It used to be that prospective politicians chose law school as the first step in their career path. Future politicians may skip law school altogether and try out for the Saturday Night Live team instead.
What’s So Funny?
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Europe & Central Asia
Boris and Hugo
It was, at first blush, an odd affair between curiously mismatched lovers: one of the world’s largest cities paired with one of the poorer ones. The seemingly unbalanced relationship between London and Caracas has been terminated. The instigator of the annulment was London’s new mayor, the previously deemed unelectable Boris Johnson. Some seven million British pounds will be returned to the Venezuelan government in due course.
Danger in South Asia
If most Americans think Iran and Georgia are the two most volatile flashpoints in the world, one can hardly blame them. The possibility that the Bush administration might strike at Tehran’s nuclear facilities has been hinted about for the past two years, and the White House’s pronouncements on Russia seem like Cold War déjà vu.
Georgia, Iraq, and Athenian Justice
“Justice only enters where there is equal power to enforce it … [W]e have a right to rule … the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.” While the Bush administration may disagree, this ancient Athenian quote applies equally to the Russian invasion of Georgia on August 8, 2008 and Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. This statement was originally addressed to the leaders and residents of the small Greek island of Melos 2,439 years ago. The Athenians invaded Melos to prevent the possibility of future hostile actions. The Athenians killed all men of military age (about 600 of them) and enslaved the rest. While some may disdain such a brutal approach, others will recognize that this philosophy is the same as the United States under Bush’s, and now Russia’s, approach to modern foreign policy. Over the course of history, states with great power do what they want. If moral reasoning happens to support their action they will use it, but it is not necessary. As seen in Iraq and now in Georgia, states can easily manufacture reasons for military action. This is not new. One of the most infamous uses of Hitler’s intellectuals justified heinous crimes against humanity by publishing thousands of books and articles demonizing Jews and others that they considered to be the children of lesser gods. Reading from the Athenian playbook, the Russians demonized the Georgians by declaring the Georgians to be the aggressors, claiming that they were committing genocide against ethnic Russians. It did not help that the bombastic, reckless leader of Georgia was first to invade the separatist South Ossetians. The two disputed regions — South Ossetia and Abkhazia — were semi-autonomous regions with Russian “peacekeepers” stationed in them. Instead of using diplomatic persuasion and the United Nations to resolve the issues of these semi-autonomous regions in Georgia, the Russians invaded Georgia instead. A few short weeks later the President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, announced that Russia was recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia’s independence. Seeking their own brand of Athenian justice, the Russians wanted to teach a lesson to the Georgians and send a powerful message to other former Soviet Union countries such as Ukraine. The Russians put on display that their military can exact what they want and the weak Georgians (and other outlying regions) will grant what they must. But the Russians didn’t have to look back to ancient times to learn how to invade another country. In 2003, the United States set a powerful example in demonizing the Iraqi government and many of its people. Bush and his advisers thought they could take Iraq because it was weak and it served their political interests: an important strategic location, oil, Â and a foothold to fight for our allies in the region. Demonizing Saddam Hussein was not hard to do. His earlier invasion of Kuwait mirrored that of Georgia’s military incursion. Like the United States, Russia ignored diplomacy and the UN when it made the rush to war. In both Georgia and Iraq, a sovereign nation was invaded contrary to all international laws with very little support from other nations. But invasions usually do not turn out the way the invaders desire. Russia should remember the lessons from its invasion of Afghanistan. And certainly, the disaster of post-invasion Iraq should serve as a warning to what can easily happen after a “successful” attack. Instead of recognizing that the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq served as a model for Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently denounced Russian’s invasion of Georgia. Rice said, “This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it.” Our hypocritical policies have never been so starkly evident. The Georgian crisis may only be the first to emulate Bush’s invasion of Iraq in the post-Cold War era. Hopefully our next president will demonstrate that the policies and words of George Bush and Condoleezza Rice are an American aberration, and not an example. The world cannot afford to live by Athenian “justice” anymore.
Postcard from…Rome
Within walking distance of downtown Rome there is a sheep farm that dates back to the Middle Ages. The Casale della Vacchereccia, leased from the Vatican, is nestled in a park that has preserved the kind of farmland that once surrounded Rome on all sides. The humble Vacchereccia still produces ricotta cheese from the milk of the sheep that graze the land.
What To Do Now in Georgia
There are no saints and even fewer geniuses in the conflict between Russia and Georgia over Ossetia. However, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, clearly the real power in Moscow, has certain proven himself even less saintly than other parties – and in the long term, less clever. Albeit with serious input from American miscalculations and atavistic politics and with the help of the hapless Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili, Putin has made both Russia, and the world, a more dangerous place.
Russia’s Anti-Democratic Paradox
With one hundred days in office and a war with Georgia under his belt, Dmitry Medvedev still has Western politicians confused. Who is really in charge – he or his mentor, Vladimir Putin? Is Medvedev really a liberal? But then why the “disproportionate” attack on Georgia?
U.S. Role in Georgia Crisis
Russia and Georgia: All About Oil
In commenting on the war in the Caucasus, most American analysts have tended to see it as a throwback to the past: as a continuation of a centuries-old blood feud between Russians and Georgians, or, at best, as part of the unfinished business of the Cold War. Many have spoken of Russia’s desire to erase the national “humiliation” it experienced with the collapse of the Soviet Union 16 years ago, or to restore its historic “sphere of influence” over the lands to its South. But the conflict is more about the future than the past. It stems from an intense geopolitical contest over the flow of Caspian Sea energy to markets in the West.
What do Governments Want from Sport and What do they Get?
Sir John Wolfenden is chiefly famous for chairing the British committee which produced the Report on Homosexual Offenses and Prostitution in 1957. The report developed the principle that sexual activity conducted in private was “not the law’s business,” a principle which was implemented as a series of legislative changes over the next dozen years which became the basis of Britain’s “permissive society.” Relatively few people remember that no sooner was the ink dry on that document than Sir John set about another influential report, Sport and the Community, published in 1960. This recommended a much greater state involvement in sport and the establishment of public “councils for sport.” In short, Sir John was the man instrumental in reversing the Victorian orthodoxy: he got the British state out of sex and into sport.