T05:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=2831"},"modified":"2014-01-01T20:05:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-01T18:05:20","slug":"what-did-we-expect-by-thomas-l-friedman-yorum-atilla-bektore-tarafindan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2008\/08\/21\/what-did-we-expect-by-thomas-l-friedman-yorum-atilla-bektore-tarafindan\/","title":{"rendered":"What Did We Expect? By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN \/ YORUM ATILLA BEKTORE TARAFINDAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Friedmanin’nin NY Times daki makalesini entersan buldum, benim daha evvel bu mevzuda gonderdigim bir analizle paralleligi var. Atilla Bektore [bektorea@bellsouth.net]<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

August 20, 2008<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

OP-ED COLUMNIST<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

What Did We Expect?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By <\/span><\/strong>THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If the conflict in Georgia were an Olympic event, the gold medal for brutish stupidity would go to the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. The silver medal for bone-headed recklessness would go to Georgia\u2019s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the bronze medal for rank short-sightedness would go to the Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with us. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, I was among the group \u2014 led by George Kennan, the father of \u201ccontainment\u201d theory, Senator Sam Nunn and the foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum \u2014 that argued against expanding NATO, at that time.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It seemed to us that since we had finally brought down Soviet communism and seen the birth of democracy in Russia the most important thing to do was to help Russian democracy take root and integrate Russia into Europe. Wasn\u2019t that why we fought the cold war \u2014 to give young Russians the same chance at freedom and integration with the West as young Czechs, Georgians and Poles? Wasn\u2019t consolidating a democratic Russia more important than bringing the Czech Navy into NATO?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

All of this was especially true because, we argued, there was no big problem on the world stage that we could effectively address without Russia \u2014 particularly Iran or Iraq. Russia wasn\u2019t about to reinvade Europe. And the Eastern Europeans would be integrated into the West via membership in the European Union.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

No, said the Clinton foreign policy team, we\u2019re going to cram NATO expansion down the Russians\u2019 throats, because Moscow is weak and, by the way, they\u2019ll get used to it. Message to Russians: We expect you to behave like Western democrats, but we\u2019re going to treat you like you\u2019re still the Soviet Union. The cold war is over for you, but not for us.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams acted on the basis of two false premises,\u201d said Mandelbaum. \u201cOne was that Russia is innately aggressive and that the end of the cold war could not possibly change this, so we had to expand our military alliance up to its borders. Despite all the pious blather about using NATO to promote democracy, the belief in Russia\u2019s eternal aggressiveness is the only basis on which NATO expansion ever made sense \u2014 especially when you consider that the Russians were told they could not join. The other premise was that Russia would always be too weak to endanger any new NATO members, so we would never have to commit troops to defend them. It would cost us nothing. They were wrong on both counts.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The humiliation that NATO expansion bred in Russia was critical in fueling Putin\u2019s rise after Boris Yeltsin moved on. And America\u2019s addiction to oil helped push up energy prices to a level that gave Putin the power to act on that humiliation. This is crucial backdrop.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, today we must support all diplomatic efforts to roll back the Russian invasion of Georgia. Georgia is a nascent free-market democracy, and we can\u2019t just watch it get crushed. But we also can\u2019t refrain from noting that Saakashvili\u2019s decision to push his troops into Tskhinvali, the heart of Georgia\u2019s semiautonomous pro-Russian enclave of South Ossetia, gave Putin an easy excuse to exercise his iron fist.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As The Washington Post\u2019s longtime Russia watcher Michael Dobbs noted: \u201cOn the night of Aug. 7 …, Saakashvili ordered an artillery barrage against Tskhinvali and sent an armored column to occupy the town. He apparently hoped that Western support would protect Georgia from major Russian retaliation, even though Russian \u2018peacekeepers\u2019 were almost certainly killed or wounded in the Georgian assault. It was a huge miscalculation.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And as The Economist magazine also wrote, \u201cSaakashvili is an impetuous nationalist.\u201d His thrust into South Ossetia \u201cwas foolish and possibly criminal. But unlike Putin, he has led his country in a broadly democratic direction, curbed corruption and presided over rapid economic growth that has not relied, as Russia\u2019s mostly does, on high oil and gas prices.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That is why the gold medal for brutishness goes to Putin. Yes, NATO expansion was foolish. Putin exploited it to choke Russian democracy. But now, petro-power-grabbing has gone to his head \u2014 whether it’s invading Georgia, bullying Western financiers and oil companies working in Russia, or using Russia\u2019s gas supplies to intimidate its neighbors.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If it persists, this behavior will push every Russian neighbor to seek protection from Moscow and will push the Europeans to redouble their efforts to find alternatives to Russian oil and gas. This won\u2019t happen overnight, but in time it will stretch Russia\u2019s defenses and lead it to become more isolated, more insecure and less wealthy.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For all these reasons, Russia would be wise to reconsider Putin\u2019s Georgia gambit. If it does, we would be wise to reconsider where our NATO\/Russia policy is taking us \u2014 and whether we really want to spend the 21st century containing Russia the same way we spent much of the 20th containing the Soviet Union.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ____________________________________________<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

