Tony Blair,
39.
“Saakashvili: Georgia Was Ready to Trade NATO for Breakaway Regions,”
40.
“Saakashvili: Georgia Was Ready to Trade NATO for Breakaway Regions.”
41.
“8 Avgusta 2008 goda. Poteryannyy den.” http://rutube.ru/video/eddef3b31e4bdff29de4db46ebdd4e44/.
42.
Cf. Pavel Felgenhauer, “Putin Confirms the Invasion of Georgia Was Preplanned,”
43.
Felgenhauer, “Putin Confirms the Invasion of Georgia Was Preplanned.”
44.
Quoted in Stephen Ennis, “Russian Film on Georgia War Fuels Talk of Kremlin Rift,”
45.
Felgenhauer, “Putin Confirms the Invasion of Georgia Was Preplanned.”
Conclusion
After World War II the American diplomat and Russia expert George Kennan wrote: “It would be useful to the Western world to realize that despite all the vicissitudes by which Russia has been afflicted since August 1939, the men in the Kremlin have never abandoned their faith in that program of territorial and political expansion which had once commended itself so strongly to Tsarist diplomatists.”[1] These words were true after World War II, but are they still true today? Could one say, paraphrasing Kennan’s dictum, “that despite all the vicissitudes by which Russia has been afflicted since August 1991—the KGB inspired coup and the subsequent demise of the Soviet Union—the men in the Kremlin have never abandoned their faith in that program of territorial and political expansion which had once commended itself so strongly to Soviet diplomatists”? This was the central question of this book. Could a great power for which a quasi-permanent, continued, and centuries-long territorial and political expansion has been the natural way of life, suddenly become a “normal,” post-imperial state? If one listens to some analysts, post-Soviet Russia simply had no choice but to adapt to its status of post-imperial country. Alexander Motyl, for instance, wrote:
Despite empire’s long and venerable track record . . . , there are strong reasons to think that empire building is no longer a viable political project. Imperial states have acquired territory in three ways: by marriage, by purchase, and by conquest. Marriage no longer works, as no contemporary ruler (not even a dictator) claims to own the territory he rules. Purchase is a dead end, as all the world’s land is divided among jealous states and oftentimes empowered populations. Conquest is still possible in principle, and the twentieth century is full of instances in which it was attempted in practice. But the limits of conquest are clear, in the aftermath of Iraq if not before. International and most national norms, for example, now hold that the conquest of foreign nations and states almost certainly involves violations of human rights and the principles of self-determination and cultural autonomy, and is therefore illegitimate. Moreover, nation-states are unusually effective vehicles of mass mobilization and resistance, making sustained conquest harder now than in the past . . . . In sum, while history suggests that being or having an empire is a guarantee of longevity, it also shows that acquiring an empire is probably no longer possible.[2]
Motyl wrote these words in 2006, two years before the Russian invasion of Georgia and the dismemberment of this small neighboring country. Another author, who explicitly considered the demise of the Russian empire as definitive, was Manuel Castells. According to Castells,
[T]here will be no reconstruction of the Soviet Union, regardless of who is in power
in Russia . . . . I propose, as the most likely, and indeed promising future, the
notion of the Commonwealth of Inseparable States (
