Is success going to Russia's head?

Russia's leadership is riding pretty high right now after their successful campaign in Georgia. Of course politicians and pundits from Washington to Brussels are vilifying Russia, but the fact remains that they have dismantled the Georgian military, granted independence to South Ossetia and Abkhazia and left the West largely powerless to do anything about it. But you have to wonder if the leadership in Moscow isn't getting way to overconfident.

They have taken some odd steps in the last couple of days. First there was the Russian ambassador to Moldova warning them about taking action in the separatist Trans-Dniester region of their country. The Trans-Dneister is a small sliver of land sandwiched in between the Dneister River and the Ukranian border. It is home largely to Russians and Ukranians, unlike the rest of Moldova, which is mostly full of Moldovans and Romanians. After a brief war it broke from Moldova's control, declared itself independent and pledged allegiance to Moscow (which, in turn, did not recognize it as an independent state, but did maintain some level of relations with their government). Sound familiar? Trans-Dniester has become an odd little place, a sort of mini-Soviet Union, where the KGB still keeps the peace and a small contingent of Russian troops are based to watch over some massive military depots left over from Soviet times.

Of course the big differences are that no one in Moldova was even remotely suggesting a military campaign to retake Trans-Dneister, and unlike Georgia and Ukraine, which the West has been actively courting as future members of NATO and the European Union, no one cares about Moldova. Its one of the poorest, and most forgotten, parts of Europe, on the radar screens of nobody except Romania and Ukraine and those two nations only care because they share a border with the place. So why the ambassador would choose to threaten a country no one cares about over a conflict no one has any intention of launching is a mystery.

Not to be out done, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin outright accused the United States of provoking the Georgia-Russia conflict. Putin made the statement during an interview with CNN today, saying that the United States may have in fact wanted a war in Georgia for the upcoming presidential election, both to distract Americans from the ongoing conflict in Iraq and whip up some feelings of patriotism among the voters.

Now before you think Putin is nuts, there is a certain logic to his statement when you look at the situation from the Russian point of view. The United States has been working closely with the Georgian military in the past few years to bring it up to NATO standards, Georgia has been begging for membership in both NATO and the EU, and their president Mikhail Saakashvili was educated in the United States (Harvard to be exact). Russia therefore assumes that Georgia is a client state of the West, the United States in particular. They cannot believe then that Georgia would launch such a large-scale military operation like the one they launched against South Ossetia without approval from their masters (the US).

The Russian media has also been widely reporting that their military captured several US humvees (which was confirmed by the White House) in the port city Poti, and that they had a "wealth" of intelligence about Georgia's campaign to retake South Ossetia (that part was not confirmed). There are also reports in their press that two "black-skinned" bodies were found in the city of Tskhinvali; the assumption is that they were Americans involved with the military (this also has not been confirmed by outside media).

String it all together and yes, it does make for a narrative of some level of American involvement - of course its built on a lot of assumptions and takes some sketchy reports as fact. Maybe, in the high emotions of the situation, you can see Putin believing this tale. What seems crazy though is him going on a major news network and expounding on it, without presenting any convincing evidence of his own. You do have to wonder what Putin was thinking, or is he just assuming that the West is so powerless right now he can pretty much say or do what he wants?

The third and final piece of this story is the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that just wrapped up. The SCO is an organization that includes Russia, China and several Central Asian republics as members, and a few others, like Iran and Pakistan, who have observer status with the group. Its primary concern is to be a forum for security issues in the region, though Russia is hoping to build the alliance into a regional powerblock that could rival (or surpass) NATO.

Russia was hoping that the SCO would issue a statement of support for its actions in Georgia and possibly even recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia's independence. In reality though, that was a silly thing to expect, given that China has its own problems with separatist regions (Tibet anyone?), not to mention Beijing still hopes one day to rule Taiwan again, so they're not going to eagerly recognize new states carved from old. What Russia got was mild support for their peacekeeping actions and statement on peace and stability in the region that was so wonderfully vaguely worded it was cited as a measure of support in the Russian press and a symbol of Russia's isolation in the West.

And that’s where Russia is in danger of overplaying its hand. So far the West has been full-throated in its condemnation of Russia’s actions in Georgia, while the rest of the world has been fairly silent. That allows Russia to frame this in terms of a “new Cold War”, a long-brewing dispute with NATO/the EU/the US, an attempt for that block to keep its hegemony over the world by oppressing the one power that might rise to challenge it (Russia). But it’s only a short trip to “rogue nation” status – and paranoid-sounding statements from the prime minister and threats to utterly unimportant little nations aren’t good steps to take.