YORUM\u00a0 <\/span>BY ATILLA BEKTORE <\/span><\/p>\n

————-<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

the article by George Friedman regarding the Russo-Georgian conflict.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The points indicated \u00a0in the the article “The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power” regarding\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

the latest Russo\u2013Georgian conflict are well taken.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And here \u00a0is somewhat shortened view on the conflict from \u00a0my perspective:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

North Atlantic Treaty \u00a0was signed in Washington,_D.C.\u00a0on 4 April 19949. It included\u00a0\u00a0Netherlands, Luxembourg, France,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

United Kingdom<\/span>,\u00a0the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. And \u00a0the treaty stated that:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Parties of NATO agreed that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense will assist the Party or Parties being attacked, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Whom were they afraid of? Certainly not Germany or Japan who were already totally defeated in 1945. The new threat was the Soviet Union (a member of the Alliance defeating \u00a0 Hitler) which at the occupied almost all the Eastern Europe including Eastern Germany. It was feared that her influence would tilt the post-war governments\u00a0to be formed in parts of the\u00a0\u00a0the Western Europe \u00a0towards socialism. \u00a0In April of 1949 with the help of CIA Italy barely escaped from \u00a0the clutches of the Communist Party of Italy.\u00a0The so called “Cold War” was beginning and the so called “containment” of the Soviet Union was being \u00a0put into effect. The direct application of it was realized when in 1952 Greece and Turkey became members of NATO ( the Democratic Party government under premiership of Adnan Menderes was in power at the time). What has \u00a0Turkey had to do with North Atlantic? Black Sea or Mediterranean Alliances maybe, but certainly not North Atlantic. It did not really matter. The Soviet Union had to be contained, and Turkey could be instrumental in blocking its path to warm waters of the Mediterranean. American military aid poured into Turkey. But that was not all. American bases with nuclear tipped missiles were established in \u00a0Eastern Turkey aimed at the \u00a0Soviet Union (those missiles were later \u00a0removed from Turkey by a \u00a0secrete agreement between\u00a0by J.F. Kennedy\u00a0and Nikita Khrushchev in Oct. of 1962, \u00a0following the Cuban Missile crisis, in exchange for removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba, but American bases stayed).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Soviet Union<\/span> disintegrated in 1991, by its own weight. As a nuclear power in competition with the United State, the military budgets of the country \u00a0at times approached 80% of the total at the expense of civilian needs. Long lines for the ordinary items did not really \u00a0disappear \u00a0from the old days, when \u00a0I was \u00a0growing up as a kid in \u00a0the Soviet Union. USSR (Union \u00a0of the Soviet Socialist Republics) dissolved and transformed itself into the Commonwealth of the Independent Republics (Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan)\u00a0the largest of them Russian Federation became today’s Russia. Michail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were instrumental in this transformation.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What precipitated \u00a0 Russia’s\u00a0latest\u00a0anger towards Saakashvili resulting in military action in breakaway South Ossetia area of Georgia was not primarily his treatment of South Ossetians, but \u00a0his application for the Membership of NATO \u2013 supported by the US \u2013 and urging Ukraine to do so, and \u00a0his recent declaration that Georgia will leave the Commonwealth of the Independent Republics. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

NATO is a defensive military alliance supported by military-industrial enterprises. Defense against whom one might ask? Its original formation was based against the threat of the Soviet Union against Western Europe. It is no more, but \u00a0Russians think it is still aimed \u00a0against them. That is why they cannot tolerate Georgia at their southern \u00a0border between \u00a0Caspian and Black seas armed with NATO’s weapons. It is that simple. US \u00a0by invoking \u00a0The Monroe Doctrine \u2013<\/span>\u00a0which, on December 2, 1823, proclaimed that European powers were no longer to colonize or interfere with the affairs of the newly independent nations of the Americas\u2013<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0brought the successful removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba in 1962, but US to this day \u00a0ostracizes Cuba \u00a0by maintaining an economic embargo on the island located only 90 miles from the US. Could we call it a double standard? The world needs respite from the military alliances, and the tensions and economic hardships it creates. Enough already.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Respectfully,\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Atilla Bektore<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Friedmanin’nin NY Times daki makalesini entersan buldum, benim daha evvel bu mevzuda gonderdigim bir analizle paralleligi var. Atilla Bektore [bektorea@bellsouth.net] \u00a0 August 20, 2008 OP-ED COLUMNIST What Did We Expect? By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN If the conflict in Georgia were an Olympic event, the gold medal for brutish stupidity would go to the Russian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":38128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,42,208],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-georgia-caucasus","category-russia","category-southerncaucasus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}