• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Russia's Offensive in Georgia a Signal to NATO to Stay Away from Its 'Space'

Council on Foreign Relations

Interviewee: F. Stephen Larrabee, Corporate Chair in European Security, RAND Corporation
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

August 26, 2008

F. Stephen Larrabee, an expert on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Eastern Europe, says Russia's invasion of Georgia was meant to demonstrate Moscow's sensitivity to NATO's moves into what were formerly parts of the Soviet Union. He says the actions in Georgia were in effect a "sideshow" to Ukraine, which also has been seeking NATO membership and is strategically more important to Moscow. "It's an effort by the Russians to try to halt the expansion of Western influence into the former Soviet space, particularly the expansion of NATO," he says. Larrabee urged a clear response from the West to penalize Russia but added: "It's very important that this spiral of action and reaction not be allowed to get out of hand."

You've been a student of East-West relations for some time. Where do you think these relations are going in the aftermath of the Russia-Georgia conflict, which is still not completely over?

The first thing that needs to be said is there is obviously going to be some consequences and fallout in relations with Russia. And it's quite clear that some things will be put on hold, such as the suspension of some of the meetings with Russia within NATO. But the larger danger here is that there will be an action-reaction spiral, with one side taking an action and the other side reacting strongly to it. And you've seen this already beginning with the Russian reaction to the signing with Poland of the agreement on the deployment of a missile defense system in Poland.

This reminds me in a way of certain events during the Cold War, where the Soviets did some things in their own zone of occupation in Germany, and we responded by fusing the British and American zones, and they responded to that.

 

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.