>Russia had never expressed any interest in Ossetian or Abkhazian micronationalisms, while Georgia was an integral part of the Soviet Union.
Both Abkhazia and Ossetia were Autonomous Regions (Abkhazia a full ASSR) within the Georgian SSR, similar in turn to how Georgia was an Autonomous region within the USSR itself
>Kosovo, which was legally part of Yugoslavia but not of Serbia was never manipulated as part of the partition or intervention plan of another country
lol
>Whatever may be said of Georgia’s incautious policy toward secessionism within its own internationally recognized borders, it does not deserve comparison with the lawless and criminal behavior of the Slobodan Milosevic regime
The Georgian armed forces regularly shelled Ossetian and Abkhaz villages, kidnapped hostages, and summarily executed civilians and suspected fighters. That is not to say that Ossetians or Abkhaz forces were saints; but neither were Kosovo’s independence fights
>Does anybody remember the speeches in which the Russian ambassador to the United Nations asked the General Assembly or Security Council to endorse his country’s plan to send land, air, and sea forces deep into the territory and waters of a former colony that is now a U.N. member state? I thought not. I look at the newspaper editorials every day, waiting to see who will be the first to use the word unilateral in the same sentence as the name Russia. Nothing so far. Yet U.N. Resolution 1441, warning Saddam Hussein of serious consequences, was the fruit of years of thwarted diplomacy and was passed without a dissenting vote.
Why does this matter?
>Twenty out of 27 states of the European Union have also recognized the government of Kosovo as an entity *de jure* as well as *de facto*. The Kosovar population is estimated at 1.8 million, which makes it larger than that of some existing E.U. member states. Does anyone seriously imagine that Russia ever even remotely intends to sponsor any statehood claims for the tiny local populations of Ossetia and Abkhazia?
Do you have a size limit before you can achieve self determination? Do not pass go, do not collect $200?
>So any comparison with Kosovo would have to be not to its breaking away but to its potential absorption and annexation by Albania. And nobody has even proposed this, let alone countenanced the unilateral stationing of Albanian armed forces on Kosovar soil.
The only reason Kosovo isn’t part of Albania right now is because its weird semi-recognized status is upheld because it’s not part of Albania
>Heartbreakingly difficult though the task has been, and remains, the whole emphasis of Western policy in the Balkans has been on de-emphasizing ethnic divisions; subsidizing cities and communities that practice reconciliation; and encouraging, for example, Serbs and Albanians to cooperate in Kosovo
I agree that Russia is bad (shocker; I know!) but this is fucking bullshit lol. Kosovo continues to not fufil it’s obligations to Serbian municipalities in the North, and the absolute shitshow that is Bosnia does not seem to show that the West has succeeded in deescalation
>The fans of moral equivalence may or may not have noticed this, but the obviously long-meditated and coordinated Russian military intervention in Georgia comes in the same month as explicit threats to the sovereignty of Poland and Ukraine, and hard on the heels of a Russian obstruction of any U.N. action in the case of Zimbabwe
Again; why does this matter to the fundamental question of whether or not Kosovo or Ossetia deserve independence? Obviously geopolitics matters! I don’t think there’s a single case of a country intervening where it has no interests whatsoever; even edge cases like Somalia at least had interaction between the US and the region due to Ethiopian communism
Anyway, I agree that Russia isn’t acting in bad faith; I think that a genuine vote for whether to seperate is good. But this is a bullshit argument my Hitchens
SenranHaruka on
I heard a friend even recently argue that the Kosovo War is what caused the current Ukraine War because it shattered the paramount value of territorial integrity, which is the only value that people like Putin can understand as being worth protecting, and thus mutually abide, because it affects him. He fundamentally can’t see the logical consistency in “it’s ok to let people separate in order to protect themselves from genocide and build a democracy” because Putin does not believe democracy is more valuable or that all peoples are created equal and have worth. So he saw the kosovo war as “Oh, we’re allowed to carve up countries?” and nothing more or less.
Which is weird when you consider that people like Putin have never actually been stopped by an “international code upholding territorial integrity”! Hitler invaded Poland over Danzig in violation of the League of Nations. People like him do whatever they think will make them more powerful first and then invent a justification later. What made Putin do this is what made Germany accelerate the Holocaust when they started losing the war: they are evil cornered people who are desperate to kill as many of their perceived inferiors as they possibly can before the walls close in on them. Anything less than rolling out the carpet for Putin to annex every country in Europe he wants would have resulted in this behavior from him.
2 Comments
>Russia had never expressed any interest in Ossetian or Abkhazian micronationalisms, while Georgia was an integral part of the Soviet Union.
