
Georgians demand Russian withdrawl from Abkhazia and Southern Osetia.
(AP Photo / Shakh Aivazov)
Could Abkhazia spark a world war?
What happened
The breakaway Georgian region Abkhazia said it shot down two unmanned Georgian spy aircraft Sunday—a claim Georgia disputes—raising tensions in an already ominous standoff between Abkhazia, Georgia, and Russia, which backs Abkhazia. A Georgian spy probe was shot down over Abkhazia April 20—Abkhazia claimed responsibility, but Georgia said Russian warplanes shot down the drone. Russian and United Nations peacekeepers have been stationed in Abkhazia since it declared independence in the early 1990s, but Russia increased its troop presence in April and accused Georgia of planning an invasion of the region. Russia said the use of spy planes bolstered its case against Georgia. NATO accused Russia of provoking tensions with Georgia. (BBC News)
What the commentators said
“It’s tough to pay attention to wars that haven’t yet broken out in places we can’t even spell,” said the Los Angeles Times in an editorial (free registration), but we should care that Abkhazia is “perilously close” to open warfare. Russia is trying to keep Georgia out of NATO, and its attempts to provoke Georgia into a NATO-ending invasion “have been nothing short of outrageous.” But Georgia “is fighting dirty as well,” putting a hold on Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization. The U.S. wants Georgia in NATO and Russia in the WTO, but it only has sway over Georgia.
This might be a good time to rethink our support of Georgia’s NATO bid, said Matthew Yglesias in The Altantic, at least until it comes to “some kind of stable resolution” of its problems in Abkhazia and fellow breakaway region South Ossetia. It isn’t wise to extend NATO’s “absolute security guarantees to a country in Georgia’s position unless there’s some overwhelming strategic rationale for doing so,” and “just to be nice” doesn’t cut it.
With or without formal NATO membership, said Anne Applebaum in Slate, “the West will have to come up with a major response” if Russia invades Georgia. Georgia is “an emerging democracy” with troops in Iraq, and it has “many implicit assurances of security” from the U.S. and NATO. This is worrisome. World War I had a similarly obscure start, and trouble in Abkhazia could “become the starting point of a larger war.”
It certainly could, said Alexander Golts in The Moscow Times, but not because Russia or Georgia actually wants “this conflict to escalate toward a military conflict.” Both sides have political and strategic reasons to provoke the other, but they are playing a dangerous game of brinksmanship. The two sides’ “aggressive” posturing could sharply escalate out of control, like at the start of World War I, and that could have “tragic consequences for the entire world.”