Both Abkhazia and Ossetia were Autonomous Regions (Abkhazia a full ASSR) within the Georgian SSR, similar in turn to how Georgia was an Autonomous region within the USSR itself
>Kosovo, which was legally part of Yugoslavia but not of Serbia was never manipulated as part of the partition or intervention plan of another country
lol
>Whatever may be said of Georgia’s incautious policy toward secessionism within its own internationally recognized borders, it does not deserve comparison with the lawless and criminal behavior of the Slobodan Milosevic regime
[https://www.hrw.org/report/1992/04/01/bloodshed-caucasus/violations-humanitarian-law-and-human-rights-georgia-south](https://www.hrw.org/report/1992/04/01/bloodshed-caucasus/violations-humanitarian-law-and-human-rights-georgia-south)
The Georgian armed forces regularly shelled Ossetian and Abkhaz villages, kidnapped hostages, and summarily executed civilians and suspected fighters. That is not to say that Ossetians or Abkhaz forces were saints; but neither were Kosovo’s independence fights
>Does anybody remember the speeches in which the Russian ambassador to the United Nations asked the General Assembly or Security Council to endorse his country’s plan to send land, air, and sea forces deep into the territory and waters of a former colony that is now a U.N. member state? I thought not. I look at the newspaper editorials every day, waiting to see who will be the first to use the word unilateral in the same sentence as the name Russia. Nothing so far. Yet U.N. Resolution 1441, warning Saddam Hussein of serious consequences, was the fruit of years of thwarted diplomacy and was passed without a dissenting vote.
Why does this matter?
>Twenty out of 27 states of the European Union have also recognized the government of Kosovo as an entity *de jure* as well as *de facto*. The Kosovar population is estimated at 1.8 million, which makes it larger than that of some existing E.U. member states. Does anyone seriously imagine that Russia ever even remotely intends to sponsor any statehood claims for the tiny local populations of Ossetia and Abkhazia?
Do you have a size limit before you can achieve self determination? Do not pass go, do not collect $200?
>So any comparison with Kosovo would have to be not to its breaking away but to its potential absorption and annexation by Albania. And nobody has even proposed this, let alone countenanced the unilateral stationing of Albanian armed forces on Kosovar soil.
The only reason Kosovo isn’t part of Albania right now is because its weird semi-recognized status is upheld because it’s not part of Albania
>Heartbreakingly difficult though the task has been, and remains, the whole emphasis of Western policy in the Balkans has been on de-emphasizing ethnic divisions; subsidizing cities and communities that practice reconciliation; and encouraging, for example, Serbs and Albanians to cooperate in Kosovo
I agree that Russia is bad (shocker; I know!) but this is fucking bullshit lol. Kosovo continues to not fufil it’s obligations to Serbian municipalities in the North, and the absolute shitshow that is Bosnia does not seem to show that the West has succeeded in deescalation
>The fans of moral equivalence may or may not have noticed this, but the obviously long-meditated and coordinated Russian military intervention in Georgia comes in the same month as explicit threats to the sovereignty of Poland and Ukraine, and hard on the heels of a Russian obstruction of any U.N. action in the case of Zimbabwe
Again; why does this matter to the fundamental question of whether or not Kosovo or Ossetia deserve independence? Obviously geopolitics matters! I don’t think there’s a single case of a country intervening where it has no interests whatsoever; even edge cases like Somalia at least had interaction between the US and the region due to Ethiopian communism
Anyway, I agree that Russia isn’t acting in bad faith; I think that a genuine vote for whether to seperate is good. But this is a bullshit argument my Hitchens
I heard a friend even recently argue that the Kosovo War is what caused the current Ukraine War because it shattered the paramount value of territorial integrity, which is the only value that people like Putin can understand as being worth protecting, and thus mutually abide, because it affects him. He fundamentally can’t see the logical consistency in “it’s ok to let people separate in order to protect themselves from genocide and build a democracy” because Putin does not believe democracy is more valuable or that all peoples are created equal and have worth. So he saw the kosovo war as “Oh, we’re allowed to carve up countries?” and nothing more or less.
Which is weird when you consider that people like Putin have never actually been stopped by an “international code upholding territorial integrity”! Hitler invaded Poland over Danzig in violation of the League of Nations. People like him do whatever they think will make them more powerful first and then invent a justification later. What made Putin do this is what made Germany accelerate the Holocaust when they started losing the war: they are evil cornered people who are desperate to kill as many of their perceived inferiors as they possibly can before the walls close in on them. Anything less than rolling out the carpet for Putin to annex every country in Europe he wants would have resulted in this behavior from him.